Toy Wizards Review: AEW Series 1 Chris Jericho & Kenny Omega

Sculpts

Right off the bat Jazwares is going for a familiar feeling with this toy line. As a rival wrestling organization that lives in the larger universe of other wrestling toys, these figures are scaled to fit right in on a shelf of Mattel WWE Elite Collection action figures. This is just good business. An overwhelming majority of wrestling collectors voiced their opinions and the company listened. So for those of you with a decade’s worth of Mattel WWE, fear not.

Jericho and Omega are both sporting unique body sculpts. This being the first series in what could be many, naturally everything here is 100% brand new. Jericho is now a man in his late 40s and has a softer, wider frame, thicker thighs, and less definition overall. Omega is sporting a torso that is very accurate to his actual physique with higher definition and muscle striations. The arms are equally defined and vascular.

Both men sport 3D scanned head sculpts that really get the likenesses down. Tights have appropriate wrinkles and folds. Both men have unique belt sculpts on their waists and signature lower leg sculpts. Jericho with his loosely tied boots and Omega with his kickpads.

I imagine we will see a bevy of parts reused in future waves for many of the roster where they see fit to apply, but here in wave 1, these two figures are completely made up of different sculpts.

Paint

There’s not a lot of paint on these figures in actuality. In fact, it’s really just belts, buckles, wrist tape and some of the entrance attire details. Those are painted. The faces, tattoos, attire, and logos on the figures are all tampographed digitally.

This is wonderful in the head sculpts to really nail the likenesses. We’ve seen this 3D texture mapping used in many toy lines now, such as the Star Wars Black Series to give us some of the best likenesses of those characters ever in action figure form and it’s no different here. The print quality is very nice, better than Mattel, and definitely on par with Hasbro. Very little pixelation or fuzziness. The attire is also very crisp and cleanly applied.

Jericho’s tattoos are also wonderful. For years fans clamored for a Chris Jericho figure with accurate tattoos from Mattel while he was under WWE contract. However, Mattel had always sited copyright issues as real life musician and rock fanatic Chris Irvine’s tattoos were a collage of his favorite rock album artwork making up a sleeve on his left arm. This somehow is not an issue for Jazwares. It looks like it is mostly all there down to the Rolling Stones lips, Eddie from Iron Maiden, and even Jason Vorhees makes an appearance! This is either Fortnite money at work, or they figure it was so small and insignificant that no one would notice.

A little more paint could go a long way. A simple wash to the plain flesh toned bodies or to the hair of either figure would really bring out the great sculpts. Hopefully this is something we start to see in later series.

Articulation

A huge aspect of any wrestling toy line is how well these figures can pose and pull off the maneuvers seen in the ring. The articulation set up here is very similar to Hasbro’s Marvel Legends. Every figure sports a single ball jointed neck, ball shoulders, bicep swivel, double elbows, wrist hinge and swivel, a ball jointed torso diaphragm coupled with a ball jointed abdomen at the waist, ball hips, thigh swivels, double knees, swivel at the boot tops, and hinged ankles with a rocker.

Accessories

These two figures both come with their uniquely garish entrance gear. Chris Jericho is a man who keeps reinventing himself and while he may already be passed the Le Champion phase, this action figure is based on his Painmaker look that debuted at New Japan Pro Wrestling’s Wrestle Kingdom event at the Tokyo Dome in 2018. Imagine your dad dressing up like a pop punk rebel complete with fedora and eyeliner. It’s not the best look he’s had in his illustrious career, but we’ll surely see more Jericho figures in the future.

Both men are wearing their specific attire from their match against one another at AEW Double or Nothing 2019. Jericho comes with leather studded jacket, fedora, extra black gloved hands, and a soft goods scarf. Kenny has his Sephiroth themed One Winged Angel jacket, a gauntlet for his right arm, and two extra hand-gun gesturing hands.

Value

Brand new toys based on a newish wrestling organization featuring the first ever action figures for some of these guys and gals including extra hands, entrance attire, with 3D face printing technology and highly articulated bodies? Seems like a lot to cram into a $19.99 package, but Jazwares has done so. It’s an incredible value based on today’s market. The AEW Unrivaled Series is off to a very impressive start. Let’s hope the company continues to thrive and we see much, much more on the pegs right next to the monopoly of WWE merchandise.