Happy Monday, Toyhounds. Things got a little derailed last week, so I’m trying to get back on track and actually looking at what’s landed on my doorstep over the last few weeks. It’s hard to believe that it’s already been two weeks since I looked at Star-Lord and I do believe a return to the Marvel Legends Guardians of the Galaxy figures is long overdue. Today we’re looking at Drax the Destroyer!

As expected, Drax comes in a compact window box that can also hang on the pegs. Have I noted yet how odd I think it is that the flaps on these boxes are never taped? Well, they’re not. It must make it a lot easier for toy brigands to steel figures, BAF parts, and accessories. Drax doesn’t come with nearly as many extras as Star-Lord did, but his big bulk and the Groot BAF part fill up that tray quite nicely. I’ve got a pretty good idea from the trailers how the movie is going to treat most of the characters, but Drax is still a bit of a mystery to me. I’m really excited and curious to see how they’re going to handle him.

And there’s Drax in all his movie glory. Yes, this is actually the second time we’ve seen Drax in the modern Marvel Legends line, but this is the first time we’re getting the character as part of a complete team. The first thing I need to point out on this guy is that all of his tattoos are actually part of the sculpt, and I think that is amazing. It would have been so easy for Hasbro to reuse the old Drax body and paint him up, but they are clearly going all out for this wave. The pattern that covers his torso and extends to his arms and face is crazy complex and the combination of sculpt and paint make what could have been a pretty ordinary figure into a stand out deco. The pants feature a ton of sculpted detail as well and the boots are fantastic and even feature functional sheathes for his knives.

The portrait here has a passing resemblance to wrestler Dave Bautista in the Drax makeup. Either way, it’s definitely a well fleshed out sculpt with impressive definition to the facial features and more of those awesome tats.

Drax’s articulation is pretty much perfect for this line. The arms are ball jointed in the shoulders, double-hinged at the elbows, have swivels in the biceps and swivels and hinges in the wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, double-hinged at the knees, have swivels in the thighs, and the ankles have both hinges and rockers. Drax can swivel at the waist, he has an ab crunch hinge in the torso and the head has both a hinge and a ball joint. On the downside, my Drax’s right elbow was stuck and I had to do some boiling. The hinge on the forearm gave it up pretty easily, but I’m still working on the hinge in the bicep.

In addition to the Groot BAF part, Drax comes with his two trusty daggers and these are very cool pieces. They’re each cast in simple silver plastic with no other paint operations, but they do have ornately sculpted handles and some decorations etched into the blades.

When Hasbro suggested that the Infinite Series of Marvel Legends would be more of a premium line of figures, I sure had my doubts. I think we saw glimmers of that coming to light in the Winter Soldier Wave and not so much in the Amazing Spider-Man 2 Wave. But here, in the Guardians of the Galaxy Wave, I think it’s on full display. Drax offered Hasbro many opportunities to cheap out, but they rose to the occasion and delivered a truly excellent figure. Just because of the simple nature of the character design, I thought it would be difficult to make a Drax figure that matched Star-Lord, but they stepped up. Stuck joints aside, Drax is a fantastic addition to this wave, and I’m all the more excited to keep opening these figures and assembling the team on my shelf. I’ll swing back to this series again on Friday with a look at Gamora.