Tag Archives: marvel legends

Jan 30 2023

Marvel Legends (Bonebreaker Wave): Sabretooth and Bonebreaker Build-A-Figure by Hasbro

This is it, folks. It’s the last Marvel Monday and I’m wrapping up my look at the Bonebreaker Wave. Sabretooth gives me the last pieces I need to cobble together my half-tank, all bad-ass Reaver, Bonebreaker, and I am pretty damn excited about that. As for the end of Marvel Monday? Well, I’ll swing back to say a few things about that at the end.

Here’s Sabretooth in the package, and this is actually the third time I’ve added this character to my collection since Legends returned. The first was as part of the Apocalypse Wave, which I don’t think I ever got around to reviewing here, and the second was as part of the Age of Apocalypse themed Colossus Wave. I don’t really mind, because he’s come in a few different shapes and sizes over the years, but this one sticks fairly closely to the characters’ original roots.

And to be honest, I don’t have a whole lot to say about him, other than there’s some things that makes me like him more than the Apocalypse Wave version and some that fall short. Comparisons are tough because it’s too different takes on the character, and I think my preferences falls somewhere in-between. Taken on his own, I dig the proportions here, especially the huge claw hands, which give him an eerily long reach, and the furry fringe on his collar, forearms and lower legs all look great. The feet have fully realized claws, which is a first for him in this line, and makes him look a lot more intimidating, especially the way his fingers and toes pop out of the gloves and, um… socks? I can’t say I ever remember his fingers and toes being colored like that in the comic panels, but I’m certainly no expert on Sabretooth’s appearances. The rest of the costume is just painted buck, which features a pleasing yellow-orange with some brown undies and a brown stripe running up the middle.

The head sculpt is pretty good, but not as bat-shit savage as the Apocalypse Wave version. Still, he looks plenty angry and scary. The definition in the face sculpt is quite good with plenty of lines and creases as he bares his teeth in rage. Ironically, it’s the teeth that I think lets the sculpt down the most, as they’re rather soft and lack the definition in the rest of the face. It’s even kind of hard to make out his fangs at all, as it kind of just looks like a bunch of white mush. In that sense, I’d say it’s a step down from that earliest release. Still, I overall like the portrait and the hair is especially nice.

The articulation is fine and Sabretooth is fun to play around with. It’s a shame we couldn’t get him with the shoulder crunches that we saw in Havok, Vulcan, and Darwin. Still, I think this guy turned out pretty great and as the last packaged figure for Marvel Monday, I certainly could have done worse.

Since I didn’t review the earliest release, here’s a quick comparison. I like the costume on the earlier figure the best, with the wide brown stripe down the middle and the fur collar that doesn’t connect. On the other hand, I wish he had the foot claws. They’re both decent figures, and intentionally different takes on the character, but I think I’m going to give the nod to the Apocalypse Wave version. OK… let’s move on to Bonebreaker!

Hell yeah! Just look at this magnificent bastard! While each Build-A-Figure has its own charm, there is a certain amount of sameness to them. You get a torso, you get arms, legs, and a head, and sometimes one or two additional pieces. Bonebreaker shatters that with his half-tank, half-humanoid design. The parts consist of the two halves of the tank chassis, the two barrels on the back, the engine, a net-cover for the back, the upper torso with the arms attached, the head, and the sort of pelvic piece that connects the torso to the tank chassis. Pop it all together and you get the most unique BAF that modern Legends has put out!

The detail on the chassis is absolutely fantastic! It’s got textured plates and panels, scrapes and scars and weathering, and while the tank treads don’t actually roll, they’re actually separate soft plastic bands and not sculpted with the wheels as one piece. The detail in the engine alone is superb, and even the barrels on the back have some pits and pockmarking. There are two opened hatch doors where Bonebreaker’s body attaches, and a machine gun poking out the front of the chassis. You also get a pair of foot pegs near the back for other figures to catch a ride! Egads, I love this!

The upper body also sports some great new sculpting in the form of the five-point chest harness, wrist cuffs, and the neck collar.

You’d think being half a tank would be all the personality Bonebreaker needs, but Hasbro also packed plenty into this head sculpt. Bonebreaker has his mouth agape in a ridiculous joyful expression that shows how much he’s loving life and carnage. His flamboyant mohawk flutters a bit in the breeze, and his cool black shades can be flipped up or removed entirely to show off his lovely Reaver eyes. Every damn thing about this portrait is an absolute homerun!

