It’s been a while since I reviewed a wave of Marvel Legends that was anything even remotely current, so to switch things up a bit, I thought I’d tackle the Crimson Dynamo Wave, which is also sort of the unofficial sponsor of the as yet unreleased Black Widow movie. Sure, only about half the figures are from the movie, but that’s close enough. And thanks to movies being delayed because of The Coof, I’m actually getting to review these figures before the movie is out! Seriously, Disney, you should have just dumped this thing on your streaming service. You’re probably going to wind up having to do that anyway. But I digress… let’s start with one of the comic-based figures.

It’s Crossbones! And this is my second comic-based Crossbones figure from Modern Legends. The previous one was released as part of the Thunderbolts SDCC boxed set. I was quite pleased to see that this one isn’t just a repackage, but rather a brand new figure. It’s also pretty cool to finally be getting the comic version of the character in a wide-released retail wave and not just part of a limited exclusive set.

Crossbones uses one of the bigger than average Legends bucks, and he’s looking ready for action and as iconic as ever with a costume that is mostly just painted onto the figure. He has plain black trousers and a tank-top with his crossed bones emblem painted onto the chest. His boots are sculpted with studs on the soles and are painted in a high gloss black, which make them stand out from the rest of his outfit. And lastly, his hands have finger-less gloves painted onto them. It’s a clean comic look that distinguishes him from the more realistic detailed sculpt of the previous release.

The costume also includes a brown belt, sculpted in soft plastic, with two holsters secured to his thighs with straps. There are sculpted pouches running around the length of the belt and tiny sculpted buckles in the thigh straps. Finally, he has a pair of brown wrist cuffs, which are also lined with tiny sculpted pouches.

Crossbone’s head consists of a rather stylized skull motif painted onto his hood. It’s sharp, with hardly any bleed through from the underlying black, and looks fantastic. The loose ends from where the mask is tied behind his head trails off behind his right shoulder.

There are no surprises to be found in the articulation. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, have double-hinges in the knees, and swivels at the thighs and the tops of the boots. The ankles have both hinges and lateral rockers to accommodate those wider stances. The torso swivels at the waist and has an ab-crunch hinge under the chest. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders and wrists, swivels in the biceps, and double-hinges in the elbows. Finally, the neck is both hinged and ball jointed. The joints all feel solid, but I do have to report that those holsters do inhibit the hp movement just a little bit.

You get two pairs of weapons with this figure. The first is an awesome matched set of what I presume to be double-barrel shotgun pistols. These are cast entirely in black, and both of his hands are sculpted with trigger fingers so he can hold them perfectly. It is, however, really tough to get them into his hands because the plastic is really stiff. Either way, I love these things and they look like the perfect weapons for Crossbones to wield. It’s too bad they couldn’t have rigged him up with some holsters for these on his back, or maybe made the hip holsters work for both sets of weapons.

The second set of weapons is a pair of silver sci-fi-style pistols, which fit into the holsters on his belt. And man, I’m just not digging these things at all. I think the designs are just fine, but they feel out of place with Crossbones. They’re also molded in that kind of shitty plastic that we just saw used on Union Jack’s weapons. I think these will be spending most of the time in the holsters for sure.

Crossbones was a great choice for a new figure, especially since a lot of collectors probably missed out on the exclusive one. At the same time, since he’s a different enough take on the character, I don’t mind having another version in my collection. This one is cleaner and simpler than the exclusive version, and as a result strikes me as something a little more classic in design. He’s pretty fun to play around with, and I love those shotguns, I just wish they had given him something better than those silver guns. Next Monday, I’ll check out one of the movie figures!