It’s Week Four of my Monday romps through the recent X-Men Wave of Marvel Legends and today I’m knocking out two figures in one Feature. No disrespect to either of these characters or figures, but I’m seriously backlogged on opening my Legends toys and with eight figures plus the Build-A-Figure this wave is a tall drink of water. I’m not complaining, Hasbro, keep them coming! In the end, I think I can do justice to both Havok and Iceman in one shot, because while they are both excellent, they are relatively simple figures.

Once again, the packaging for this wave feels special to me. The bold X-Men logo on the front and the X-symbol on the top panel advertise a wave that given the current state of the comics, shouldn’t exist. The yellow and black deco is striking and you get some beautiful character art on the side panels. Normally, I don’t mind tossing out my Marvel Legends packages, but in this case, I wish I had the space to keep them. Havok and Iceman are two more examples of the great character selection in this wave. Both received the Universe 3.75-inch treatment, but it’s long past time they landed in the modern Legends 6-inch line. Let’s start with Havok…

Havok features his modern look, or at least it’s one of the most recent costumes that I recognize. Granted, I know this look best from the pages of Cable & X-Force and that’s got to be nearly five years old already, so I guess modern is a relative term. Dark and simple is the style on display here and while I dig it, I do prefer the look with the lit lines feeding into his chest. Nearly the entire costume is conveyed through minimal paint on a black buck. In fact, from the neck down the only original sculpting here are the cuffs of his silver gauntlets. You get some more silver striping on his boots, and partially around his waist. The costume is wrapped up with the blue emblem on his chest. This version of Havok was an easy figure for Hasbro to do, no doubt, but it still looks solid.

The head sculpt is quite good. Alex sports a stern and determined look, like maybe he’s sick of Scott’s shit again. The paint lines between the flesh and the black mask are sharp, and the silver bands on his head are crisp.

A rundown of the articulation here shows pretty standard stuff for the modern Legends line. The arms feature rotating hinges in the shoulders and wrists, double hinges in the elbows, swivels in the biceps. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, double hinged at the knees, have swivels in the thighs and lower legs, and the ankles feature both hinges and lateral rockers. The torso has a swivel in the waist, an ab crunch hinge, and the neck is both ball jointed and hinged. He’s lots of fun to play with, but damn, those ratchets in his shoulders are tight!

Havok comes with a pair of effect parts to simulate his ability to shoot plasma blasts. They’re similar to the hocus-pocus effects we got with Scarlet Witch and Dr. Strange, but new sculpts with a subtle conical shame. I think they look damn good, and coming from someone who usually just tosses effect parts into the dreaded and bottomless Tote of Forgotten Accessories, that’s saying a lot! Moving on to Iceman…

Where Alex Summers got by with minimal sculpting and minimal paint, Bobby Drake gets it done with a surprising amount of new sculpting and virtually no paint at all! Hasbro wisely went the translucent route with this figure, something that they haven’t done in Legends since the Ghost figure in The SDCC Thunderbolds Exclusive set. I love translucent figures! Do I love photographing them? Oh, God no! When I do they always look like piss. In this case, the plastic is a little blued and a little chalky and it looks absolutely fantastic… in person. Honest, you’ll have to trust me on this one. The buck here is recycled from one of the recent Spider-Man releases, but you get new hands, forearms, and lower legs with some jagged ice effects, as well bare feet, which appear to be new pieces. There’s also a removable chunk of ice that plugs into his back.

A bitchin’ new head sculpt with white painted eyes rounds out this beautiful figure quite nicely. He’s also got a great little smirk.

The articulation here is almost identical to what we got with Havok. Iceman loses the extra swivels in the lower legs, but gains the lateral shoulder crunches. It’s a worthy tradeoff!

Havok and Iceman are great additions to a wave that is so good it’s downright… uncanny? It’s true that Hasbro didn’t break the bank on Havok. He’s a simple painted buck with a new head and that’s really all he needed to be. Iceman, on the other hand… well, I wasn’t expecting as much unique sculpting to go into him and the results are quite spectacular. With only three figures left to go, I’m beginning to believe this wave can do no wrong. Next Monday, I’ll be checking out another of the X-Ladies!