The torso includes all the usual articulation, with a hinged ball joint in the neck, a swivel at the waist, and an ab-crunch hinge under the chest. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders, swivels in the biceps, double-hinged elbows, and hinged pegs for the hands. You get two pairs of hands, which include a set of fists and a set to hold his rifle. The rifle itself is a wonderful sculpt that’s simply packed with detail.

It’s impossible to imagine a better Build-A-Figure to end Marvel Mondays with. Hasbro just poured the love into this figure in terms of sculpt, design, and coloring, it all comes together into one absolutely unique figure, and it’s hard for me to imagine them ever outdoing this one. Now that I have him assembled and in hand, it even forgives what seemed like an over abundance of budget figures in this assortment. Quite frankly, I’m fine with whatever Hasbro had to do to make this work!

And there we are, Marvel Monday has had a great run here on FFZ. I started it because Marvel Legends was so damn prolific, that I needed to lock myself into one Legends review a week or else I would get hopelessly behind. And even with that schedule, I still managed to develop quite a backlog. I can’t stress enough that I’m not done reviewing Marvel Legends figures here on FFZ, nor am I completely calling it quits on collecting the line. I have no bad feelings about the line, other than the price hikes, which have been a factor in this decision. Sure, I spend a lot more than $25 on other figures, but at that price it doesn’t seem like the value is consistently here anymore. And with a single Spider-Man Legends figure hitting $36, it seems like it’s time to send a message to Hasbro. But even without the price hikes, Legends has become too much to keep up with, both in terms of purchasing and reviewing, and I want to diversify my content a bit more. You’ll see a return to regular DC Comics figure content, as I start to try out some McFarlane DC figures, but I’ll pledge to do at least one Legends review a month going forward, and I’ll even try to make it land on a Monday for old time’s sake.

Jan 23 2023

Marvel Legends (Bonebreaker Wave) Darwin and Siryn by Hasbro

I gave notice on New Years that Marvel Monday’s days were numbered in 2023, and since then I’ve decided that I’m going to pull the plug after I’m done looking at the Bonebreaker Wave. That means that next week I’ll finish off this wave with Sabretooth and the Bonebreaker BAF and then that will be that. Just to clarify, that doesn’t mean I’m done with checking out Marvel Legends figures here, but rather the line will no longer have a dedicated day, and Marvel Legends reviews will be few and far between. The goal is to be more selective in what I buy from this line, but I’m not quitting entirely. Case in point, I did pre-order the Franklin and Valeria figures, but then I’m always going to go for the Fantastic Four stuff. OK, so let’s get this penultimate review started with a look at Darwin and Siryn…

These figures each come with a half of Bonebreaker’s tank chassis, and it makes sense that these would be bundled with the figures with the slightest build. Seeing these also make me really excited to see how Bonebreaker’s assembly is going to work. For the most part, BAFs are pretty much all the same: plug the limbs and head into the torso and you’re good to go. Bonebreaker is a whole different thing, and that intrigues me. Anyway, let’s start with Darwin, because I’m going to have the least to say about him.

Darwin is yet another figure that primarily makes use of a painted buck, in this case one of the Spider-Man bodies, for the bulk of his costume. Indeed, like Vulcan the only original sculpted piece here is his belt. Does it work for the character? Yeah, it sure does. Darwin is one of those Mutants who’s ability isn’t really visible or tangible and the slight build of the body is certainly appropriate. But, at the same time, this is the third “budget” figure in this wave and this is a big part of what’s making me grow tired of this line. As the price goes up, Hasbro is going to need to cut this shit out and find a way to give collectors something more, or else they’ll continue to lose people like me. I suppose you could argue that the BAF in this wave required a lot more tooling and maybe that’s the case, but still. The paint is appropriate, but nothing special. At least the pattern of the suit makes the colors of all the pins match.

The head sculpt is certainly decent enough, with his bug eyes, sunken cheeks, and atrophied ears. It conveys the creepiness of his appearance pretty well and it’s quite reminiscent of a Roswell alien.

