The Good: Interesting concept, Pretty cool sculpt
The Bad: Looks like a comic book character, Awkward size, Difficult balance, Limited articulation, Inconsequential race
The Basics: A disappointing concept figure that embodies one cool race and one few Star Trek fans care about. Only an obsessive Borg fan will likely enjoy this!
As I make my way through the fourth season of Star Trek: Voyager (reviewed here!), one of the elements getting a right panning from me are the Hirogen. To date, the only action figure made of the Hirogen is the Art Asylum Borg Assimilation Hirogen Borg figure.
For those unfamiliar with Star Trek, The Borg are the terrifyingly indifferent nemesis first introduced in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Q-Who?" (reviewed here!) and achieved such popularity that they were the principle villains of the eighth Star Trek franchise film Star Trek: First Contact (reviewed here!). The Hirogen popped up in the fourth season of Star Trek: Voyager as part of the retooling to attempt to make the series more hip, edgy, action-filled and sexy. To my knowledge, they only appeared in five episodes ("Message In A Bottle," "Hunters," "Prey," and "The Killing Game, Parts 1 & 2") and when they disappeared, it was another case of "good riddance." Hirogens are massive hunters that carries around comic-book scale cannons to blow away their prey. They were heavily armored, cunning and basically big, dumb hunters that hunted for no other reason than that they were hunters. They were set up to be an adversary on the show until the very end of the series, but ended up being dropped, presumably due to a lack of popularity.
So why Art Asylum decided to immortalize this pretty lame race in plastic as part of the Borg Assimilation line makes little sense. The Borg Assimilation line of Art Asylum action figures was a series of concept toys meant to enhance the Star Trek universe. This is a true concept figure, though; while Seven of Nine references a Borg identification number for the Hirogen the viewer is never treated to a visual of an assimilated Hirogen. This is a concept figure derived from the imagination of the production team at Art Asylum. As a result, it is very much its own piece and this has both its strengths and its serious drawbacks.
Let's start with what's cool about this figure. The first thing would have to be the idea. The Borg are cool. They take living things, rob them of their personality and plug them into machines (it's a great capitalist model!) in the pursuit of the ultimate technological advancement. The figure is essentially comprised of hard plastic with Borg armor and a Hirogen head, which honestly just looks like a discolored Talaxian head. Unlike the other two figures in this series, there are no tubes connecting the head to the body, which allows the head full range of motion.
The sculpt for the Hirogen face is decent, despite the massive frown of scowl the character seems to have on its face. Borg lack emotion so the extreme cut of the mouth makes for a somewhat silly look for a Borg . . . or a Hirogen. The coloring for the Hirogen skin is completely drained, which indicates how attentive to detail the production staff at Art Asylum was with their concept; the Borg drain their victims of pigment, so they all take on a more pale, zombified look. So the coloring being pale works perfectly for the figure. The only problem there is that it reveals the lack of creativity from the Star Trek: Voyager make-up staff; seeing it without pigment reveals how closely they recycled the Talaxians into the Hirogen!
Finally, the Borg armature for the right arm is cool-looking, if impractical. The Hirogen Borg is endowed with a giant arm cannon (that's all I could reason it to be!). It looks neat, but it's hard to figure out what it is intended to do for the Collective as it seems like the Borg would be unable to assimilate either the technology or the organisms they were pursuing if they blew a giant hole in it. The Hirogen might go for the big old arm cannon, but it makes no real sense for the Borg. The detailing on the arm is excellent and it looks like it could have come right off the set of Star Trek: First Contact. But more than anything, that arm is stylish and for the five people in the world who will actually open the figure up (c'mon, the majority of buyers are going to be collectors and it'll stay Mint In Package) the cannon looks good and in a worst case scenario can be used to club enemies to death in play.
Finally, the Borg armor has the detailing and plating that makes it look quite good and very much like what has been established within the Star Trek universe as Borg technology. But that's about it.
The armor reveals the first serious problem with the Borg Assimilation line, though with the Hirogen Borg the complaint is a little different than with the prior figures. The Hirogen Borg still has pieces of Hirogen armor on! Every assimilated race seen on Star Trek is assimilated and put into Borg armor (sometimes, this takes time, which is why in Star Trek: First Contact, some of the crewmembers still have their uniforms). Given the detail on the rest of the armor, this seems a pretty lame attempt by Art Asylum to remind its consumers that this is a Hirogen - probably because the face is not a strong enough tool to recognize this obscure race with.
The other problem here is scale. The scale of this figure sets it apart from every other Star Trek toy and collectible I've yet found. At seven inches tall, it is far too big for the Playmates 5" figure line or the Art Asylum 6" toy line and it is far too short for any company's 12" figure line. In short, the three figures in this set are designed to stand apart and that makes them hard to display for collectors and annoying to fans who just want to have a reasonable play experience.
But both of those problems are exacerbated by the size and lack of flexibility of the Hirogen Borg. The Hirogen Borg has ten points of articulation: neck, waist, both shoulders, elbows, knees and thigh socket. This Borg lacks tubes to inhibit movement, but it comes with the most extreme balancing problem of the line. The Hirogen Borg is poorly balanced, designed to stand in a limited number of poses, most of which are more Hirogen than Borg. the only pose I've found which keeps it balanced involves having its waist twisted and its massive gun arm up in the air. The gun arm looks cool, but it throws the weight of the figure off quite effectively.
This figure is the most buff of the line, which makes some sense as the Hirogen were towering creatures that looked like they were out of a comic book. The figure uses what the show provided them in that respect and it has a realism, but it still looks gangly. The problem here is more how extremely muscular the legs are. The legs have a proportion that still makes them seem a bit outside even the reality - or lack thereof - that the show created.
The Hirogen Borg is pretty hard to find these days, but when you do, it tends to be cheap because it seems Star Trek fans tend to like accuracy and replication of what they've seen more than variations conceptualized intending to flesh out the universe they love. Also, despite probable disinterest from younger children, the Borg Assimilation Hirogen comes with no accessories that could be swallowed, making it pretty safe to leave lying around (again, for those who take it out of the package).
But it's not worth it. This was one of Art Asylum's few Star Trek disappointments. And like the Hirogen themselves, it's likely to fade from the consciousness and be forgotten.
For other Borg-related figures, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Art Asylum Klingon Borg
Art Asylum Cardassian Borg
Playmates Series 2 The Borg
3.5/10
For other toy reviews, be sure to check out my Toy Review Index Page for an organized listing!
© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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