As The Bangles once sang, “It’s just another Marvel Monday and that’s my fun day!” Or something like that. Yes, today I am closing in on the end of my look at the Thanos Wave of Hasbro’s Mavel Legends line. Spider-Woman is the last packaged figure that I have to open before moving on next week to the Build-A-Figure, Thanos. Sure, these parts are actually doubles of what came with Hellcat, so I could have already built Thanos, but I always save the BAF for last.

Here’s the gratuitous packaged shot. Sorry it’s such a shitty shot, but I bumped the camera and spilled my Jameson. Doesn’t matter. It’s basically the same packaging we’ve seen dozens of times now. If you were here last Monday then you might remember that Spider-Woman shares a slot with Hellcat as the “Ferocious Fighters!” which means that neither characters’ names appear on the front of the package. And like I just said, it also means that if you already own Hellcat that you don’t really need to buy this figure in order to complete your Thanos BAF, and vice versa. There’s been a big “to do” lately about how Black Widow has been snubbed in the Age of Ultron merchandise and a lot of people are making the connection to it being a trend with female figures in general. I’m not saying that’s not an issue, but in fairness Marvel doesn’t seem to have a big problem with getting us other Marvel ladies. In the last couple of waves we’ve had Hellcat, Captain Marvel, Scarlet Witch, Spider-Girl, two versions of Spider-Woman, and Agent Hill in the SHIELD 3-pack. The Hulkbuster Wave will have Valkyrie and Thundra, and we’re even getting a Legends version of Misty Knight. Seems to me like it’s personal, Natasha.

Out of the package, Jessica is looking mighty damn nice. We get a very shapely female buck with the costume mostly painted on. I feel like the red used for the costume could have been a little more vibrant and crimson, but I’m not hating what we got either. The yellow used for the gloves, boots, and accents really help the figure to pop on the shelf and the black borders are pretty sharp. There are a few minor stray black marks on my figure’s boots and a little visible brush work on her tummy, but otherwise, the paint really sells the costume splendidly.

Hasbro included the plastic web “wings” for under her arms, which was evident from the package shot. What I wasn’t expecting was a pair of collapsed wings as well. That was a nice surprise. These pieces simply tab into the slots on the back of her biceps. The textured plastic pieces have almost a GiTD quality to them, which is very effective, although I kind of miss the heavy handed black webbing pattern, especially since these are rather hard to see against a white backdrop.

The portrait here is a homerun. The lower half of her face is certainly pretty and her lips are well defined and neatly painted. The mask looks great with the large blank white eyes and the hair sculpt is superb and well worth the hit to the neck articulation, at least as far as I’m concerned.

Articulation here is quite good, so long as you can get past those ball jointed hips that require you to work the joint all the way around to attain certain poses. Apart from that you get rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, and wrists; Swivels in the biceps and thighs; The legs feature double hinged knees and hinged ankles with lateral rockers. The torso has a ball joint just below the chest and a ball jointed neck with no hinge. Sure, Spider-Woman is a pretty limber gal, and this figure isn’t going to be mimicking any maligned cover art we’ve seen recently, but for a Legends figure, it’s not at all bad.

Considering that I still own very few of my original Marvel Legends, I’m very pleased to be able to put Jussica Drew back on my 6-inch scale shelf. But even if I still had the old Toy Biz figure I think I’d still be quite happy for the upgrade. I don’t think the last version was quite as bad as some say, but then it’s been quite a while since I’ve had in hand and a lot of those figures haven’t aged gracefully. Next Monday I’ll put together The Mad Titan himself and have a look at this Wave’s Build-A-Figure… Thanos!

It’s another Marvel Monday and that means it’s time to open up another Legends figure. Today I’m going to check out the first of the ladies of this wave, Hellcat. Patsy Walker is an interesting character, or at least she has an interesting print history. She started life in a non-superhero comic and existed that way for almost three decades before being established as the alter ego for superheroine Hellcat sometime in the early 70s. I can’t say I’m a huge fan of her character, although I do really dig her costume, so much so that I came damn close to picking up her Bowen statue from a year or so back before the final production piece showed some unfortunate deviations from the excellent looking prototype. Fortunately, Hasbro stepped in and included her in the Legends line, thus allowing me to put her on my shelf for a lot less money.

