This Earthquake figure is an Elite Collection Flashback figure, Series 35, " First time in the line" figure. I purchased this figure at a local Walmart for around 20 plus dollars with tax included. When I use to watch WWE back in the early 1990s and 1980s , Earthquake was one of my favorite wrestlers because of his finishing move . He'd stomp the ring and make it produce a loud rumbling noise, then he would squash his opponent with all of his weight. He also had this cool move in a couple of early WWE video games . One of the best features of the Mattel WWE line is that the figures are in scale height-wise with what they are in real life. So I was a bit surprised to discover that Earthquake was not as big ( physically big ) not popularity big as I thought , at least in height . He is listed at 6"7 . Which is tall however I always thought he was much taller than that . I was guessing about that maybe he was a 7 footer or at least 6"10 or 6"11 . You'll see what I mean when I compare him to other figures in the line in a few moments .
As you can see Earthquake comes with two bonus accessories, Damien the snake and the snake bag . It seems like WWE Mattel is taking a page out of Masters of the Universe Classics. What I mean by that statement is Earthquake comes with two accessories that do not belong to him, they belong to Jake"The Snake" Roberts . Just like MOTU Classics have accessories with certain figures that belong to other characters, the same scenario is present in this situation. However there is a connection . Earthquake and Jake the Snake had a feud against each other, and one of Earthquake's tactics was stealing Damien away from Jake , and according to the script, squashing him . You can Google " Earthquake squashes Damien" and it will show up. This explains why Damien and the bag are packaged with Quake. Good news about Damien for those of you wondering, it was later learned that Damien was not in the bag and Quake actually squashed some ground beef . You can Google this also it is true. Speaking of Damien and the bag, below are closer looks at the accessories .
The bag itself is made of real linen material and it can be pulled upwards with the string. This is actually Damien's second appearance in the line, or is this really Damien ? More on that in a moment . The snake is long and made of a rubbery plastic. You can bend him however he can not be straightened out into a straight line pose . Now for closer looks at the Earthquake action figure.
As you can see Quake stands at almost 7 inches tall . Mattel did a great job with attention to detail with this figure . He has a receding hairline at the top of his head. The tattoo on his left arm is displaying the face of a tiger, along with chest hair.His long hard shoulder length hair restricts head movement quite a bit, but I'm not bothered by it .Mostly up and down head movement is somewhat restricted because of the hair, not so much with side to side head movement . Posing Quake with Damien in the above pic, at first I had a little difficulty trying to pry his fingers open to hold the string, so I took the pic with the string wrapped around his wrist. Later after taking the pick I was able to pry his fingers open with ease. As mentioned earlier, I was a bit surprised at Quake's height, or lack thereof from which I thought of him height wise. He almost looks short when standing next to or around other "bigs" throughout WWE history , as the comparison pics below illustrate.
It looks like Kamala is one of the few " big guy " wrestlers similar in size to Earthquake. I was surprised that he is almost dwarfed by the Big Show, at least in height . Now back to the snake for a moment, or should I say "snakes" ? For those of you that have been collectors of this line since it debuted , you already know that this is not the first toy of Damien in this line. You know that the first Damien was packaged with his owner , Jake "The Snake" Roberts . Below are pics illustrating how different the two Damien figures are .
Looking at these pics kind of makes one wonder is that the same snake after all of those years. The one that came with Jake is the shorter, gray one. It is known that snakes shed their skin, but I was not sure about snakes changing color until I googled the topic . It appears that some have according to some articles online. However, back to the toys before I get too far off topic here . I forgot to mention earlier that the version of Damien that comes with Earthquake does not fit into the bag very easily , whereas the smaller version that came with Jake fits really well into it, with only his head protruding when the string is pulled up . Now that Earthquake finally made it into this line, you can re-live the feud between him and Jake . Also I've displayed Jake with both versions of Damien to give you an idea of which version he looks the coolest with . If you ask me, I like the one that came with Quake displayed with him better. The longer snake makes for cooler looking poses in my opinion .
FINAL THOUGHTS
(1) ARTICULATION - Excellent all around articulation . Head movement is somewhat restricted by the hair, as mentioned earlier .
(2) STANDING ABILITY - Quake stands perfectly. No balance issues. Plus being a big bulky action figure helps his balance somewhat .
(3) WHAT I LIKE BEST ABOUT THIS FIGURE ? - I'm glad that Earthquake is finally in the line. Big bulky action figures are always fun to have. Plus blue is one of my favorite colors.
(4) WHAT I LIKE LEAST ABOUT THIS FIGURE ? - There is nothing that I dislike about this figure.
(5) WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN DONE TO IMPROVE THE FIGURE ? - Softer hair for better head movement .
(6) GRADING SCALE - Despite the flaw with the head movement, I give this figure a PERFECT 10 . Excellent all around action figure, and I'm not bothered by the limited head movement . After all, limited head movement has become frequent on a lot of perfect figures as of late.
(7) FINAL ANALYSIS - Glad to finally have an action figure of Earthquake. Now I am waiting on Mattel , along with other fans, to make his tag team partner known as Typhoon. If or when Typhoon is made, his presence along with Quake will give us collectors the mighty tag team known as " The Natural Disasters" !!!
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