If you stopped by last Friday only to find no new content, I offer my apologies. It was a busy work week, which flowed right into a working weekend. But now it’s Monday and I have a couple of days off to spend some time opening some toys! And it’s one of those Marvel Mondays, where I can sit back, have a pour of Jameson, light up a fine cigar, and reap the rewards of having dutifully purchased all the little plastic people in a Marvel Legends Wave. Sure, I was going to buy them anyway, but now I can finally assemble the Build-A-Figure, and in this case, it’s a three-headed mutant-hunting robot freak! Let’s take a look at the Tri-Sentinel!

While this guy’s design is a tad unconventional, he’s not all that different from most BAFs. You get a torso, four limbs, but in this case three heads instead of one. And yet with a total of eight pieces, they still stiffed Wolverine and gave him BAF parts at all! Tri-Sentinel goes together just fine right up until I got to those heads and then things turned into a nightmare for my pour thumbies. The heads are on ball joints and getting them into the sockets required a nightmare or pressure. At one point, I thought the problem was that each head was designed for a specific socket, but nope, I just wasn’t pressing hard enough. You’d think with all the video games I play, my calloused thumbs would have been better suited to the task, but apparently they are still soft and delicate. Anywho… As you may have already surmised, this isn’t Loki’s Tri-Sentinel, but rather the Theta Sentinel. Why’d they change the name? Who the hell knows! I’m pretty sure, this guy is original to the House of X/Power of X stories. At the very least I can say that it’s the first time I encountered the design.

And what a slick design this is! Like most technology (except for maybe televisions), Sentinel tech seems to get smaller as it gets more advanced. And while Theta Sentinel has some significant height on most regular Legends figures, it isn’t the towering, bulky arsenal-type Sentinels of old. Quite the contrary, this fellow has almost organic in his curves, and he’s super lanky in the limbs. I love me some spindly robots, because it just makes them creepier and more realistic when you know there’s no way it could be a guy in a suit. Unless it’s Doug Jones. I’m pretty sure that guy could fit into anything. This Sentinel does have some bulk in the upper torso, and those flared shoulders give him an aggressively stylish look. I also dig how the upper body tapers to such a narrow connection to his hips. He’s also got some seriously long claw-like hands, which are intimidating enough to make Lady Deathstrike take a second look!

I absolutely love the deco on this guy. The metallic purple and silver contrasts nicely with the matte black. It’s only a little bit reminiscent of the old Sentinels. Maybe just enough to get a whif of familiarity, while still looking new and fresh. It looks like all the paint lines are incorporated into the sculpt, which is always a good thing. Otherwise, there aren’t a lot of panel lines or other busy details in the Sentinel’s armor, which serves to drive home its advanced futuristic look.

The three heads are damn creepy, with what I can only describe as techno-skulls for faces. All three faces are identical with elongated mouth pieces and narrow, angry red eyes. Their heads are capped off with what could be considered a more stylized version of the old Sentinel caps. The heads all connect to an exposed area of the upper body, which is sculpted with some really nice detail, giving us a glimpse at the mechanisms under the purple armor. Ironically, as difficult as it was to get the heads in, they tend to pull out when I try to manipulate them. As a result, I find the ball joints they connect with to be too frustrating to use as a point of articulation. Instead, I tend to just turn the head where it connects to the stalk. It’s serviceable, but also a shame that I can’t get much use out of the ball joints.

And speaking of articulation, despite his rather unique design, Theta Sentinel has most of the usual points. You get rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, and wrists. There’s a swivel in his waist. His legs have rotating hinges in the hips, double hinges in the knees, swivels in the thighs, and both hinges and lateral rockers in the ankles. He’s pretty nimble, and while it can take a little practice to get him to stand, he’s actually a bit better balanced than I expected him to be.

As far as Build-A-Figures go, this one was a real treat to finally get together. I kind of wish Hasbro released this figure as a Deluxe, because I wouldn’t mind having a couple more of them. Sure, we’ve seen Hasbro re-release BAFs as single packaged figures before, but somehow I doubt that’ll be the case with this one, so I’ll just be happy with the one I have for now.

And that wraps up this wave! It took me a while to get through it, but was worth it in the end. It was actually fun to be able to review some Legends that were based on a fairly modern book that I actually read for a change. As much as I can’t stand the direction Marvel has taken these days, Hickman will always bring me back to the fold. And this was a damn solid wave of figures. Indeed, the only one in the batch that I would consider a letdown is Marvel Girl, and that’s just because of her restricted leg articulation, which not only makes her no fun to play with, but she really can’t even stand up without looking awkward. And that’s a shame, because the sculpt and colors are pretty tight. I may be starting a new wave next Monday, or I may be detouring to check out something of the Hot Toys variety. We’ll see how much time I have on my hands, between now and then!