First announced back at San Diego Comic Con in July, Diamond Select Toys finally returns to the Star Trek arena with their new Star Trek Into Darkness action figures, the first Kelvin Timeline poseable character releases in almost a decade.
Measuring in at 7″ tall, the Chris Pine “Kirk” and Zachary Quinto “Spock” figures are styled as the characters appeared in 2013’s Star Trek Into Darkness, complete with film-appropriate hairstyles and Starfleet uniforms in the Michael Kaplan delta-pattern design.
Included with each is a standard-issue Starfleet communicator, tricorder, hand phaser, and Into Darkness phaser rifle, along with multiple hand options and variant energy rifles as well. Both rifles also come with translucent plastic “energy blasts,” which may be effective in from a head-on viewing angle, but mostly feel like half-baked add-ons that aren’t really worth using.
While the figures are incredibly adjustable — each has 24 separate points of articulation — they feel somewhat over-designed, as it’s not quite so easy to find just the right balance of joint angles and foot positions to have each character stand up straight, especially when holding one of the included accessories.
The overly-large, mid-chest break also is a pretty disappointing visual aspect of these designs — especially on the Kirk figure, with his bright yellow uniform — as it’s quite distracting and would be much more appealing to have a one-piece torso sculpt, even if it reduced the poseability by some minor amount.
That being said, when you find the right positioning, each of these figures can work out to be something quite special. The detailing on the phaser and other Starfleet accessories are really quite nice for their size, and the extreme articulation of the figures to allow for some pretty dynamic positioning for action poses.
The facial likenesses are also an extremely high point in these releases. While the Kirk figure only lines up to Chris Pine’s features from a few angles we could find, the Spock figure is a remarkable recreation of Zachary Quinto’s look — perhaps one of the best likenesses ever found in a Star Trek action figure.
It’s truly quite something how much this sculpt resembles the Kelvin Timeline Spock actor, right down to the furrow of his brow — and while a few stances do cause the facial look to seem a bit cross-eyed, the vast majority of viewing angles are dead-on Quinto here.
The detailing in the figures’ Starfleet attire is also quite nice — minus the mid-chest split already discussed – with the repeating delta pattern baked into the shirt mold, and brightly-painted rank stripes and boot buckles around the extremities. Each figure also comes with a transporter-pad themed display stand, honestly resembles the Deadpool logo more than anything.
While it’s not clear yet why these figures are based on the characters’ looks from Star Trek Into Darkness and not 2016’s Star Trek Beyond — we’ve reached out to Diamond Select on that point — it’s kind of nice to see that the Kelvin Timeline isn’t being totally forgotten, despite whatever the heck is going on behind the scenes at Paramount Pictures right now, a murky situation at best since things seemed to fall apart back in August.
If the line continues, seeing a larger-scale replica of Zoe Saldana’s Uhura or Karl Urban’s McCoy — or even Keenser! — would be nice additions for future releases.
These figures are available now as a two-pack at $49.98 through Diamond Select’s official store, and will be available individually through Amazon at the end of February for $24.96 each — you can preorder Kirk here, or Spock here.
Diamond Select’s next release is set for later this spring, as their deluxe Borg drone figure is expected to hit stores in March.
What do you think about these Star Trek Into Darkness figures? Share your feedback on these new releases in the comments below!