Well, in spite of a LEGO inspired detour on the last Marvel Monday, I’m finally here to open up the last figures in the Doctor Strange Wave of Marvel Legends. With how long it took me to get through this assortment, it’s surprising that there’s still a month left until the Blu-Ray release of the movie. I’m excited to get it on disc and give it another watch, because I was a little luke-warm on it when I saw it in the theater and I’m hoping that assessment will improve on subsequent viewings. Anyway, I’m doubling up today for obvious reasons, as we’re looking at the MCU version of Strange as well as the variant Astral Projection version of him.

Here we have what were the easiest and most difficult figures in the wave for me to get. The Astral Strange is clogging pegs everywhere and going for super cheap online. Regular Strange was nowhere to be found around here and I wound up having to pay a premium for him online. Craziness! Let’s start with him…

While I wasn’t in love with the movie, I adored the look of MCU Strange’s costume and I thought Cumberbatch did a great job with the character. I’m happy to say that Hasbro also did a great job with the 6-inch Legends version. Strange is built on an appropriately lean body with sculpted blue robes, the lower half of which are separate from the buck and sculpted as part of the rather intricate system of belts. There’s plenty of great detailing in his robes, from the texturing on those belts to the leather wraps around his sleeves. And even the smallest of the brass fixtures are painted. There are a few instances where the paint on my figure could have been tighter. For example, the belts, but there’s nothing here that’s really bad.

The Amulet of Agamotto is also a separate piece and hangs around his neck. I love that this isn’t sculpted as part of the buck and that it can be taken off and treated as an accessory.

The Cloak of Levitation can be removed and added without even having to pop off the figure’s head. Hasbro did a wonderful job with the Cloak right down to the painted fixtures that hold the neck straps. It sits on the figure in a very singular manner, draping heavily over the left shoulder, but its worn mostly off of his right. It works for a lot of great poses, but sometimes it feels a little too specific a sculpt to me.

No doubt, Cumberbatch is a very distinctive looking fellow, but in this case that seems to lend itself well to a recognizable portrait. I think this is a fantastic likeness and just an all around great head sculpt. Both the paint and the facial features are sharp and well defined.

The articulation here is good, but some of the joints can be a little tricky to work with. The rundown includes rotating hinges in the shoulders, wrists, and hips, double hinges in both the elbows and the knees, swivels in the biceps, thighs, and boots, and ball joints in the waist and both a hinge and ball joint in the neck. The ankles feature both hinges and lateral rockers. As expected, the lower half of the tunic inhibits some of that hip articulation, but you can still get him in a decent, wide stance. It’s worth noting that this figure can pull apart at the waist, so if you want you can remove the lower tunic piece. The figure looks fine without it and it allows for some better movement in the legs.

Strange comes with two sets of hands. There are accessory holding hands, which feel out of place on the figure, but are good for… well, holding his accessory, which I’ll get to in a second. The other, more appropriate hands are the oogity-boogity spell-slinging mitts. These looks great and will likely be displayed on my figure most of the time.

That accessory is a big magic effect wheel, which he can hold in either of the above mentioned hands. This piece is cast in a semi-translucent orange-yellow plastic and is a beautiful sculpt. I applaud Hasbro for giving us something new here and not just recycling the magic effect pieces we’ve been seeing a lot of lately. Of course, it’s nice to have a lot of those in my Legends accessory bin to lend to Strange if I want to. Let’s move on to Astral Strange…

I actually have next to nothing to say about this figure. It’s a straight re-cast of the figure I just looked at only in a rather striking pearlescent plastic. He doesn’t come with the Cloak, but he does have a repainted Amulet of Agamotto. To be honest, I think this idea sounds good on paper, but in practice, it just isn’t a very interesting figure, much less one that I would have purchased if not for needing the BAF piece. That’s saying a lot, because there are very few modern Legends figures that I feel that way about. I think this one would have been better relegated to the SDCC set with this slot going to Magick instead. Yup, I’m still bitter about that one.

In the end, I wound up paying $30 for the MCU Doctor Strange. I’ve had to do that before with Legends figures that were in high demand, but I’m actually surprised that was the case with this particular figure. That’s not to say I mind all that much. For starters, he is an excellent figure, but at the same time, a lot of the other figures in this wave were remarkably cheap, with three of them only costing me around $12 each. In the end, I made out alright even after having to pay a premium for this Strange.

I’m going to go off and recharge my magics and I’ll actually be back tomorrow to extend Marvel Monday one more day and finish off this wave with a look at the Dormammu Build-A-Figure. After that, I’ll be doing updates on Wednesday and Friday and then next week I’ll be starting in on a new routine of updates on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday!