[Dolemite]

Glad to hear that I wasn't the only one who got stinky Jungle Hunter figures. It's taken a few weeks, but the smell is (almost) completely gone. But for a while there they really REEKED of something that almost smelled like motor oil.

Overall, I'm really happy with the quality of the figure. Joints are all very tight and the paint apps are very good. The figure doesn't have as many goodies/accessories as the City Hunter, but that's not NECA's fault...the CH just had way more gadgets in Predator 2. The only odd design choice is making the scorch marks on the Jungle Hunter's helmet more cartoony-looking than they were on the original figure, but it's no big deal; overall, the paint work is much more detailed and realistic.

Also, I LOVE the updated articulation...I actually think I like this Predator body more than the new AvP ones, now that they've added the double elbows/knees/bicep swivels/ab crunch. They feel more stable, whereas I find more issues with loose joints on the AvP bodies.

My only real issue with the Jungle Hunter is an ongoing one I have with NECA...they HAVE TO STOP PACKAGING THEIR FIGURES IN A WAY THAT WARPS/DAMAGES THE FIGURE AND/OR IT'S ACCESSORIES. Luckily my TRU had a ton of Jungle Hunters in stock so I could sift through them all, but the problem is that the plastic tray is so cramped that many of the wrist blades were bent/warped, the mandibles on the alternate head bent, and most of the plasma casters were straight-up damaged. The place in the tray where the plasma caster goes is so snug that it almost bends the wire on the back of it in half, and in many cases broke it off completely. A lot of the articulated arms that caster itself sits upon was bent as well. I found two Hunters with undamaged plasma casters, but I really had to dig around to find them.

But NECA has a rep for packing their figures to that guns and other accessories come out warped as shit; the minigun from the recent Ultimate Terminator 2 T-800 is a great example. Luckily I had the accessories from the original release of that figure to swap, as they were made of better plastic and packed in a way that they weren't destroyed when I opened the box. Or the Ultimate City Hunter and his "look at it and it'll snap off" wrist computer door (I've since replaced that figure with one with a much more solid door that has yet to break, thankfully). Or Serpent Hunter's broken tooth. This is something that NECA really needs to address.

I know that QC issues are par for the course with NECA, and it's why I never buy their stuff online...I always wait until they hit stores, because I know once I get to look them over I can always find a perfect one with zero issues. When a NECA product is issue-free, they really do make the best stuff in the world, especially at their price points. But I wish they'd get a handle on the QC problems.