And we are on our final leg of the Thunderbolts Trifecta today, folks. Let’s put this baby to bed with a look at the last two figures in the set: Moonstone and Crossbones. Ladies first!

We can get through Moonstone pretty quickly because we’ve seen a lot of her before. Yes, here’s an example of how the folks at Hasbro can be real wizards of recycling when they want to be. Moonstone not only shares the same body as Satana, but she’s got the same face sculpt too. Nonetheless, the new pearlescent plastic bodysuit and a newly sculpted blonde hair piece, along with some other tweaks, and this figure totally succeeds on her own.

I absolutely adore the color plastic used for her and the gold paint apps look striking, right down to the Thunderbolts tramp stamp above her shapely hinder. All the nice things I said about this female buck yesterday apply here and I won’t bother going on about the articulation again because it’s all the same. She’s a really solid figure with great joints that just beg to be played with. There are no weak and flimsy leg hinges and the inclusion of the swivel bicep on a female figure is always a very welcome treat. But it shouldn’t be. It should be standard. Once again, I love this new body and I hope to see more of it in the future.

The face used for Moonstone is just as beautiful as it was on Satana. The new hair coupled with the less-satanic looking makeup and the painted silver mask work wonderfully for the character.  Hasbro also swapped out Satana’s oogity-boogity hands with a pair of more sensible punching fists. That’s about all I’ve got to say about her, but don’t take my brevity as anything other than a ringing endorsement for this figure.

Next up, we have Crossbones. Have I called Hasbro Wizards of Recycling yet? Well, it applies here too. What we’re getting here is a repaint and minor re-sculpt of their last Crossbones figure. The one released before Legends went away. I’m very happy to see this guy in the set because the last time he was released I had already signed off on Hasbro’s Legends line on account of most of them sucked ass. Yes, that was true, but it also resulted in me missing out on some decent figures along the way and Crossbones was one of those good ones. The sculpting on this guy is exceptionally good, particularly the hair and veins on his beefy arms and the detail on his vest. I absolutely love his combat knife. Too bad it doesn’t come out of the sheath. Anyway, apart from less paint wash and a few minor variations, the big change here is the giant crossed bones painted on his vest and the Thunderbolts logo. I approve.

Crossbones sports a healthy amount of articulation for such a big guy. The head is ball jointed and includes the extra hinge. His arms are ball jointed at the shoulders, hinged at the elbows, and have swivels at the biceps. He also has swivels in his forearms, which is handy for getting him to grip his weapon. His legs are ball jointed at the hips, double hinged at the knees and have swivels in the thighs. His ankles are hinged and he has hinges in the middle of his feet. I suspect there’s a ab crunch hinge under that vest of his, but it doesn’t offer a lot of movement. He can also swivel at the waist.

But wait… the recycling isn’t done yet. Hasbro dipped into the GI Joe: Sigma Six line to provide Crossbones with a very cool chaingun. This massive piece of ordinance features an ammo belt that clips in and a windup feature that spins the barrel. I knew this was coming as part of the set, but I wasn’t entirely convinced it would work. Now that it’s in hand, I’ll concede that it fits in pretty well with the figure and Crossbones looks absolutely bitchin’ while wielding it. I’m more than a little surprised he can stand with it. The inclusion of the machine gun is another great thing about this set. There’s just no way we could have gotten a Crossbones with that weapon in any other format.

And that’s the final two figures in the set. Moonstone is likely to be one of the figures that pisses off fans because of her exclusivity. I know I’ve been anxious to get the character on my shelf for a while so she’s another reason why I needed to buy this set. She may have been better suited to a retail release. As for Crossbones, the original release has really gone up in price on the second-hand market, so he alone was very nearly worth the price of admission.

So, speaking of price… The Thunderbolts set was $89.99 but it was a smidge over $100 by the time I got done with S&H from HTS. That works out to be $20 a figure and I think that’s a pretty good deal for five exclusive and, in at least a couple of cases, very niche characters. I know I’ve paid that a couple times for regular retail Marvel Legends releases just because the distribution is so shitty in my area. So, yeah… I have no complaints, other than the box being too fragile and inconvenient for me to bother keeping. The only other Hasbro con exclusive that I wanted was the Deadpool Corps Taco Truck, but I’m not willing to pay a premium for it, so I’m willing to let that one go.

