Mezco Lets The Pink Skulls Chaos Club Loose

Are they henchmen? A gang? A band? Regardless, Mezco’s latest One:12 Collective figures are impossibly fun.

One of the most appealing aspects of a shared scale is that action figures can become versatile across properties. Captain America and Batman can join forces to fight Darth Vader and the Undertaker, and whether we’re kids or adults, the scene’s only limitations are our imaginations. But this versatility also leads to some new figures to add to our collective wish lists, and near the top is generic henchmen for heroes to fight and bad guys to command.

That’s one of the biggest appeals of the Pink Skulls Chaos Club, the latest original Mezco creations (a collaboration with Rumble Society) to join the always impressive One:12 Collective.

Aside from a few fun teaser videos, the Pink Skulls surfaced with even less context than their presumed adversary Gomez, Mezco’s roach mascot who made his One:12 debut earlier this year. The blank slate nature of the Pink Skulls is a big part of their appeal– these guys can be their own thing entirely, or serve as goons in campy, matching outfits who can join basically any 6″ action figure action scene.

They’re also delightfully weird and instantly appealing, from the eye catching neon pink skull heads (masks?) they wear, to their punk/ hipster/ greaser outfits complete with skinny jeans, Converse style sneakers, striped shirts and PSCC biker jackets. It’s a phenomenal design that instantly racks up style points from a punk/ hipster/ nerd like me, and mixes street level reality with fantastical flourishes like their translucent “Skullcrusher” bats and, of course, those pink skulls.

The skulls actually come six to a pack of three figures; each sports not only a realistic, oversized skull mask (recast from a piece Mezco released earlier this year), as well as all new, stylized skulls which have a distinct Ed “Big Daddy” Roth/ Rat Fink vibe, in my opinion. Toss a James Dean biker cap on that surprisingly expressive skeletal headsculpt, and these figures radiate personality.

Of course, as part of the One:12 Collective, we get all the benefits of most of these releases, including amazingly well engineered bodies loaded with useful, realistic articulation (including the debut of double jointed elbows on this slimmer base body), and immaculate tailoring on their cloth outfits, which can be customized thanks to the working zippers of their removable jackets and extra flourishes like removable kerchiefs and the hats I mentioned earlier.

It’s more than a fashion show with these troublemakers(?), though, as the Pink Skulls are also loaded with melee style weaponry, ranging from switchblades (obviously), baseball bats, pink katana swords, and even some very fun Molotov cocktails. Another staple of the One:12 Collective, these guys also feature loads of alternate hand poses to naturally grip all these accessories to find the perfect pose, and an eye catching pink and black display base with posing arm/ flight stand.

I’ve been a huge advocate for Mezco’s One:12 Collective since their Dark Knight Returns figure was first revealed, but for as far as I’m concerned, the best toys they’ve released in 2019 are their original concepts like Gomez and the Pink Skulls. There’s an imagination and playfulness to these designs that seems like the logical next step to their smart, subtle redesigns of classic super hero and super villain costumes for the Marvel and DC collections, but these all new designs let the Mezco team’s imaginations stretch even farther. There are few toys I’ve had more fun unpacking, putting together,posing and playing with than the Pink Skulls. They look cool, fit in perfectly with pretty much any 6″ action figure line you can think of, and they’re infectiously fun.

The Pink Skulls Chaos Club three-pack is currently sold out, but there’s a Wait List open now on Mezco’s site. Hopefully these weirdos will return in another format, like we’ve seen with the multiple iterations of Gomez throughout the last few months. I certainly hope so!