Aliens Variants Pt.6 - Alien Queen

 Her royal plastic highness!

In this article, we'll be looking into Kenner's first incarnation of the alien Queen, the Deluxe Queen Alien figure.

The figure was released in late 1992 as part of Series 1. Technically a "Deluxe" figure (as later indicated by a sticker), she did not come packed with a mini comic. She did have a chestburster though. A closer look reveals it's modeled after the queen chestburster image from the Alien³ poster.

In retrospect, it's a wild interpretation of the Queen seen in the film. It's stocky, with 3 pairs of arms, and crazy tree trunk legs. But at the time it was the best a kid could hope for. Despite its wild stylings, it looked good and had a great tail-swinging action. That secondary jaw action was awesome! 

The figure itself is not known for any variations. There is some speculation among collectors that the Queen comes in different degrees of silver and black. But definitive examples have not yet been confirmed. What can be confirmed are variations with the packaging. It came in 2 waves, on 5 distinct cards.

".00" version with warning sticker on upper right

The ".00" version has a clean graphic of the Queen on the front and no "Deluxe" sticker. On the back is the space station diorama featured on all first wave Series 1 figures (more on that here). She also has 3 different warning variations: no warning at all, a sticker warning, or a printed warning on the bottom right corner. These warning inconsistencies are common with the Series 1 figures. 

" .00" cross sell

".00" version with printed warning on bottom right

".00" version with no warnings 

By "clean graphic of the Queen", I'm referring to the fact that it's missing the red-orange highlights visible on the ".01" version.

"clean" graphic (left) & "modified" graphic (right)

The second wave of the Queen features a graphic with red-orange highlights, visible in the comparison above. The "whipping tail" action description is broken up with ellipses, and it has a standard cross sell on the back. It also has a printed warning on the bottom left corner, naturally.

".01" version

".01" cross sell

The description of the Queen on the top of the card also differs between the 2 versions; ".00" has "deadly" in quotes while the ".01" version has "chest hatchling" in quotes. Odd differential.

There are two versions of this 2nd Wave Queen, identical in all ways except that one might have a "Special Deluxe Queen " sticker on the bubble.

".01" with Deluxe sticker

These variations make sense; the earlier wave famously featured the "diorama" cross sell for greater impact in attracting kids. Additionally the Queen graphic was likely delivered as rendered, clean and unmodified. The "Attacking" description was clean and succinct, no thought given to dramatic grammar. "And" is just too wordy.

I can confidently say that this will bring the articles pertaining to variations in the Aliens line to a close. There may be updates to existing articles. There might even be a later, newer article on the subject - variants among this line may still be undiscovered!

Of course, there's plenty more to explore and examine from the other Aliens and Predator series of figures from Kenner: the KB repaints, the Alien vs Marine 2-packs, and the Hive Wars series.

Thank you for following me on this exploration.

-Me

Aliens Variants Pt.5 - Mantis

 One includes reading material, One don't...

Welcome to another installment concerning variants within the initial Kenner Aliens line. Today we explore the immensely popular lime green hunk of plastic - the Mantis Alien.

Part of Series 2, and released in late 1993 (see promo below), the Mantis was a clever recycle of the original Gorilla Alien (see the arm crushing cousins here). A few limb tweaks, cast it in translucent green and bam: an all new figure. If you notice, all Series 2 Aliens are cast in translucent plastic. I'll admit it was a neat gimmick for an already well designed line of action figures.

Let's dive right into it: there are 2 distinct versions of the Mantis figure, and it only concerns the packaging. The figure itself is identical and unchanged until it's KB repaint 3 years later. 

In the first wave of Series 2, the Mantis is packed with a mini comic (#10, " Swarm"), and is a ".00". And its pretty easy to identify by the bright red " Comic Book" banner. All Series 2 figures come with mini comics, with exception to the Flying Queen and ATAX.

Mantis - with comic

Then, in a subsequent wave, only the Mantis figure was packaged WITHOUT the mini comic. Naturally, the red  "Comic..." banner was removed. It's really obvious, as there's a gap where the red banner was originally placed. They just removed it, and printed the card as-is. It is marked ".01". 

Mantis - no comic

I remember noticing this very early in collecting. I thought it curious, and then thought nothing of it for years. Then a few years ago I thought more about it. For whatever reason, only known to Kenner at the time, the Mantis was a turning point for Series 2 and the line as a whole. That turn? Away from a pack-in mini comic. Interestingly, the Mantis comic isn't the "last" comic (that belongs to the 1993 Alien vs Predator 2-Pack comic #13 "The Ultimate Battle").

It has been my opinion (speculation?) that this is about the same period as the intended release of the Vasquez Trio. I believe they were originally intended to be part of Series 2, but were delayed for various reasons (and ultimately only released outside the US). But here's why I think they were intended to come out as part of Series 2: 

If you really look, the Trio card art is unlike any of the others in the entire line. Their card art is not like any of Series 2 or 3, but more like Series 1. Look at the smoke color & style, description placements, and the Alien head/mouth and logo placement. Additionally, no mini comic, just like all later Series 3 figures. But their cross sell on the back is only Series 1 & 2 figures. And they're dated "1992". To add to the pile: all three of the Trio are mentioned in Series 2 mini comics along with the Panther, Crab, and Rhino. So at the very least, Kenner thought of them being released as part of Series 2. Odd indeed (read more about it here).

So it's with this theory that I posit that the Mantis was the transition figure, ending the first wave of Series 2 and ultimately ending the mini comics. The next wave of Series 2 figures were the Mantis, Panther & Crab, and are all without comics. And then all of Series 3 are without comics as well. 

I'd like to point out that other than the 2-pack, all the Predator figures (late 1993) are without comics. This lines up with the late Aliens Series 2 (1993/1994) and eventual Aliens Series 3 figures (1994) not including mini comics (See on the back the Vasquez Trio featured alongside the Panther & Crab aliens?)

On the cross-sells there's no evidence of the comic or non-comic version. Just look and you'll see the second wave/no comic version is the same as the mini comic version (see below).

Thank you for joining me. How'd I do?

-Me