Review : Gozer
Ghostbusters Select (Diamond Select)
Wave/Series : Series 4
Released : April 2017
Price : £22.99 - £24.99
We have reached the 4th series of Ghostbusters from Diamond without realising it, and our rooftop diorama is getting closer to completion. The 4th Series see's us get another version of Peter Venkman, this time slimed. We will also get Walter Peck, ready to menace our team with legal notifications and the threat of the courts. It is therefore no surprise that Gozer (Gozer the Gozerian, Gozer the Destructor, Gozer the Traveler, Volguus Zildrohar and Lord of the Sebouillia) is the star of this three figure wave.
Diamond have kept the Ghostbuster packaging regimented throughout the four series to date. With a green theme across the front of the oversized card and blister. The left hand panel which holds the blister in place is emblazoned with the Ghostbusters text logo, complete with the "No Ghost" symbol replacing the O. Under this sits the Diamond Select Logo. To the side of this is the triangular character panel, here the backdrop is more of an ice blue and uses a still from the movie of Gozer''s head. Despite all the names to choose from, the Diamond team have gone with Gozer the Destructor. This character name is underscored by the subtitle "Deluxe Action Figure with Accessories and Diorama Pieces"
The blister itself allows the figure to be displayed in full against that green card back. You can view the figure from three sides as well as the diorama piece that is tucked in behind her.
The left spine artwork is synonymous with Diamond's Select releases. The whole spine is taken up with a chilling head & torso image of Gozer from the 1984 movie. Her torso is faded out to black towards the bottom of the spine, with the Ghostbusters logo printed over the top.
Round the back and we start to get a better look at how this green design is made up for the card art. The whole rear of the card starts at the bottom in black with silhouettes of our four Ghostbusters discharging their proton beams. Above this is a silhouette city-scape and this fades up to green and finally at the top the proton beams burst into an electric blue cacophony of blasts and beams,
The text logo is back now to head the whole of the top part of the card, with the diamond "Select" logo under this to the far right. An image of the full figure takes up most of the right hand side of the card back while the left is made up of a short bio about Gozer which digs very deep into the history of Gozer well outside the role she has in the movie and consistent with the history that the Ghostbusters uncovered as they headed towards the climax of the movie.
The bio moves into the figure itself with some text around "multiple points of articulation" and crediting the sculptors as Gentle Giant.
Under the bio is a box that shows the other two figures available in Series 4, the aforementioned Walter Peck and "Slimed" Peter Venkman. To the right of this, overlaid on the figure image feet, is a picture of the finished Rooftop scene which we are building piece by piece through the first five waves of this Ghostbusters Series. The card has been updated to now quote collect all 15 figures to complete the scene, earlier waves quoted "Collect all 12..." which was the initial plan but was soon amended.
Out of the box and there is no argument that Gozer is an impressively sculpted figure. Starting with the head and the likeness to Slavitza Jovan is pretty good and this sculpt is enhanced with some good paint applications including shading on the cheeks and around the eyes. The lips are a deep red and the eyes ringed in black with sinister red pupils. The hair is high and angular, but is just a plain brown with no obvious shading, washing or drybrushing.
The body is very intricate with a web of veins and scales interspersed with what look to be larger boils or bubbles. With the figure in hand and inspecting these parts you realise how horrific the team working on GB wanted Gozer to be. The body is painted in a very subtle pale pink and then with darker patches blended in. The pustules and boils are a shade of white allowing them to stand out against the pink background colouring.
Gozer comes with a couple of swap out parts. The first of these is an alternative head. This snaps in and out on the neck ball joint and isn't overly stiff or indeed overly loose. The alternative head is not wildly different from the one that comes fitted to the body. The mouth is down-turned slightly now and the teeth partially visible. The paint quality matches the main head with good shading, although the eye lining is perhaps a little overhanded,
For me the head options are a problem. Like the previous wave's Slimer, the expression on the alternative is not different enough so much as you actually struggle to tell them apart. If you are going to do a variant head, then make it wildly different - for example I would have much rather seen the mouth open screaming Gozer head - the expression she has while firing electricity at the Ghostbusters team.
As well as an alternative head, Gozer comes with alternative set of hands. These are a little trickier to swap - mostly because they are more fragile in terms of the width of the pegs to slot them into the forearms. Like the head the hands do not seem hugely different from the first set. The fingers may be a little straighter but apart from this - meh! It is not as though Gozer can be posed either open palmed or firing a weapon, the usual reason for hand options. Again (and this is easy to say from the comfort of my desk) I would have much preferred to see one set of hands and then perhaps some kind of lighting effect.
Gozer carries the usual 16 points of articulation that Diamond are putting on most of their Select 7" figures. The head, as we saw, is ball jointed and can rotate fully and look up and down.
The shoulders are ball jointed and she can therefore get her arms out to the side by almost a full 90 degrees. She will struggle to rotate her arms above her shoulder due ot the design of the costume which proves to be a block to getting the arms above her head. The elbows are single joint which allows the arm to bend to 90 degrees, this joint also rotates to allow the forearm to spin. The hands are a peg, but are also hinged, this means they can rotate fully but also bend up or down.
The torso carries a neatly hidden torso joint. This allows the top torso to rotate and lean back and forth. Unfortunately the paint isn't carried on far enough into the joint, so if you lean Gozer backwards it does expose some ugly plain white plastic.
The legs are T-jointed at the hip, a joint used in most Select figures and it is not always the best looking. The legs will swing out to a sitting position and out to then out to the side in the start of a splits. This hip joint is fiercely stiff and almost creaks as you move it. You wont therefore suffer with loose legs on Gozer, but it means movement is quite tight and there won't be much past a neutral stance to be had on your display. The rest of the leg movement is made up of a double jointed knee and finally an ankle rocker.
As you will see from all our images, Gozer has been photographed sat on a stand. This is down to her inability to stand on her own for long periods of time. While the joints are tight, the feet are essentially high heels with only a very small surface to balance the figure on. While you can get Gozer standing on her own on a flat solid surface, it probably won't last too long and Gozer is susceptible to shelf diving.
(we used a Protech stand for Gozer but a NECA stand would work too, as will the upcoming Diamond Select Stands - checkout our Stand section)
Like all of the Ghostbuster figures to date, Gozer comes packed with one of the 15 pieces you will need to build the Ghostbusters rooftop diorama.. This piece is one of the lower sections of the rear arch, and is one of the most detailed I have seen so far in the series. There is some really nice imprinted brickwork and some scalloped architecture and even some circular design moldings. It is cast in grey plastic and washed to dirty it up.
At this stage we have not compared it to any of the other diorama pieces as we will revisit the whole structure once complete.
Gozer is one of those figures that looks brilliant, but frustrates the hell out of you because of the way it is engineered. For me the alternative head and hands are not different enough, and I kind of lament what they could have been and the difference that would have made. Her ability to stand on her own is a constant failing with female figures in this range, the same is true of Dana and Janine. And the joints have swung the other way being very stiff and creaky.
I am going to score Gozer just over halfway on our scale with a solid 3 out of 5 and the comment "could have been better"
