To celebrate its 10 year partnership with WWE, Mattel released a new series Decade of Domination featuring some older school looks of some of the longtime members of the WWE roster. One of those selected figures was Mark Henry in his Nation of Domination attire.
This was one of his choices in the Fan Selection options. Given the fans’ questionable choices in these votes I’m not a fan of their decision making. Fortunately Mattel looks for other options to get some of these other options, which is why we got the Mark Henry in his NOD outfit as it was a runner-up to another version.
Packaging: The Decade of Domination packaging is well done with a black, red and gray color scheme. There’s a cool highlight reel of Henry’s various looks over the past decade.
These bios aren’t specific to the character and just explain the purpose of the series. That’s a weird choice since most signature lines still address the character’s time frame instead of a generic write-up on the theme.
Likeness: There’s something throwing off with the likeness, which I’ll address in another category. The head sculpt is OK, but it’s not the amazingly lifelike rendering we’ve seen in some other figures.
I’ve always like the mold for Henry’s body, which captures his girth without making him look fat like a King Kong Bundy. His proportions are good with slightly shorter arms and thicker thighs with short boots. Articulation is another matter, but more on that later.
Scale: Mark Henry was 6’4”, which puts him taller than the 6’3” D-Lo Brown and shorter than the 6’6” The Godfather. His scale is pretty good.
Paint: Mattel seems to have a very hard time getting the skin tone right on some black characters. Until the Hall of Champions version, every Ron Simmons figure was way too dark.
The recent Rocky Johnson figure is ridiculously darker, which is even more baffling since he should have just been the same skin tone as his son, The Rock.
Mark Henry’s figure also is too dark. He’s not the same complexion of The Rock or D-Lo Brown, but his figure should be a lighter shade of brown than the dark nearly black shade of brown Mattel used.
Skin tone aside, the paintwork on his attire with the Nation colors came out nicely. The pattern invites a lot of opportunities for slop, but the line work is mostly sharp and precise at the folds of the singlet.
Articulation: This body is well suited for bruisers like Henry. At this stage in his career, he wasn’t the most experienced and knew how to use his size that well so he’s largely a kick and punch guy with some power moves.
I wish the arms had better range that we’d get from butterfly shoulders to allow for a bear hug or a more convincing power slam. His hip articulation is also very limited and doesn’t allow for much lift with the kicks and stomps.
Mark Henry has:
- neck
- bicep
- ball-jointed shoulders
- elbows
- wrists
- wrist hinge
- torso
- waist
- hips
- thighs
- knees (double-jointed)
- ankles
Accessories: Mark Henry comes with some nice accessories starting with the essential Nation hat. The paintwork on this is fine and it fits on his head snugly.
He’s also got a set of swappable fists. His big accessory is the large set of weights. These are fun pieces and useful for those old school weight lifting angles.
Worth it? I got Henry for a few bucks cheaper than the normal $20 price tag. That’s always a good thing with this line even if I don’t think it’s poor value at $20.
Rating: 9 out of 10
I might actually try and paint his skin tone a little lighter, but that’s something Mattel needs to improve on for some of the black figures. Beyond that I’m thrilled to get another member of the Nation. Now if we can get Kama we can complete Farooq’s Nation.
Where to get it? The Decade of Domination series is exclusive to Walmart. That can be a frightening prospect in a lot of cases, but Walmart set up a shipper case for this series and Elite 77 so these should be plentiful if you spot the shipper quick. Otherwise good luck getting him from secondary sellers.