Monthly Archives: May 2019

May 16 2019

Marvel Legends (Sauron Wave): Sauron Build-A-Figure by Hasbro

Not much content last week, but if you knew what an achievement it was for me to find the time just to do this belated Marvel Monday on Wednesday, you’d forgive me. And who knows, maybe I can squeeze in a second review in this weekend, but I don’t want to make any crazy promises. Last time I opened Omega Red, the last figure in the Sauron Wave, and that means it’s time to cobble another Build-A-Figure together. I’ve been looking forward to completing Sauron for a while now, so let’s check him out…

When it comes to fun and crazy characters, Sauron ranks pretty high up there for me. Then again I’m usually biased toward anything related to The Savage Land. And appropriately enough, Sauron is a little different than your average BAF. He still requires the usual six pieces, four of which consist of the arms and legs, but the head is already attached to the torso and that sixth piece is his tail. And technically, the arms each consist of two pieces, as part of the wings are on detachable hinges to allow them to collapse. Hasbro could have easily milked this BAF for two more figures and packaged those wings separately. But despite the little change-up, this Build-A-Figure is still pretty easy to put together. And the results are indeed one of the most unique and interesting BAFs that we’ve had in a while.

Oh yeah, I’m in love! You know all those figures we get with just a bit of new sculpting and mostly painted costumes? Well, those are what allow for figures like this one. Sauron features a ton of new sculpting and unique parts, and is as much a love letter to collectors as we’re likely to see. The body is covered with sculpted scales, bumps, and all around great texturing. They even did a nice job sculpting the sinews and muscles in the arms and legs. There’s hardly any area on this figure that doesn’t feature some kind of detail. Even the primitive belt and pouches look great. And while the arms and legs mostly feature a chalky green skin tone, the chest is spruced up with some yellow highlights. The tail is cast in a soft plastic, so there’s some room for bending there, and it also helps to form a support as Sauron’s wings can make him a little back heavy with some poses. And hey… how about them wings?

Each wing is made of three pieces, which are designed to collapse inward and spread outward, based on Sauron’s arm movements. These work really well, and are a huge improvement over wings we’ve seen on some past Marvel figures, especially in the smaller 4-inch scale. I’m looking at you, Vulture and Falcon! And like the body, these wing pieces are positively covered with textured detail. The membranes show filaments crossing and crisscrossing each other, and there are even little places here and there where the membrane has worn through. The coloring is also fantastic, with the same green used for the body near the skeletal frame, and the membrane itself transitioning to yellow.

The portrait is also superb. You get more of the same scaly and bumpy skin texture, a pair of beady red eyes, and some nice color gradation as the skin tone goes from green in the back to a sort of yellow-ochre toward the tip of the beak. But the real show here comes when you open the articulated jaws and have a look inside that mouth. The individually sculpted and painted teeth frame a lumpy red tongue, which has a little curl at the end. Even among the admittedly small sampling of Pterodactyl Men action figures, Sauron here is oozing personality.

Normally the rundown of articulation on these Marvel Legends bores me to tears. It’s always serviceable, but almost always the same. Here we get some differences thanks to the unique nature of the character. The legs remain pretty much true to form, with double hinges in the knees, hinges and lateral rockers in the ankles, and swivels up near the hips where the legs connect. The torso features a ball joint just above the waist and under the abs. The head mounts on a neck stalk with a ball joint and the stalk being able to slide forward and back in a slot. The arms are ball jointed at the shoulders and wrists, with swivels in the biceps as usual, but only single hinges in the elbows. Finally, the larger wing pieces are pegged in so they can swivel.

No doubt about it, Sauron is one of the most unique BAFs we’ve had in a while, and definitely a prime example of a figure that could never have been executed as a pack-in, thereby making great use of the Build-A-Figure format. Hasbro went all out on this guy, and I have to imagine that even collectors who aren’t familiar with the character, will have to concede that this is one absolutely gorgeous figure.

May 6 2019

Marvel Legends (Sauron Wave): Omega Red by Hasbro

Hey, look! I showed up this week! I hope you weren’t waiting long. I’ve decided that if I can only manage one review a week this month (but I am aiming for better!), I’m going to keep the Marvel Legends love going, because that’s the one line where I’m backlogged the most. Although, with everything else piling up these past few weeks, everything is backlogged. So, no random grab this week, instead I’m going straight for the last figure I have to open in the Sauron Wave… Omega Red!

