Last time on Marvel Monday, I started in on the Red Skull/Onslaught Wave with a look at Cottonmouth. Today I’m pressing on with the figure that shares that figure’s slot, or at least would be sharing it if they were actually variants and Hasbro was still making running changes in these cases. And thank God they stopped that shit, eh? Anyway, the other half of the “Forces of Evil” is the mutant Whirlwind, and I was pretty happy to see this guy make an appearance in Legends.

The box is literally identical to the one we saw last time, with the character name absent from the front. This wave is branded under “Captain America,” complete with a shield emblem on the top flap and blue-filtered images of Whirlwind on the right panel and Cottonmouth on the left. It’s collector friendly, but thankfully I convinced myself not to try saving all my Legends packages because if I did, I’d have an entire wall of my living room covered in them. Wait… Actually, that sounds pretty cool.

I’ve always loved Whirlwind’s design. He’s that right mix of screwball goofy, but still realistic enough to take serious. You don’t snicker at a guy in a costume if he’s coming at you with buzz saws. I think he would fit right in guest starring as some kind of crazy Super Saiyan villain in a live action Japanese series or just duking it out with the Power Rangers. The costume is basically a metallic gray body suit with reinforced green armor bands around the torso and those buccaneer boots that comic characters are so keen on wearing. Oh yeah, he also has those spinning saw blades on his wrists! I’ll bet it took all of Hasbro’s collective resolve not to put a spinning torso gimmick into this guy. Oh, you know they wanted to!

Damn, Whirlwind’s packing a tight little bottom! Yup! Anyway, the two-tone coloring is very simple, but extremely well done. Yeah, there’s some of that annoying swirly pattern in the gray plastic, but it’s not so bad that it bothers me like it did with the comic version of Ultron from several waves back. It’s just really nice to get a figure with some actual sculpting in the body, rather than just a painted on costume.

The head features Whirlwind’s bucket helmet, and while this no doubt required a lot less effort than a full on face sculpt, I’m happy to say Hasbro didn’t cut any corners. The eyes and lips visible through the holes in the helmet are good enough to convince me there’s a fully sculpted head under there, even though I know better. The metallic green finish matches the armor bits on the body and really makes for an attractive finish.

The saw blades on the wrists are removable, as they simply peg into place. It’s a cool feature and one that I didn’t even notice until one of them popped off as I was playing around with him. It would have been neat if he came with an extra pair.

The articulation here is quite good. The arms feature rotating hinges in the shoulders and wrists, double hinges in the elbows, and swivels in the biceps. The legs have ball joints at the hips, double hinges at the knees, hinges and lateral rockers in the ankles, and swivel cuts in the thighs. It seems like there are swivels at the tops of the boots, but mine won’t give and I’m afraid I’m going to twist them off. The torso features an ab crunch hinge and a swivel in the waist. Finally, the neck has a ball joint, but because of the helmet, it really only allows for rotational movement of the head.

No doubt about it, this figure is as solid as they come. He’s loads of fun to play around with and he and Cottonmouth make for a wonderful looking pair of costumed bastards. The paint is fantastic, the coloring is great, the joints are sound, and he has more original sculpting than most of the figures we’re getting in Legends these days. Sure, some may quibble about why are we getting characters like “A” when we still haven’t got a good version of “B,” but I say keep the villains coming, Hasbro. Figures like Whirlwind are exactly the type that I want to populate my shelves so the more the merrier is my motto. Also, I’ve now got both of Red Skull’s meat hooks!