It’s that time again to start the reviews rolling on a brand new wave of Marvel Legends figures! By my count, I’m now FIVE waves behind in my reviews with the Warlock, Vulture Wings, Sandman, Man-Thing, and Gladiator Hulk Waves all before me. Oh yeah, and another SDCC set arrived in the mail over the weekend with an additional five figures. Hoo boy. I decided that I’m going to hold off on the Vulture Wave until we’re closer to when Homecoming hits Blu-Ray release, and the Gladiator Hulk Wave closer to when Ragnarok hits the theaters. So, let’s do the X-Men Warlock Wave next. And in the interest of getting caught up I’m going to look at one figure now and another one later on tonight.

I’m only going to have packaged shots for two or three of these figures, as I purchased most of this wave loose from a buddy online. I was worried I would have a tough time finding some of them through regular retailers, and I didn’t care much about building the Warlock BAF. As it turns out, the BAF parts were included anyway, and that was at least a nice surprise. Also a nice surprise was actually finding Cyclops at retail, as he’s supposed to be one of the tougher ones to find and is currently still going for $40+ on Amazon. I found him when I ducked into a Walgreens for coffee creamer. Go figure. And I’ll be honest, there was no way I wanted to pay a premium for Cyclops. Scott Summers isn’t one of my favorite characters, and the one thing that this figure really has going for me is that it’s the classic 90’s outfit. Honestly, while I still adore a lot of the characters, the truth is that the further away from the 90’s I get, the less I care about The X-Men as a comic.

But with all that preamble aside, I find this release to be a really solid figure with some annoying problems, and a lot of those problems have to do with all the bands and straps. Ahh, useless straps! They, were staples of 90’s comic art, but they don’t always transfer well to action figure form. So, for starters, Scott is built on a mostly blue buck and it’s a very snappy shade of blue. I like the build that they used for him, but this particular buck has some weird shoulders that show unsightly gaps and almost make it look like the arms weren’t meant for the torso. I’m pretty sure the yellow for his “undies, boots, and gloves is plastic as opposed to paint. Either way, it’s nice and bright and shows none of the bleed through that we sometimes see when lighter paint is applied over darker plastic. Yup, there’s no doubt about it, the coloring is one of this figure’s strongest points. Not only is it gorgeous, but it really takes me back to a time when I was a young adult making my way on my own, and the only things I had to cling on to simpler times of my childhood were comic books.

The belt and shoulder rig is one separate piece, which pegs together at the back. Overall, it looks pretty good on him and it more or less stays put. That’s a hell of a lot more than I can say for the rest of the belts. The two thigh straps have one sweet spot where they will stay put, but when I pose the figure, they tend to drift. They also look too bulky for my taste and I think maybe they would have been better off painted on. The straps at the tops of the boots have a similar problem. The wrist straps aren’t too problematic, but I’m pretty sure those are supposed to be part of his gloves, and that effect is ruined by the fact that the blue can be seen in the gap.

I like the head sculpt well enough. It’s a solid effort, but not extraordinary. The hair sculpt is particularly well done, and I really dig how the visor looks like it’s a separate and removable piece, even though it isn’t. My figure has a fair amount of mold flashing along the jawline, which I’ll have to shave off. I don’t know what it is with Hasbro and mold flashing lately, but I’m seeing more and more of it. Still, as far as QC issues go, that one is the easiest to fix.

The articulation here is quite good and fairly standard for modern Legends. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders and wrists, double hinges in elbows, and swivels in the biceps. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, have swivel cuts in the thighs and tops of the boots, and double hinges in the knees. The ankles have hinges and lateral rockers, the torso feature a waist swivel and an ab crunch, and the neck is both hinged and ball jointed. What’s more, Cyclops’ left hand is sculpted so that he can be made to operate his visor.

While I’ve got a couple versions of Cyclops in my 3 3/4-inch Marvel Universe collection, this is surprisingly his first appearance on my modern Legends shelves and as such he’s most certainly a welcome release. I know it sounds like I had a ton of issues with him, but in the end, I’m still willing to concede that he’s a solid figure, and thanks in particular to the great coloring, he looks fantastic on the she shelf. Come on back later on tonight, and we’ll check out Polaris!