Review – Medicom 12″ Jack Bauer (24 Season 5)

12″ figures of Jack Bauer are probably some of the few that I will buy no matter how many versions are produced. Yes, I am still looking out for the suit version of Medicom’s Jack Bauer from Season 4. It stems from my love for the excellent 24. I know, I’ve cooed about the greatness of 24 in several posts now. But… it’s not gonna stop. Ha. It’s certainly music to my ears that the new Season 7 will be reinvented.

With three 12″ figures of Jack out now, the 24 fan in me is wondering when the other cast of 24 will get the same 1/6 treatment. Somehow, Bill Buchanan is the highest on my 24 list now although he is not necessarily my next favourite character after Jack. Somehow his firm leadership at CTU makes his 1/6 figure a fantastic prospect to have next to Jack. He represents the operational and always stressful CTU.

Tony and Michelle are also hot favourites that I want on my display shelf. CTU’s favourite analyst, Chloe, too. And a 13″ President Palmer would be an awesome must-have as well. These 4 figures would complete the dream line-up for myself. 24 is already into its 7th season, I wonder when if Medicom will consider finally making the rest of these cast members. Afterall, 24 is hugely popular not just because of Jack. He had a lot of help from these good friends of his.

I am pretty sure if Hot Toys had secured the 24 license, Jack and friends would probably be out by now. Look at what they did with Pirates of the Caribbean and the Aliens license. I am sure the demand is present given its huge fan base in the world’s top 2 economies, USA and Japan. Let’s hope 24 fans will have their wishes come true in 2008!

Onto the review.

Bottomline:

The best Jack Bauer figure to date. Its resemblance to Day 5’s Jack is probably the best feature of this figure. There are improvements from Medicom’s Day 4 Jack Bauer but some of the ‘off’ features are carried over. A must-buy for 24 fans!

What’s good:

• Much improved Kiefer Sutherland sculpt.
• Great looking jeans and shoes.
• Improved wrist articulation.
• Good array of hands.
• IC recorder included!
• Stable and poseable.

What could be better:

• Small hands, big gun…. again.
• Weird zip on jacket.
• No retro shades.

Review Details

Packaging

Medicom’s Day 5 Jack Bauer figure now gets the box flap treatment. The box art is simple but effective. I believe seeing the LCD-like 24 logo is enough to send 24 fans rabid and salivating. Once again Jack’s credentials appear on the box.

The box design is collector-friendly. No twist ties are present.

Headsculpt/Resemblance

This Day 5 Jack Bauer from Medicom has a much improved facesculpt. Not only does it mirror an older Jack but the sculpting and painting is more realistic. I’ll show more in a later post by putting up a face comparison with my Day 4 Jack. If you can’t wait, just pop over to my Day 4 Jack review and check out the pics.

While this Day 5 sculpt is excellent for posing this figure, its expression is not what Jack Bauer is known for. For example, when Jack was aiming with a gun, he looked more intense. The gun is pointed at a suspect, he would be hollering. When something is ‘patched’ to his PDA, he would at least have furrowed brow in the thick of things. This Day 5 sculpt reminds me of the Jack in 24 group poster shots.

But then again, this is probably the best Kiefer Sutherland sculpt I’ve seen so far. Prior to this figure, eBay had several custom sculpts but they resembled more like Edward Norton. As such, I will still award full points to Medicom for this good effort in giving fans a good looking Jack!

Quality of Product

Medicom’s Season 5 Jack Bauer looks very well conceived and implemented. Jack spent all of Day 5 running around in jeans and this is denim wear is impressively translated in 1/6 scale on this figure. Unlike the baggy jeans worn by Hot Toys’ Rambo First Blood figure, Jack’s jeans look fitting just like on the TV. Given that half the figure is in this denim wear, it contributes a lot to the resemblance of the figure to Day 5 Jack.

I was expecting Medicom to have Jack wearing his shirt by default since that is the other clothing he wore throughout the season. Unfortunately, this is not to be. Instead, Jack wears the hooded jacket. This piece of clothing is most memorable to myself during 1.00am and 2.00am of Day 5 when Jack was trying to sneak aboard a plane. With meters between him and the plane, he took 2 baggage, put his hood up and walked calmly up the baggage conveyor belt.

 

What’s so memorable about that? I was wondering why he had to put on his hood since it’ll make him look so much more suspicious given that the tarmac was pretty open. Anyway, he’s Jack Bauer and he made it on the plane. 8P

While most of the tailoring of the jacket is great – it fits the figure snugly, the zip looks to be choking the hell out of Jack at the neck. It extends up to Jack’s mouth if fully zipped! I can imagine how a real piece of clothing would be if the teeth of the zip constantly rubs on your neck! Ouch! It’ll be perfect if Jack plans to put Mini Me on his shoulders and zip up all the way. Otherwise, it’s crazy tailoring and nowhere accurate of what is seen in on screen.

Jack’s shoes looked splendid as well.

 

Stability

The body used for Day 5 Jack came tight at the joints. At times, I did not know if certain joints moved because I had broken them or if their resistance finally relent. But the over tight profile of the body also contributes to the figure’s good stability. Although I had a rather loose ankle joint, the figure achieved standing stability easily.

The body is also very poseable. I was most glad to have a figure that could pose a good aiming pose comfortably. Usually, nude bodies struggle to keep the hands at the right positions – either the shoulder joints were loose or the joints could not articulate enough to make the pose. Another major issue was the aiming eye was unable to align realistically with the gun sight.

With Day 5 Jack, the Medicom body achieved both these aspects admirably. Jack looks darn good aiming with the gun. The only thing missing would be an open mouth and frowning brow shouting down at a target.

Accessories

Here’s the lowdown on the accessories that comes with Day 5 Jack Bauer:

• PDA
• IC Recorder
• Sling bag
• Heckler & Koch USP Compact pistol
• Left and right open palm hands
• Right trigger hand
• Right recorder-holding hand
• Left PDA-holding hand

It seems that the Medicom designers noted Jack Bauer’s penchant to ask Chloe to “patch” satellite coverage or a buildings’ schematics over to his PDA. And so a PDA has been included as an accessory. It’s great except the paint job isn’t really fantastic. No excuse since I’ve seen some superb paint work from Hot Toys for their equally small accessories. Actually this aspect was also present in the Day 4 Jack. Nothing has changed for sometime… ’nuff said.

The IC(integrated circuit) recorder is also a good inclusion since the good guys spent so much time trying to get it on TV. Initially, I thought it was a cell phone. The weird molding features made me check the box and it confirmed that the trusty clamshell cell phone (which Jack often uses) is not in this latest 24 package. It does not play the President’s voice however.

The sling bag looks on-screen accurate although it did looked a tad too wide. The length of the sling is similar to how Jack wears the bag.

An improvement from the Day 4 Jack Bauer is the wrist articulation of the hands. Day 5 Jack now has Medicom’s updated wrist articulation which gives better movement and posing options.

The familiar Heckler & Koch USP Compact pistol makes a return again. Nothing much has changed from the Day 4 version.

However, the size of the hands also return… in the same small proportions. I would have expected Medicom to make changes when they molded new hands for Day 5 Jack. And it is the trigger hand that shows its smallness again. And the trigger finger has problem getting around the trigger… again. The hand is also not molded correctly to hold the gun’s grip properly.

While the accessory offerings are great, I can’t help but find Jack’s shades sorely missing. Afterall, he looked so cool walking into the sunset with it at the end of Day 4.

Fortunately, the other included hands look proportionate to the accessories they are supposed to hold.