Welcome to the second part of this Thunderbolts Trifecta! Yesterday we checked out the packaging and Luke Cage, today we’re pushing on with Ghost and Judith Chambers. Let’s start with Ms. Chambers. Wait… who? Exactly. I’m guessing that Hasbro didn’t have the rights to the name Satana, because even being the Marvel Comics whore that I am, I had no idea who Judith Chambers was when she was first announced as part of this set. It wasn’t until the figure was first showed that it became obvious that we were dealing with The Devil’s Daughter herself.

Satana certainly is easy on the eyes. She dons her skintight black outfit with vertical cut out to showcase all her evil goodies. The costume is achieved entirely from the deco as opposed to original sculpting. What we’re dealing with is essentially a black buck with some flesh paint. That’s not a complaint, mind you, I really like this female buck, for reasons we’ll get to in a bit, and the figure works great right down to her spooky, “I’m gonna hex you up” fingers. The ensemble is all tied together with an excellent sculpted cape, which is removable if you pop the head off. I can’t place Satana’s body as a re-use, so maybe it’s one of their new ones? Either way, I’d like to see it used more often in the future.

The head sculpt is quite good. I was a little worried about Hasbro’s female head sculpting skills after the pinch-face debacle with poor Viper, but Satana is quite beautiful and sports some pretty solid paintwork. The hair is soft plastic so as not to inhibit the neck articulation too badly.

Speaking of articulation, I’m happy to say that Satana uses a female buck that is a vast improvement from the likes of Madam Masque, Viper, and Hope Summers. Those were all fine figures, but they lacked some POA’s that I consider rather crucial. Satana has a ball joint in the neck, but no hinge. The arms are ball jointed at the shoulders and hinged at the elbows. There are swivels in the biceps and her wrists have hinges and swivels. Her legs are ball jointed at the hips, double hinged at the knees, and feature swivels in the thighs and hinges in the ankles. She has no waist articulation, but she does have a ball joint just below her bosom. The points are all really solid on this figure making her lots of fun to pose.

Next up is Ghost. Ghost is an awesome character that I’d love to see a lot more of. Truth be told, he’s one of the main deciding points on me buying this set and I can still hardly believe we have a figure of him. There was virtually no chance that we were ever going to see him as a stand-alone release and quite frankly I think his existence justifies this set, even if he is built off the old Bucky body.

Ghost is cast entirely in translucent plastic, which was a no brainer for this figure. I know some people lose their shit over translucent figures. I’m not one of those people, but even I can see the beauty in it when it’s used appropriately and that is certainly the case here. That’s not to say there aren’t any paint apps. Hasbro used some smoky paintwork for his hands and feet, the torso harness is painted, as are the filters on his gasmask. He has gold painted Thunderbolts logos on his shoulders, and best of all he has two creepy red eyes that work wonderfully with the clear plastic.

Ghost also comes with a cool little surprise: Two heads! You can swap them out just by popping them off the ball joint. Yes it’s cool, but it’s also frustrating because they’re both fantastic and I can’t decide which one I want to display him with. Yes, these are First World problems. I am aware.

Articulation! Yes, Ghost is built off of an older Bucky figure, but the articulation isn’t much at odds with what we’ve been getting. The head is ball jointed with no hinge. The arms have ball joints in the shoulders, double hinges in the elbows and swivels in the biceps and gloves. The legs have ball joints in the hips, double hinges in the knees, swivels in the thighs and hinged ankles. Ghost can swivel at the waist and has an ab crunch hinge. Lovely!

Satana and Ghost are exactly the kind of figures that I look for in an Exclusive set. To most they aren’t “must own” releases, so if you don’t want to invest the time or expense in hunting these down you’re collection isn’t going to suffer any major holes for it. On the other hand, I can’t help but get excited about being able to put these characters on my shelf. Hasbro did a wonderful job bringing these two characters to plastic and they are definitely great reasons to pick up the set. I can’t say I’m all that familiar with Satana as a character, but her figure certainly looks great. Getting a figure of Ghost, on the other hand, is a very welcome treat. Tomorrow, we’ll wrap this up with a look at Moonstone and Crossbones!

