Where am I at with Marvel Legends these days? Well, still being extremely picky over new releases and buying others as they hit clearance. Case in point, with the new Zabu Wave, I only preordered one figure and as you can tell by the title, it was Cable. I may pick up Black Winter and Wolfsbane, but that’s all I’m really willing to pay full price for out of this assortment. We’ve had three versions of Cable released in the modern Legends line: One in the Sasquatch Wave, One in the Juggernaut Wave, and the MCU Version. One might think I’d be all Cabled out, but there was no way I was passing on him in the iconic blue and yellow jammies.
We’ve been back to the window boxes for at least a few waves now. Maybe more… I haven’t been watching too closely. The package let’s you get a great look of the figure and accessories, as well as part of Zabu’s leg, which kind of looks like fried chicken. There’s some nice character art on the side panels and the back shows you who you need to buy to complete the wave.
And here’s Cable all decked out in The Team’s colors and looking sharp as all hell! Hasbro gets away with using a mostly generic buck, with the obvious exception of the cybernetic left arm. The bulk of the body is cast in blue plastic, with the boots and feet cast in yellow and a little paint above the lower leg swivel to help the boots reach up to the sculpted knee pads. And they did a pretty decent job of matching the yellow paint to the plastic, which couldn’t have been all that easy as it was going over blue. The belt and shoulder straps are all one piece, cast in soft plastic and worn by the figure. This includes some sculpted pouches and the black on red X symbols on the belt buckle and up high near his shoulders. Finally there are a pair of wrist cuffs and thigh straps with more pouches, all cast in soft plastic and worn by the figure as well. The thigh straps stay put pretty well by friction, but you have to be careful of those wrist cuffs when swapping hands. All in all it’s a clean and simple comic look and the blue and yellow deco is positively smashing!
The head sculpt is new and I’d definitely rank it as at the top of my list of Hasbro’s best. The skin tone looks great, especially with the ever so subtle dusting of whiskers. His manly chiseled features include a slab of chin and a strong jawline, some wonderful creasing in his brow, and the distinct folds running from his nose and framing his dour, downturned mouth. The left eye has a techno-organic glow created by a burst of translucent yellow plastic, similar to the figure from the Sasquatch Wave. And boy did they do a great job with the grizzly crisscrossing scars over his right eye. Finally, his white coif is cast as a separate piece of plastic, which gives us that immaculate hair line that I love so much. I can’t say enough great things about this portrait, Hasbro positively nailed it!
This figure holds no surprises when it comes to articulation, as he has all the usual points. One thing that is a tad disappointing is the use of pins in just the right arm. The legs are pinless, as is the cybernetic arm, so at least we’re three out of four, but having one throwback limb is a shame. On the upside, I really love the work they put into the cybernetic arm sculpt with the ribbons of metallic muscle. The finish is really nice too. You get two sets of hands, which include a right fist, a left graspy hand and a pair of gun-toting hands.
And yes, you get guns! These are both interesting sculpts with a futuristic sci-fi flavor, kind of halfway between big pistol and short rifle. One has a double-barrel and the other has what looks like a chaingun barrel. They are each cast in that sort of cheap looking gray plastic Hasbro rolls out now and again, with some black paint hits. I like them both well enough, but I would have liked them more with some silver paint. I also would have liked to see a BFG-style rifle here, but I can always loan him one from a previous Cable.
Cable here is proof positive that Hasbro can still tempt me with full price Marvel Legends, and also impress me when I do decide to buy them. Granted, I was the target audience for this figure, because I’ve been wanting a classic blue-and-yellow suit Cable for a while. Yes, the pins in the one arm are nagging me a bit, and the guns could have been a bit more spectacular, but there’s still a lot to love here. The head sculpt is an absolute homerun and the blue and yellow plastic pops beautifully. Plus, he’s just loads of fun to play with. So much so, that this figure will be probably stay on my desk within arm’s reach for at least a week or so before he finally Body Slides over to the display shelves.
FigureFan Zero 