This bastard last graced FFZ back in 2014 when I reviewed the excellent 4-inch Marvel Universe version. It was a great figure, but even back in 2014 it seemed like Universe was getting steamrolled by Legends Now, that line is mostly just a memory that I keep in a box deep down in the bottom of the Toy Closet. Meanwhile, 6-inch Legends has become the dominant scale for true universe building. What a crazy, wonderful time it is to collect Marvel figures! Well, let’s open this asshole up and see if this bigger version is just as good.

Just as good? I’d say even better. Not to rag on the little guy, but I was in love with this figure the moment I got him out of the box. Or probably even before. To be fair, a lot of that comes from the character design, which I’ve always adored. This is every bit of that crazy, colorful, and bigger than life 90’s X-Men crack that I wish I could just inject right into my veins. And oh boy does it work beautifully as an action figure! OK, let’s give Hasbro the credit for executing it so brilliantly. Arkady is built on an appropriately beefy buck, which is a huge improvement over Red’s last Legends appearance. The bulk of the figure is cast in a snappy red plastic, with chalky white on the arms. New sculpting includes the massive knee and shoulder pads, harness, and the gauntlets which house his Carbonadium tendrils. I’ll circle back to those in just a bit. All in all, the costume here is just a nice mix of simple buck enhanced with add-on parts. I particularly dig the texturing in the shoulder armor and chest straps, as well as the painted bands on the canisters. The lick of silver paint on the gauntlets and kneepads looks great, as do the Omega symbols on the backs of his hands.

Hasbro continues to churn out some amazing portraits in Legends, and I tend to think the villains are among the best of the best. And here, Omega Red looks every bit the glorious monster that he is. He sports a frightfully wicked visage with his unsettling grimace and his face twisted into a snarl of rage. His blonde hair cascades down each side of his head and is partly kept in check with his red headband embossed with the Omega symbol. The rest of his coif is divided between spilling down his back and pluming out in a curiously placed ponytail. Arkady has always struck me as one of the more terrifying X-Men villains and this portrait lives up to my fears and expectations.

Omega Red’s tendrils allow for three display options. You can remove them entirely for a completely retracted look. You can put in the short ones, or you can go full-on Carbonadium mayhem with the really long ones. Both sets simply plug into the holes in the gauntlets, and you can use either one for either arm for extra display options.  Obviously, the longer tendrils are the most fun. They are cast in an extremely bendy plastic, which makes it easy to wrap them around other figures so Red can leach their energy.

And articulation adds to the fun too, because Omega Red features all those great points of poseability that I’ve come to expect in my Legends action figures. The legs have ball joints in the hips, double hinges in the knees, swivels in the thighs, and both hinges and lateral rockers in the ankles. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders and wrists, double hinges in the elbows, and swivels in the biceps. You get a swivel in the waist, an ab crunch hinge in the chest, and the neck is both ball jointed and hinged.

The only reason I can’t come away saying Omega Red is the hands-down best figure in this wave is because Bishop was in here too. And between the two of them, they make up for Hasbro’s rather dubious idea of cramming two novelty Deadpool variants into one assortment. If I were really pressed to pick a favorite, I would probably have to give the nod to Bishop, but there’s no shame in that for Omega Red, because it is really close, and both of them are absolutely fantastic figures. Now, normally I like to do a double feature when I get to the end of a wave and knock off the Build-A-Figure too, but it was a struggle for time just to get this one done, so right now I’m going to pencil the Sauron BAF in for next week. Because, if I get time to squeeze in another review this week, it’ll be something non-Marvel. Otherwise, I’ll see you back here next Monday. Fingers crossed.

May 1 2019

Marvel Legends (Sauron Wave) Deadpools by Hasbro

Real life continues to be a nightmare of a challenge for me and it definitely didn’t leave any time to write content for FFZ. This week I’ll be back to a light schedule, beyond that we’ll see how things go. Hopefully in a month or so, I can come back in full force. Obviously, I missed Marvel Monday, but with so many Legends left to open, I decided to just bump it to today. And since I technically missed two Marvel Mondays, let’s do two figures today. Time to check out some Deadpools!