There weren’t a lot of Exclusives that I wanted from this year’s San Diego Comic Con, and I suppose that’s a good thing because I got shut out of most of them anyway. Sure, there’s always Ebay for the ones that I missed but the premium prices are probably a good indicator that I didn’t really want a lot of them that badly after all. Fortunately, Hasbro’s Thunderbolts set, which was high on my list, lasted for about two hours on Hasbro Toy Shop the day the exclusives went up for sale and I was able to snag one. The set doesn’t exactly include the A-listers of the Thunderbolts’ roster, instead it’s post-Siege, but it does have some very cool figures of characters we may never have gotten otherwise. Today we’re going to look at the packaging and Luke Cage, tomorrow we’ll check out Ghost and Judith Chambers, and on Wednesday we’ll look at Moonstone and Crossbones. Let’s do it…

Packaging and presentation is usually a big deal for Con Exclusives and this set is certainly no different. With five Legends scale figures packed into one set, a big box was inevitable, but it wasn’t until this set was in hand that I truly appreciated how big this box was going to be. The figures are arranged in a vertical tray and presented in a box that is designed to look like Thunderbolts Tower. It’s a cool, if not obvious, design and includes the SDCC emblem on the bottom corner.

The back of the box has a big panel of artwork featuring all the characters along with “Marvel’s Thunderbolts” and “Justice, like lightning…”

The front flap is rounded and opens up to reveal a window showing the figures and another panel of character art. The rounded front of the box will likely be an issue for mint-in-box collectors as it seems pretty susceptible to being crunched. My set was fairly well packed and it still showed up in pretty rough condition for a collectible. It’s not just the front, but in general the edges of this massive box haven’t weathered well at all. The interior tray is also quite flimsy and requires careful removal of the figures if you’re planning on keeping it all together. I usually do save the packaging on my SDCC Exclusives, but in this case, I’ll likely deep six this beast of a box. The size alone will make it difficult to store, but when you toss in how fragile it is, I’m willing to give up on it now and save myself the grief.

Kicking things off with Luke Cage, he is probably the least interesting figure in this set, but a welcome addition to my collection nonetheless. He comes sporting his modern look with his yellow top and Thunderbolts emblems on the shoulders, sculpted wrist bracers and heavy boots. A friend and fellow Legends collector clued me in on the fact that Cage is built off the body used for the recent Hyperion release, a figure that I have yet to pick up. It certainly explains the cape holes in Cage’s back. It seems like Hasbro could have been bros and plugged those unsightly things, but whatever. I think the body works well for Cage and while I know some people take issue with the proportions on this figure, I’m pretty happy with him.

Early photos of the set had him sporting a huge noggin, but thankfully it was fixed for the release. Again, I know some collectors are still grousing about it being too big, but at this point I think we’re splitting hairs. This is a pretty heavily muscled buck and it needed a suitably sized head. The sculpt itself is pretty good, although it’s worth pointing out that he has a dent in the side of his head that appears to be part of the molding process and not unique to my figure. That would probably explain the angry expression. “Sweet Christmas, someone kicked me in the head!” The paint is ok, but not exceptional. There’s a stray bit of black on his jaw and he the paint for the beard doesn’t quite match up to the sculpt. It looks fine so long as you don’t scrutinize it too closely.

The articulation on this figure is standard for the line and yet still so satisfying and fun to play around with. The neck features both a hinge and a ball joint. The arms have ball joints in the shoulders, double hinges in the elbows, and swivels in the biceps and wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, double hinges in the knees, hinges and rockers in the ankles, and swivels in the thighs and boots. He can swivel at the waist and has an ab crunch in the torso.

Luke Cage is a solid figure, but for me he’s not the most exciting release around. He also won’t satisfy fans looking for a mainstay version of the character for their shelves. But this is an exclusive set, so he should be a niche figure rather than the definitive Legends Luke Cage. Either way, he is definitely not one of the figures that made me shell out $90 for the set. Tomorrow, we’ll start getting into the good stuff with a look at Ghost and Judith Chambers.