Hellcat shares her slot in this Wave with another, in this case that other figure is Spider-Woman. These used to be running changes and it was often a bitch to find both of them on the pegs. Thankfully, Hasbro has since come to their senses and are now including both variants in the wave’s case assortment. Apart from making it far easier to complete the wave, all it means to the collector is that you’re going to have an extra set of BAF parts, in this case Thanos’ head. It also means that Hellcat’s name doesn’t appear on the front of the package. Instead all you get is “Fierce FIghters” and it’s not even in the usual place, but rather all the way down at the bottom in smaller multi-lingual print. This practice really fascinates me, especially when used with lesser known characters like Walker.

Hellcat is another one of those highly recycled figures and that’s more an observation than a criticism. At first I thought this was just the Ms. Marvel body, but that figure had bicep swivels and Hellcat doesn’t. Maybe they’re just different arms. Either way, this is a generic female buck with the costume painted on. And in this case, the paint is a bit problematic, because the bulk of the body is cast in yellow plastic, but the lower legs and feet are black with a little under the knee painted yellow. Unfortunately the paint doesn’t match. Also note the rather obvious use of the sash from Carol Danver’s Warbird costume.

At least the head is new and it’s a pretty good portrait. The mask is great and she has the pupil-less eyes just like I like them. I especially dig the way they did her hair. It spills out of the back of her mask and just kind of erupts down her back in a red fiery explosion. Nice!

Hellcat is a nimble little kitty and the figure does a nice job of conveying that through her articulation. The arms feature rotating hinges in the shoulders and elbows and wrists. The hinges on the wrists, however are oddly positioned so she can tilt her hands side to side, rather than front and back. Weird! The legs are ball jointed at the hips, swivel at the thighs, double hinged at the knees, and the ankles have hinges and generous lateral rockers. The torso features a ball joint just under her chest and the neck has both a hinge and ball joint.

Lest you thought I was done with the subject of parts sharing, it appears as if Hellcat stole Daredevil’s batons and painted them black. These are the same two rods that can be pegged together to form a longer fighting stick. I don’t remember ever seeing Patsy use anything like this, but I’m certainly not an expert on the character. I guess they kind of fit her, so I’m willing to give it a pass. Gosh, I’m in a generous mood today!

Yes, it seems like the subject of parts recycling is coming up more and more, and I’ll keep standing by my mantra. There’s nothing wrong with it so long as its done thoughtfully and it’s used to get us a figure that we otherwise might not have seen. I think those criteria mostly fit Hellcat. She’s a solid, albeit not spectacular figure and honestly, I’m just so surprised and pleased that we got her that I’m willing to overlook issues like poor color matching. Does that make me part of the problem? Maybe, but holy crap, there’s a Hellcat figure hanging on the pegs. Isn’t that worth a little recycling? To me it sure is. Next Monday I’ll check out Spider-Woman, the last figure in the Wave I need to open before building Thanos!

It’s Marvel Monday again and I’m down to the last two figures from the Allfather Wave. Today I’m a little pressed for time, so I’m taking a look at Sentry, because honestly, I don’t have a deep running relationship with this character. He’s certainly got some interesting stuff going on in his backstory, but I just don’t often bump into him in the books that I choose to read. Sentry was originally scheduled to appear as a running variant way back in the 2013 Hit Monkey BAF Wave, sharing the slot with Hyperion. As was often the case back in those days, the running variants didn’t always happen (although there are plenty of pictures of carded samples of this figure in the old style packaging floating around the InterTubeWeb) and so Hyperion was the only one of the “Conquering Heroes” to hit the pegs. This time around, Sentry is once again sharing a slot, this time with Machine Man as one of the “Avenging Allies.” Thankfully, Hasbro is doing things differently now and the variants are now being included as part of the standard case assortments.

I’ve got nothing much new to say about the packaging. It has the “Marvel” logo on top rather than the “Avengers” one and as already mentioned, the front of the package is labeled “Avenging Allies,” with Sentry’s name only appearing on the back panel with Machine Man’s and a very generic blurb about the two characters. Sentry is a pretty big boy and when you toss in Odin’s BAF arms, this tray comes packed with a lot of plastic.

Sentry appears to share most of the body that was used for Hyperion, which works for me. The only real changes to the costume sculpt are found in the boots, Sentry doesn’t have the cuffed tops, the cape, and Sentry sports his gigantic self-promoting belt buckle. The hands are also reversed between the two figures. Hyperion had the fist on the right and the holding hand on the left, wheras here it’s the other way around. I probably would have preferred both fists for Sentry. I really don’t need him holding anything, just punching. Anyway, the coloring on this figure is quite good. I always liked the pop of Sentry’s yellow and blue costume and it is most definitely well reproduced here. Hasbro sometimes has a habit of using some pretty shitty yellow plastic, but that’s not the case with Sentry’s buck and the paint apps are all nice and clean.

