Into the life of every miniatures painter, gamer, and collector there come a certain number of minis that just demand to be purchased, They practically wave tiny signs saying “Hey, [Your Name]! Buy me right now!” And you do it, because you really have no choice. This is a review of one of those minis.

His name is The Glock-Roach, and he’s part of Four Color Figs’ amazing Superfigs line of superheroic minis. Basically, he’s a giant mutant cockroach wearing a four-armed trenchcoat and packing a quartet of automatic pistols. Just typing that description made me smile.

I can’t help but think there must be an interesting story behind the creation of such a unique and idiosyncratic mini. I’m going to e-mail Scott Pyle, the evil mastermind behind Superfigs and ask for the gory details, if any. I’d love to think the Glock-Roach is somebody’s old Champions or Supersystem PC come to life.

GR (as his buddies call him) is one big sucker, towering over normals, even the largish Superfigs civilians in my collection. I can’t decide how I feel about his large size. On the one hand being huge makes his very existence even more surreal, but on the other hand it makes him a bit harder to logically work into a lot of urban settings. Despite the Thing-style Coat of Disguise, a seven-foot cockroach is going to draw an awful lot of attention, even in Manhattan.

One of the things I really like about GR is that the sculptor clearly took the time to get some photo reference on roaches. The chitin plates of the exoskeleton are faithfully replicated, and his lower limbs end in claws. The upper four arms have hands, since it would be quite difficult if not impossible to fire a pistol clutched in a claw.

Close inspection of his trenchcoat shows that it has four arms to match its wearer, pointing to the existence of an extremely specialized tailor shop somewhere in GR’s home city. Whoever supplied it, they evidently do good work, since the coast fits well, and every wrinkle and fold in the material is well-sculpted.

I feel obligated to find some kind of fault, so I guess it’s with the guns. I harp on this a lot because in my younger days I spent a silly amount of time obsessing over firearms. As a consequence, it leaps out at me when sculptors just kind of jam together generic weapons instead of modeling them on RL guns. The detail on GR’s guns is well off the high standard seen in the rest of the mini, but probably ninety-nine out of a hundred people won’t notice or care.

I have to admit that the final rating for GR is not very objective, though he has also wowed everyone in my gaming group. He’s just so unique and so triumphantly odd he resonates strongly on my personal wavelength, so he gets the Alpha’s highest rating. I promise to return to my old sober hard-grading self next week.

[Postscript: It wasn’t until I was taking the photos for this review that I noticed GR’s antennae are reversed from their intended direction. My buddy Kev did the assembly and evidently misunderstood which way the antennae (which are a separate piece from the body) were supposed to fit. It’s no big heartache for me, as I think they look fine either way.]

Pros: He’s a giant roach packing heat, Nice details, Surrealism value off the charts

Cons: Too big for his own good? Marginal detail on pistols

Final Verdict: 5/5

MSRP: $3.95

Source: Old Glory 25s

Popularity: 13% [?]

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