My acquaintance with Daimon Hellstrom was only fleeting, and to illustrate how slight my familiarity was, I must admit that I thought his name was his all my life before I saw this box It’s Damien Hellstrom! I think portentous Damian, also the son of Satan, must have influenced this slightly awkward misunderstanding. Anyway, let’s take a look at DAIMON Hellstrom!
What struck me about the packaging here is that Daemon’s chest symbol glows brightly in the artwork, which makes me wish the figure’s chest symbol had a little glow effect.
Daimon is a fairly lightweight figure that comes with a weapon accessory and a pair of alternate hands (fists and grips) as well as BAF leg parts. The trident is cast from a slightly golden metallic plastic and the fit is okay, although I feel the grips could be a bit larger as they don’t quite fit. Since Helstrom tends to point his trident at people and blast them with it, I would prefer an up/down hinge for the holding hand instead of the in/out hinge he has so he can Better point to this thing.
The fists are well proportioned to the body and are easy to swap. It’s always nice to have a boxing option for your hero.
BAF’s legs have proper spikes, and while some may complain about the lack of articulation, I’m glad to see that the dogleg portions of his feet aren’t as articulated as they were on Toy Biz’s original Legends figure, which makes the figure more stable. Well, so far. Let’s see how it looks with a big head of hair.
The parts that the body is familiar with are reused. Bracers and a belt adorned his rather rudimentary culottes, with some slightly metallic details resembling a trident.
The highlight here has to be the enigmatic portrait of Hellström himself. He has a rather charming demonic appearance, which seems fitting for the Son of Satan. In fact, with his curly hair, pointy ears, smile, and square jaw, he would probably be a beautiful custom Nightcrawler if repainted.
The paint is okay, and like I said before, I think a slight glow effect might have added a lot of color to the symbol, and I’ve never been a fan of having nipples painted on topless characters. The best part is also the face, darkening the eye sockets to accentuate the fiery eyes.
Articulation is legendary standard, with both knees and elbows moving well and no design features really getting in the way of articulation. My only complaint is that the grasping hands aren’t as articulated as I’d like, and I have to say that after years of using ball-jointed waists on classified figures, the straight-waist cut has become increasingly unappealing.
Overall, Helstrom is an acceptable, if not extremely exciting, figure. The portrait is certainly beautiful, but there isn’t enough intrinsic interest in the character for me to get over my ignorance of the character. I did decide to read some Hellstrom comics since his early appearances were drawn by a classic artist I really like, Herb Trimpe, so I thought I might gain some appreciation for the work after reading it.
