McFarlane Toys Crutch 1997

Certain toys get reputations over time. Some of them are deserved, and some of them are not. Crutch has a reputation of being one of the two oddest figures in one of the oddest waves from McFarlane Toys. The only question is whether or not that reputation is deserved sixteen years later.

I would be thrilled to tell you the back-story of Crutch. After all, this is a guy with green spikes coming out of his chin, multiple body piercings and tattoos, the attitude of a pirate, a Hawaiian shirt, a pet rat on his shoulder, a welding mask, a hook for a hand, a weed whacker for a cane, a machete for a left foot that fires like a rocket, and a jackhammer strapped to his back. It must be incredible!

But as far as I know, he doesn't have any kind of back-story. I can't help but think there were just random things lying around the studio one day, they all got thrown together, and Crutch was born! The technical sculpting is phenomenal with a great amount of detail without overshadowing the overall effect of the figure. It's a very busy sculpt, but somehow it actually does manage to put itself together in a cohesive unit.

The articulation isn't going to blow you away. Basic hinges and swivels abound, and the figure is pre-posed in his sculpting, so you're really going to achieve one look. I will say that you'll want to be careful with that machete foot. It's astoundingly soft plastic, and if you put any kind of weight on it, it will bend and warp.

Thank goodness he has that weed whacker to lean on! Why he's using a blood stained weed whacker is entirely beyond me, but it doesn't make it any stranger than his desire to carry around a jackhammer that his various handicaps would never let him use in the first place. It really is just astoundingly bizarre.

This figure was so odd and has such a reputation that you can get him for an incredibly cheap price. It's not the least bit friendly for kids and it won't do anything particularly exciting on the shelf, but it is absolutely one of the most.. unique.. figures you're ever going to find. It features a removable rat, a jackhammer, a weed whacker, a machete firing leg, and one of the few action figures you'll ever own that has a Hawaiian shirt, so there is that, but otherwise I'm just not sure who this figure will appeal to.

Normally, I'm all for wacky figures and fun concepts, but it helps if they are grounded in some small way in reality. Crutch, for all his.. eccentricities.. just seems to abstract to really be appreciated.