One novelty Deadpool variant is fun, but packing two of them into one wave is a little much. And that’s coming from an unabashed Deadpool fan. I can only imagine how salty the non-fans are for having to buy these figures to complete their Sauron BAF. And surprisingly, neither of these saw the huge price drop at online retailers that I anticipated. On the flipside, these have been clogging the pegs in my local toy aisles for a while now. I guess we’ll start with Underpants Pool.

No-Pants-Pool lives up to his name as he’s fully-suited topside, but lacking a pair of trousers down yonder. I have to hand it to Hasbro, they really committed to this idea with a lot of new sculpting. It’s hard to believe we’ll see these legs turn up anywhere else, and as a couple of one-off parts, that makes it even more impressive. The arms and torso, we’ve seen before, but they are enhanced by the white boxer shorts with adorable pink hearts. We’ve seen the belt before, and that’s fine, as it’s a good sculpt and has the ‘Pool Logo painted onto the buckle. I have one gripe with the belt, but I’ll swing back to that in a bit. His nasty bare legs represent a medley of exposed muscles and sores. He’s got one nasty, sagging grey sock on his right foot and a pair of pink slippers on his tootsies.

One of the highlights of this figure is the new head, which has the mask drawn up over the nose to expose his shit-eating grin. Even if you don’t have a lot of use for this figure, it’s a nice consolation to get that head for one of the other ‘Pools in your collection. As always, the sculpt here is excellent, including wrinkles and stitch lines on the mask and a lot of detail in the skin and teeth. Very nice!

No-Pants-Pool comes with a pair of guns, a pistol and rifle, and these are the same sci-fi designs that we saw issued to Domino and Silver Sable. I like these a lot, and I’m happy to get them in black plastic. On the downside, the pistol isn’t compatible with the holster on the belt, so I would have rather just had a standard automatic pistol with this figure. Oh well, no big deal.

The articulation here is standard stuff. The legs feature ball jointed hips, double hinges in the knees, swivels up under the shorts, and both hinges rockers in the ankles. The arms have ball joints in the shoulders and wrists, swivels in the biceps, and double hinges in the elbows. There’s a swivel in the waist, an ab crunch hinge in the torso, and the neck is both hinged and ball jointed. Let’s move on to X-Pool.

Like any person, Deadpool craves inclusion, hence this self-made “X-MEN” costume. It sports the yellow spandex of the real X-Men outfits with some black with red trim. I dig the concept of this figure a lot more than the previous figure, but since this one is more or less a kit-bashed repaint, it isn’t nearly as impressive to me and I’m not going to spend a lot of time on it.

We’ve seen this buck before. If I’m not mistaken it’s mostly a reuse of the 90’s Deadpool right down to them shoulder crunches. The belt, sword rig, and swords are also recycled, this time from the recent X-Force Deadpool. There are extra bands on his wrists to make his hands look more like gauntlets, as well as similar rings around his legs to simulate the tops of his boots. All four of these pieces are held on by friction, so they are sometimes apt to slide around when playing with the figure.

X-Pool also comes with a rifle, and this too is recycled. We’ve even seen it included with Deadpool before. It’s a weird sci-fi design cast in soft rubbery black plastic, and definitely not one of my favorite weapons in the Legends arsenal.

Finally, you also get the head of Madcap, Deadpool’s sometime rival. It’s an amazing sculpt and includes a removable wide-brimmed purple hat. The inclusion makes for a great pose in the package, and I suppose you could always pop it on this figure as, what? Madcap impersonating Deadpool again? I don’t know. Hasbro seems to have adopted a weird pension for including heads with figures instead of releasing them with the actual figure.

When it comes down to it, I dig these figures, and I didn’t mind having to buy them to complete Sauron. I’m sure there are plenty of collectors out there who will feel otherwise, but I guess them’s the breaks when you’re collecting BAF parts. X-Pool definitely feels like the cheap cash-grab of the wave, but he’s still cool. As for No-Pants-Pool, well, it still amazes me how much work Hasbro put into him. I’m kind of hoping that Hasbro is all ‘Pooled out for a while, although I still have to pick up that one with the scooter and Dogpool. Oh yeah, today’s reviews also puts me only one figure away from completing Sauron, so if I get a chance to do any reviews next week, I’ll likely throw randomness to the wind and open up Omega Red so I can finish it up.