The Nom de plumes are probably some of the most iconic original creations that ThreeA has come up with. For their 4th anniversary this year, two new de plumes, were released: the 4th, which pays tribute to the original Nom de plume through his outfit, and the 27th, clad in black.
The box art features Wood's painting for both pieces, with the letters N.O.M. printed in blocks. Inside the package are larger versions of the artwork in the form of folded posters, which is great.
For the 27th, the asymmetrical top with the long and short sleeves, akin to all the de plumes, is continued. It does seemed kinda silly that a guy with a helmet glued on his head to be wearing a hood over the whole get up. Personally I just lay it down across the back and don't give it too much thought. The longer sleeve tapers to its wider end and splits into two flaps where the hand emerges. This hand is the one that can hold his pistol.
Something that baffled me is how 3A bothered to provide a relaxed hand to swap out the pistol grip hand, but didn't provide the pistol grip hand for his left side. He does come with two pistols, but can only hold one. Would I have preferred it if there were only one pistol? Maybe. The back of the 27th has three large pouches, with leather straps that were still wet on mine when they were removed from the box (and so were the 4th's).
If you move the arms around, you would notice that the slider joints actually 'clicks' when they are moved forwards and backwards. This is something new when it came to 3A male bodies, at least for me. While they do click, they are somewhat looser than the older models, so I don't think it is an improvement.
The weathering and detailing on the figures are pretty nice, my only complaint was the pistol colour. When Barguest and Fantome were released, you will notice that their pistols were painted with a slight difference: Barguest's being a darker shade of grey. But when it came to 27th and 4th? There is no distinction. I would've preferred 27th's to be darker too... I think this does show to a certain extent the bespoke creations i was rather fond of when it comes 3A is somewhat lost in their mass production.
One thing to shout about really is the boots. Before these pair, boots were typically hard plastic that restricts the movement of the ankle. But now, the boots are soft and even laced. Again, the god for the shrink ray at ThreeA. Another new weapon introduced with these figures are the batons. Sometimes, I feel like it is wrong to label them as weapons, as since the figures are not equipped to hold them properly (no fist hands to swap on), they really are merely accessories.
QC issues. I didn't really find any on 27th, but I was quite disappointed with the wrist balls that were in the 4th. You would think that these duo, being repaints of each other, would have the same wrist ball, but no. The wrist ball on the 4th is different, and significantly looser. It holds his hand alright without any weapons, but put the pistol on the right hand and the hand falls down like a limp d*ck. This really sucks... It is as though the 4th is always conscientious about safety and loves to point his gun down. Push it up and it might hold but any slight movement on mine will almost certainly make the wrist ball turn downwards.
Below: some comparison shots of these duo with their WWR comrades.
On the final note, I think these figures are still amongst the best that ThreeA had to offer in 2012. Surprisingly, the 27th turned out to be much better than the 4th, which I thought was a no brainer duplicate of the original success. All in all, great additions to anyone's WWR human figure line up.
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