Happy Friday, Toyhounds! I work a lot of weekends, so Fridays don’t always mean anything to me, but this time I have a three-day weekend lined up with nothing planned but to binge comics and video games while drinking lots and lots of alcohol! But before I can sign off, it’s time to wrap up this Marvel week with a look at another Legends boxed set. Hasbro knows to strike while the iron is hot and in this case that means getting some comic-inspired Ant-Man-themed figures out while the new movie is in the theaters. And I can’t praise Hasbro enough for being willing to mix so many comic characters in with the heavy hitters from the movies. Let’s take a look at Scott Lang as Ant-Man and his daughter Cassie as Stinger!

As with most Marvel Legends boxed sets these days, the figures come in a stylish window box, which offers a great look at the figures. You get the Astonishing Ant-Man logo on the bottom as well as the characters’ names, and some nice artwork on the side panels. The back of the box notes that the set is inspired by art in Astonishing Ant-Man #13 and there’s even a tiny shot of the cover as well. Let’s start off with Ant-Man…

Wow, this is a great looking costume and a great looking figure! The black and red deco looks sharp and the extra bits of metallic charcoal paint on the knees, belt, and collar really make the figure pop. Most of the original sculpting is found on the belt and collar and thanks to the use of this particular buck, Ant-Man has some unexpected shoulder crunches. It kind of sucks that we still don’t have a classic Hank Pym Ant-Man from this line, but getting Lang in this suit is quite possibly the next best thing.

The portrait here is also very well done. I really dig Scott’s smirk and the facial detail is sharp and well-defined. The chin guard is on soft plastic so it can be flipped up over his mouth, but it doesn’t really look like it’s meant to do that. You get a little of that swirly effect going on in the silver plastic used for his helmet, but all in all, I think the finish on the helmet here looks a lot better than what we got on the Scott Lang from Ant-Man and The Wasp. A little red paint on the eyes and ears, and those two antenna round out a great looking head sculpt.

Apart from those shoulder crunches, the rest of the articulation is right in line with what I’ve come to expect. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders and wrists, double hinges in the elbows, and 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 have both hinges and lateral rockers. There’s a swivel in the waist, an ab-crunch hinge, and the neck is both hinged and ball jointed. Unfortunately, this figure has serious problems with some loosey-goosey joints. Besides practically being a bobble-head, the ab-crunch is really loose too. It’s not enough to ruin the figure for me, but it does take what could have been nearly perfect and makes him flawed. Moving on to Stinger…

I’ll confess, I never thought we’d ever get a Cassie Lang figure, but here she is and she looks pretty good, just not quite as good as I had hoped. I really dig this purple and black costume, but the figure has some color matching issues that we’ve seen before. Hellcat comes instantly to mind. The lower torso doesn’t quite match the upper torso, and the paint used for the thighs doesn’t match the pieces where the legs are jointed to the hips. To make matters worse, the hinges in the shoulders aren’t painted to match the silver shoulder guards, they’re just left purple and it looks like a really bad oversight. Hell, even the image on the package shows them painted, but that’s why they always toss in that disclaimer that says, images may not match final product. I do really like the silver paint on her wrists and gloves.

Stinger uses upper wings that we’ve seen before, most notably with the comic version of Wasp. Of course, Wasp had four wings, Stinger only has two, but you can still see the holes where the smaller pair pegged in. These are cast in a very pale translucent blue and they look great. They attach with hinged pegs giving them a nice degree of articulation.

Like Ant-Man, Stinger’s head sculpt is fantastic. I love the design of the helmet and the silver finish looks good. I think they also did a really nice job on the lower half of the face. The above shot also shows the unfortunate black paint trail that’s on her neck and another black smudge on her right shoulder hinge. I have some confidence that these might come off, but the fact that they’re there at all is a shame.

In addition to the wing articulation, Cassie gets by with the usual articulation seen on the Legends ladies. That includes rotating hinges int he shoulders, elbows, and wrists. The legs are ball jointed with double hinges in the knees, swivels in the thighs and lower legs, and both hinges and lateral rockers in the ankles. She has a ball joint under the chest and her neck is both hinged and ball jointed.

This is a solid set, that could have been great if it weren’t for some unfortunate QC issues. Between the loose joints on Scott and the inconsistent coloring and paint flubs on Cassie, these just fall short of my expectations. Don’t get me wrong, I was excited to get this set, and I’m certainly not sorry I picked it up, but I can’t help but feel this pair deserved a little better. And considering how great most of Hasbro’s Marvel Legends have been lately, problems like these tend to stand out even more.