You get two sets of hands: One pair of fists and one pair of grasping hands. Their enlarged size adds to Darwin’s creepy aesthetic. It’s kind of interesting that between Darwin, Vulcan, and Havok we got three different bodies and all three of them have the shoulder crunches. That extra bit of articulation is always nice, but we’ve seen this body countless times, so I won’t run down all the points here. I don’t know, there’s nothing inherently wrong with this figure, but it’s nothing special either and with the $25 MSRP, I could never have justified buying Darwin had I not found him on Amazon for $17. It’s kind of funny that as Hasbro raised their prices, I’ve subsequently lowered what I’m willing to spend on these and $17 or less seems to be my new sweet spot. Let’s move on to Siryn.

After the drab colors and tired sameness of Darwin, Siryn offers something a little more interesting. I could go into how outrageous it is that we get Siryn before Banshee, but Sean quickly followed in a 60th Anniversary set with Gambit and Psylocke in the blue and yellow uniforms. It’s a great looking set, but I’m trying to get out of this line so I’m going to give it a pass unless it goes on discount somewhere. But, back to Siryn… She’s certainly a nice looking figure with some beautiful colors. The hunter green and the bright canary yellow look so great together, and the yellow paint looks pretty fresh and doesn’t suffer from much in the way of bleed through. Sure, the body doesn’t utilize much in the way of fresh sculpting, apart from the tops of her gloves and boots, but the addition of the cape goes a long way to make her distinctive.

I like the head sculpt a lot, but I’d like it a lot more if it weren’t the only one we got. Yup, no shouty head and it’s like Shriek all over again. And honestly, if we’re only going to get one head, I would rather it be the one that shows off her super power. It’s an especially egregious omission when the shouting portrait is featured on the freaking box art. With that being said, what we got is still a fine effort. The hair sculpt is rather dynamic, giving the sculptors a chance to strut their stuff. It looks great, but I would rather it was blowing back, like she’s flying. I don’t want to be too hard on it, because I do think it’s overall some very nice work.

The body is one of the newer female bucks, which means we actually get the double-hinged elbows. Maybe there’s some irony in the fact that Hasbro is finally addressing one of my big gripes after I’ve decided to scale way back on buying these figures. You get a pair of fists and a pair of open hands as display options. That’s nice, but I’d rather they just included the open hands and poured the fist plastic into a second head mold. The joints all feel great, and she’s lots of fun to play around with, but the cape can be problematic.

The cape is what it is. It’s made of a thin, almost papery fabric and attaches to the figure at the shoulders and wrists with holes for those joints to pass through. The shoulder attachments seem fine, but I’d be worried about the wrist holes tearing if I were changing the hands out a lot. As it is, I’ll likely just keep the open hands as opposed to the fists. The cape is difficult to work with when it comes to posing her. Sometimes it looks great and sometimes it just looks awkward. I’m not going to make a big deal out of it, because it’s hard for me to come up with a better way to do it. It’s just a fact that some things that look great on a comic panel aren’t always going to translate well to a figure.

If Siryn came with a second head, I would have loved this figure, but as it is I just like her. I’m at the point with Marvel Legends where I see all the new releases through the filter of the new price tag, and it isn’t usually kind. And I gotta tell you, Hasbro, if you’re asking $25 for this figure, you really needed to toss in that second head.

I don’t want to sound like a broken record, and it’s fear of doing just that which is a big reason as to why I’m scaling way back on my Marvel Legends buying and reviews. And that’s no way to start every week. I can still get enjoyment out of these figures, but more often than not it just feels like reviewing them is becoming a chore. That wasn’t so much the case with Siryn, but it sure as hell was with Darwin. It’s just the same old body over and over again with a bit of paint and new head and new hands slapped onto it. I want to be excited about what I write about here, and maybe by cutting way back on the frequency of these reviews I’ll be able to be excited about writing about Marvel Legends now and again. Next week, we’ll wrap this whole thing up with Sabretooth and Bonebreaker!

Jan 16 2023

Marvel Legends (Bonebreaker Wave): Havok and Vulcan by Hasbro

Well, it was an eventful weekend here at FFZ Central, with the computer that I use to do all the work for this blog crashing after a forced Windows update. I do backups every week, so it wasn’t a catastrophe, but I had about three reviews worth of photos that are now locked away on the HDD. After a few long and unsuccessful recovery attempts, it looks like I’ll have to wait a few days to borrow a boot USB from a friend and see if I can save them. In the meantime, I got myself set up for work on another computer and I’m ready to go… so let’s get this Marvel Monday rolling with a look at some Summers Brothers!