I really dig what Hasbro did with portrait here. It’s very detailed and loaded with personality. The hair is quite well done too. This is far better than what we got with the 3 3/4″ release, and I’m not just saying that because of scale change and quality of sculpt, but also from an artistic standpoint.

If you have Hyperion then you should know what to expect from Sentry’s articulation, but let’s run through it anyway. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders and fists, swivels in the biceps, and double hinges in the elbows. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, have swivels at the thighs and boots, double hinges in the knees, and hinges in the ankles. There’s an ab-crunch in the torso and the neck is both ball jointed and hinged.

Despite not being the biggest fan of Sentry around, my Marvel figure collecting addiction is all about universe building so I’m still very happy to get this guy in my collection. Sentry was also released a little while back in the Universe line as part of a New Avengers Comic 2-Pack, but that one passed me by so it’s nice to at least have him in the 6-inch scale. Sure it helps that I also get two more of the parts I need to build Odin, but I probably would have happily picked up this figure even if he wasn’t part of a BAF series.

Next week is going to be almost a straight Marvel Week. On Monday I’ll wrap up the individual figures in this wave with a look at Iron Fist. Tuesday, I’ll check out the BAF Odin, Wednesday I’ll look at the first figure from the Legends Thanos Wave, we’ll break for Transformers Thursday (Hey, Marvel used to do their comics, right?) and then Friday and Saturday I’ll feature the TRU Exclusive Agents of SHIELD 3-Pack.

Yes, I’ve re-launched Marvel Mondays to help me get through the stacks and stacks of Marvel Legends figures that are piling up around here. By my reckoning I’m now a little more than halfway through the Allfather Wave and I’ve got the Thanos Wave headed to me as we speak. Today we’re looking at Dr. Abel Stack’s pride and joy… Machine Man, or if you prefer his given name… Z2P4… wait… Z42P… Ah, screw it. He’s Machine Man! This is one of those characters that I rarely ever encountered in my meanderings through the Marvel funnybooks. I know about him only from my love of Jack Kirby and that he originally appeared in Marvel’s 2001: A Space Odyssey comic, but it’s been decades since I’ve actually read anything he appeared in.

Just like with Captain Marvel and Scarlet Witch, Machine Man shares his slot with another character, in this case Sentry. As a result, Machine Man’s name only appears on the back of the package. On the front this package simply proclaims “Avenging Allies.” I would take issue at the suggestion that Machine Man carries the same Avengers gravitas as Sentry, but then it’s just printing on a package that I’m going to throw away anyway, so what difference does it make? On the other hand, there’s absolutely no bio or blurb about the character, and I have to assume that this guy is going to be an unknown to most casual comic fans. MM is not a particularly large figure, but when you pack in his two interchangeable arms and the two BAF parts, the tray fills out quite nicely.

Straightaway, Machine Man feels a little cheap in hand. The elbow hinges are rather gummy and while his hip joints will support the figure with no problems, the torso will flop all over if you hold him by his legs and shake him. The costume is comprised of a generic buck with metallic purple and silver paint. The only original piece of sculpting from the waist down is the belt, which hangs loose around his waist. There are some rather pronounced seam lines on the figure too. I’m guessing the shaky feel of the figure has a lot to do with the plastic they had to use to get that nice glossy sheen. It’s not terrible, but it doesn’t stand up to some of the other figures in the wave.

The portrait is quite well sculpted and the design screams Jack Kirby’s handiwork. The angular contours of the helmet around his “flesh” look great, as do the pronounced red eyes.

Articulation is everything I’ve come to expect from this line. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders, double hinged elbows, and swivels in the biceps and wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, double hinged at the knees, and feature swivels both in the thighs and at the tops of the boots. The ankles are hinged and feature lateral rockers. The torso swivels at the waist, has an ab-crunch hinge, and the neck is both hinged and ball jointed.
In addition to the two BAF parts, Machine Man comes with two extended arms that can replace his fists. The extentensions are made out of bendible plastic that will more or less hold their shape, which makes for some fun play value.

