Mysterious Stranger back yet again with another guest review for my buddy General Hawk.  This go round I'm looking at Inferno and I'm doing something a little different. I am in posession of a test shot of the Soldier class Inferno figure and  thought it would be fun to show a side-by-side comparison so you can see how some things develop and change in the process.

Okay first things first, Inferno is a Soldier class figure.  He comes with some great firefighter gear and is done up in a nice red and black color scheme.  Inferno's specialty, firefighting, might not seem like a logical choice for the more military themed Joe team but Hasbro has done a great job of making the specialty work in figure form.

Inferno reuses the upper body from Shipwreck and the lower body of Lockdown with a new head.  The stocky upper body works for someone who carries a lot of heavy gear into missions all the time.  The legs also carry this muscular look without being overly so.  The sculpted thigh panels and kneepads look great and give him a very modern firefighter look.

Inferno's head is all new and honestly I have mixed feelings about it.  On the one hand its a great new mold and the expression fits a weary firefighter who's battled more blazes than he can remember.  But the strand of hair hanging down across his forehead and along the side of his nose is a bit much.  I like the hair on his forehead but when it creeps onto the face it is distracting.  Not to mention the difficulty it will cause customizers trying to make this head work for another character.  The sculpted hair has a wet, sweaty look and does look good but that single strand on his face just about kills this new mold for me.  Good thing he's got an awesome helmet to cover it up.

He's molded primarily in a color that is a mix of safety orange and fireman red and it fits the character really well. Usually when we see bright colors in this line we get something that doesn't really make sense like the bright yellow Kamakura. But here the color really fits. One difference between the production figure and the test shot is that the test shots torso is molded in black where the production figure is all red. I'm not sure why they changed this but it works. Black underneath the black vest would just be too dark I think so the change is a good one. As for paint applications, well he's severely lacking. The only paint on the figure is on his kneepads and head. The rest is just molded color. What really bugs me about this is that the Shipwreck mold has exposed forearms and not painting them on Inferno just doesn't look right. I can understand the decision, a firefighter would go into a blaze with as little exposed flesh as possible, but with his gauntlets on they would completely cover any bare skin.

One tiny interesting little gem you might not notice right away is on his right shoulder. Applied just under the joint slot is a gold stylized emblem of a thermostat. See its little touches like this that make me really like this line. Its something that could have been left off and no one would miss it. But having it there just shows the level of detail that can be accomplished in this scale.

Inferno has the new Kung-Fu Grip on his right hand and like all the other KFG figures it works really well. The spring is tight and holds his axe without it getting loose or drooping. This is the other major change from the test shot. The test shot came with Shipwrecks hands which would have worked just as well.

As for gear, this is where people start the hating. See Inferno is a firefighter. His job is to put out fires, whether they're on a battlefield or in a building, that's his specialty. So the lack of any obvious offensive weaponry in a military figure is pretty noticable. But he does come with some great firefighting gear. He's got an armored vest, belt and gauntlets, firemens helmet and oxygen tank, airtank backpack and Supercooled Axe. I go into more detail in the Tech Specs section but all in all, for his specialty this gear works extremely well.

I have to say that based on the test shot I got a few months ago I wasn't looking forward to Inferno. Now that I have the production figure in hand I'm impressed. He does have some drawbacks, the hair in his face and unpainted forearms, but his plusses outweigh any negatives making a great fun figure. I've heard people call this guy a "Rescue Hero" and I can see the comparison. But when you put Inferno next to the other figures in the Sigma 6 line, that comparison goes away and he blends in really really well. Will I be customizing this figure? Probably not. Can I recommend him to others? Absolutely! He's fun, creative and a very nicely done figure. The traditional fireman feel is in there and it all works. Extremely well.

Now we have a unique chance to take a look at a comparison between the final version and the early pre-production "test shot" version of Inferno. I've got to give BIG thanks to Mysterious Stranger for offering this great opportunity.