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If You Bootleg Liam Neeson’s Likeness, He Won’t Find You and He Won’t Kill You


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HPC Toys are known – to they extent that they’re known at all – for making 12″ figures of popular actors and characters who generally aren’t licensed in the particular form for one reason or another. Either the rights simply weren’t considered at the time, or the movie in question wasn’t really thought of as toy material – previous offerings have included “Jail Hero” (Nic Cage from Con Air) and “A Cop Never Dies” (John McClane).

Their latest choice is a bit of a head-scratcher, however – “True Master” is pretty obviously Ra’s al Ghul from Batman Begins. In other words, this is a character who has been seen in toy form before, so it’s not like Liam Neeson has an issue with toys existing. And yet…in this scale, at this level of detail, he never has – Hot Toys has gotten so scene-specific as to do a Fear Gas Batman who appears in exactly one scene – but Ra’s/Ducard remains a gap in high-end collections. Are they still trying to preserve an 8 year-old spoiler? (Let’s be honest: it was never a good spoiler to begin with. Liam always looked exactly like Ra’s from trailer #1 onward.)

“True Master” will come in a basic and deluxe set – my guess would be one will have a suit, and the other come with “Legion of Shade” armor or whatever. Here’s my question: if you’re going to do this kind of thing, and brave the legal wrath of Christopher Nolan, WB and DC Comics…why not really stick it to them and make a knock-off Jaimie Alexander likeness as “Wonderful Woman”? Hell, do Gina Carano or Megan Fox if you like – it’s not like anyone’s going to critique the acting ability of a toy.