While the quality feel of this figure is a little questionable, I can’t bring myself to hate on Machine Man. He looks great, just oozes that lovely Kirby charm, and the extended hands are a great addition to what is a super fun action figure. I also can’t deny how wonderful it is that Hasbro is willing to deliver characters like this to the mainstream pegs of the Big Box retailers, rather than just pack the shelves with the A-listers. Next Monday, we’ll check out the other one of the “Avenging Allies,” Sentry!

As promised on the last Marvel Monday, I’m back to check out the other half of the “Maidens of Might” slot in the Legends Allfather Wave. Of course, it is none other than Carol Danvers, aka. Captain Marvel. I’ve read the first two collected TPBs of her book last year and really loved what they were doing with it. Alas, Volume 3 was never forthcoming so it seemed like a lot of wasted potential. I also wish she’d taken more of a front seat in the Avengers: Infinity arc. But then Carol’s always been a favorite of mine even before she took on the mantle of Captain. To date she’s still the only Bowen Statue I own, I picked up the Target Exclusive 3-pack mainly to get her last Legends figure, and I have all three versions of her in the Universe 3 3/4″ Scale. Needless to say, I was super excited for this figure’s release.

I’m not going to dwell on the packaging because it’s virtually identical to what we saw last time. Again, the Captain Marvel name only appears on the back of the package, with the “Maidens of Might” moniker appearing on the front. Despite Carol being of fairly slight stature, that tray is packed to capacity with BAF parts, the extra masked Captain Marvel head, and an effect part. The BAF parts consist of the variant head, cape, and weapon needed should you desire to build King Thor instead of Odin. A variant Build-A-Figure? Could be you’ve gone too far this time, Hasbro, but I love it!

As one might expect, Captain Marvel’s costume is comprised almost entirely of paint work. In fact, other than the heads, the only piece of unique sculpting on this figure is her sash, which hangs loose on her hips. From the neck down, this figure is just a basic sculpted female buck, which works fine so long as the paint is nice and clean. Thankfully, that is most definitely the case with my figure. The bulk of the costume is a very dark navy blue with the boots and gloves painted red and yellow dots painted down the sides of them. Her yellow starburst and stripes are crisply printed and the red on the shoulders and upper chest is vibrant. The vertical yellow stripe bisecting her torso is a little off kilter, but nothing so bad that it takes away from what is an otherwise great paint job. The coloring here is just so shiny and vibrant it looks terrific.

Carol comes with her unmasked portrait on the figure and it is a fantastic piece of work. She’s pretty and bares a confident expression, which really personifies the character well. They did an especially nice job with her short hair as it’s sculpted to sweep upward in the back. The spikey look could have been a trainwreck if it wasn’t done right, but it looks fantastic, even from the back where she’s got a Sonic the Hedgehog thing going on.

The masked head is equally impressive. I’ll admit that it took me a little while to get used to Carol’s mohawk look, as it struck me more of a Shi’ar style than Kree. It’s probably just because I’m associating it with Gladiator. Nonetheless, it’s grown on me a lot in the comics and Hasbro did a fine job recreating it here. She has the same pursed lips as her unmasked head, completely white eyes, and the sculpting in her mohawk hair is fantastic. I especially like the profile of this head. The contours around the mouth and lips are just perfect.

Captain Marvel does a little bit better than Scarlet Witch in articulation, thanks to the swivels in her biceps, which Wanda lacked. Otherwise, we get the same points. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, and wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, double hinged at the knees, have swivels in the thighs, and both hinges and lateral rockers in the ankles. You also get a ball joint just under the chest and another in the neck. The joints are firm and she is loads of fun to pose.

The effect part consists of a big glob of translucent purple plastic that fits over her fist to suggest an energy blast, or that Carol has been raiding the jar of grape jelly. I said it last time, I’m not usually a big fan of Hasbro’s effect parts, but this one looks OK. Two would have been nice, but considering how much else is packed into this box, I’m not going to complain about it.

Maybe I’m just super biased here because I’ve been anxiously awaiting the chance to get the modern version of Captain Marvel on my shelf, but either way I gotta say this is one fantastic figure. Carol’s current costume looks fantastic and Hasbro hit all the right points bringing her to their 6-inch scale line. Everything from the coloring on the costume to the two excellent portraits elevates this one to my favorite figure in this Wave thus far, and I’ll tell you even with three figures left to open, Carol is going to be a tough one to beat! She looks particularly good displayed beside the Marvel NOW! version of Captain America. Call me crazy, but I might actually track down a second one of these just so I can display her with both heads and get that second effect part too.