Alien Queen (Aliens by Kenner)

Aliens, the 1986 sequel to 1979’s Alien, is one of the greatest sci-fi horror films of all time and one of my all-time favourites. I’d much rather watch it than any other instalment in the franchise. And one of the best parts of that movie is the Queen alien, or xenomorph if you wish to use the official term. A colossal creature that dwarfs the regular xenomorph classes, she usually remains sedentary in her nesting chamber, constantly churning out eggs. But when her clutch is threatened or worse, destroyed, she becomes a rampaging and relentless force of destruction.

Kenner’s 1992 Aliens toyline was something of a surprise in that it was based on an R-rated film, yet aimed at children. At the time, I was 14 years old and deeply torn between my lifelong love of toys and a perceived need to “grow up” and leave it all behind. So while I passed on the three smaller xenomorph toys in the first wave, which included the Scorpion Alien, I couldn’t resist the larger Queen toy. And it turned out to be the only one I ever bought in my country, as Canada got shafted (surprise!) and didn’t receive any of the future Aliens waves, which had even cooler xenomorphs on them.

The Queen is an imposing toy that stands slightly over 15 cm tall and measures about 22 cm long. She is sculpted standing upright with her mouth open, her limbs bent at the elbows, knees, and ankles, and her long tail extended out behind her with the tip curled. She is coloured glossy dark grey with metallic silver teeth, very similar to the colouration of the one in Aliens.

However, there are quite a number of anatomical differences between that Queen and this toy. In a nutshell, nearly everything about the latter is shorter: the head, the neck, the torso, the main pair of arms, the legs, and even the blade-like tip of the tail. It is also more robust, especially in its legs. The torso has only four spikes protruding from the back, and they are curved rather than straight. And while the movie version has four arms, this Queen has six. You’ve got the main pair, a smaller pair right beneath them, and then a very small pair sticking out of the chest. The latter has hands with four digits, while the larger pairs have five digits. But in spite of all these differences, this toy is still very recognizable as a Queen xenomorph. Kind of like how you can almost always tell a Tyrannosaurus rex toy at first sight.

The sculpting here is really great. The Queen has a skeletal, segmented appearance to her, much more like an arthropod than any vertebrate. Her torso is ribbed and her hands look shrink-wrapped with webbing between the spindly digits. Her feet are reminiscent of high heels and her tail is rather like a spinal column tipped with a spearhead. And her head is covered in all manner of ribbing, webbing, and segments, and features an unnerving “crown” at the back. No visible eyes, of course. It all looks weird, scary, and fantastic!

The Queen’s head can turn to either side. Her four larger arms pivot at the shoulders and the tiny ones jutting from her chest can rotate. Her legs pivot forward at the hips, but not backwards. She also features two very satisfying action gimmicks. First, pressing the button on the left side of her hip causes her upper torso to swing rapidly to the right for a tail-lashing attack, just like in the climactic battle with Ellen Ripley’s power loader in the film. You can knock over other toys with it! And thankfully, the tail is made of flexible plastic, so it’s held up fine all these years.

The second gimmick involves pushing the rubberized underside of the back of the Queen’s head. This causes her inner jaw to pop well out of her mouth, and repeated pressing will make it slide out and in over and over again. Xenomorphs have employed their inner jaws in every single film in the franchise, so this is arguably even more enjoyable than the lashing tail.

In addition, the Queen comes with a 10.5 cm long all-black Chestburster. Specifically, a Queen Chestburster, with a pronounced head, visible arms and legs, and a flexible bladed tail. While it looks cool, it cannot be made to stand up in any fashion; it simply lies there. I kind of would have preferred a Facehugger instead, which is what came with the three smaller xenomorph toys in Series 1.

The Kenner Alien Queen has long been one of my favourite monster toys and I’m very thankful to have held onto it all these years. My sons now enjoy playing with it too!