Back in 1993, Kenner decided to release a bunch of aliens toys based on their cancelled cartoon, ‘Operation: Aliens’. Because of course kids love facehugging impregnating parasites that come free with a rib-cracking prize. And, as it turns out, they actually did. The toys were a big hit (at least to start off with; the line soon fizzled away.) The Mantis Alien is one of the best ones from the line. To start off with, it looks gorgeous. It looks like it would be lemon and lime flavoured, too, or is that just me? (By the way, if you were wondering, it tastes of plastic. Oh.) The concept never really made sense to me, though: Did a facehugger impregnate a gigantic mantis, or was there a really tiny facehugger?
Anyway, like all the alien toys, it comes with an action feature:
When you squeeze the two tubes or fins on the back of the mantis alien, the arms pull on any figure, in this case Obi Wan Kenobi. Sorry, Obi, not even the force can save you now. What? You die anyway!
You can also pull or push the tubes left or right to move both arms in the chosen direction and shake your unfortunate prey figure all around. It’s really fun, but the Gorilla alien from the line does this too. (Plus it squirts water. But I bet it doesn’t have a distinct ‘lemon and lime’ feel. Probably liquorice. I don’t like liquorice.)
The one I have is the UK version- all we got is repaints of US versions. The US version of this alien has gold teeth and green tubes, so beware if you like one colour over the other.
Overall, This figure is out of this world! (I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I needed to write that pun.)
CONCLUSION: FIVE ALIEN EGGS OUT OF FIVE
Tiny claws 