It seems like you can’t swing a mutant cat around the X-Men Universe without hitting a Summers, in this case Alexander and Gabriel. This is Alexander’s third outing in Hasbro’s current run of Marvel Legends, but it’s the first time we’re seeing Gabriel, so that’s cool! Both of these are pretty simple figures, so even though I’m doubling up, I don’t think today’s review will take all that long… let’s start with Vulcan.

So, when I first saw this wave solicited, I noticed them extra shoulder crunches in Havok and Vulcan and instantly figured these shared the same body. Imagine when I got them in hand and realized how wrong I was. On the contrary, the Vulcan body appears to be entirely new to me, so I’m not sure if this is the debut of a new buck or I just missed it’s premier on another figure somewhere along the way. I’m actually pretty bad about spotting recycled parts on these figures, so either one is certainly possible. With that having been said, I think it’s a great looking figure, even though the costume is achieved almost entirely by paint… yes, you get a sculpted belt, but that’s it. The dark blue and bright red coloring is certainly appealing, and the gold boots and belt add that extra pop. The proportions seem great, I like the sculpted muscle definition, and while the feet are still kind of pancake-y, they’re not nearly as bad as the ones from that recurring Spider-Man buck… oh, you know the one!

I do really like the head sculpt here! Gabriel features that unmistakable strong Summers jawline, a giant slab of chin, a broad mouth, and some excellent lines of definition in the face. I also dig the golden paint used for his rather deep set eyes. The hair is sculpted separately from the head, giving it a sharp hairline and some excellent detail as it juts out over the forehead. This is, without a doubt, one of my favorite Legends portraits in a while, and that’s saying something because they’re generally pretty good.

I don’t have a lot else to say about the articulation, as it doesn’t really offer much new, apart from those shoulder crunches, which we see from time to time. The double hinges in the elbows and knees have some excellent range of motion, it’s nice to see swivels in both the thighs and the tops of the boots, and the rockers in the ankles keep his feet flat in wide stances. All the joints feel nice and solid, and he is loads of fun to pose and play with. You get two pairs of hands here: One set of fists, and one set of sort of grasping hands. Vulcan really could have used some effect parts, but when we turn our attention to Havok, it’s easy to see where all that money went.

As I mentioned, this is the third version of Havok in this line, which seems a tad excessive to me, but I’m sure there are fans happy to see him again, especially with his rather iconic helmet. But, when looking at these two figures together, they both seem like budget figures for the wave. Like his brother, Havok’s suit gets no sculpted details, and in this case very little paint either. Instead, you get a completely black body with his power emblem printed on his chest. It all looks fine, but it’s still a very low effort figure on Hasbro’s part. It’s a different body from the Juggernaut Wave release, this time with the aforementioned shoulder crunches.

I was interested to see how this rather distinctive helmet design would look out of the comic panels and on an actual figure, and I think it turned out pretty good. The rest of the head, however, is kind of messy. I like that the hood is actually part of the face sculpt, including those two strips that run across his cheeks, but the paint lines here are really sloppy, and my figure even has some stray black marks on his chin. I also have to call out the halftone printing for the facial features. This method always looks blurry up close, but it’s so rough here, that it even looks blotchy from afar.

While Vulcan got cheated out of effect parts, Havok here is loaded up. You get two pieces for his wrists, and a big piece for his back. All of these appear to be brand new and look great. The wrists pieces are cast in transparent blue plastic, and are similar in principle to the ones that came with the Juggernaut Wave release, but these are flat, smooth on one side, and have some raised edges to the circles on the front. They’re a lot heavier than the old style, but if you press them up the arm a bit, friction will usually hold them in whatever position you want. The large one plugs into the hole on the back. It’ll be interesting to see if these get recylced as much as the older style. I would love a set colored for Scarlet Witch.

I’m happy to have Vulcan and a Classic Havok for my collection, and this pair does the trick, while not exactly blowing me away either. If the Vulcan body is indeed a first, than I suppose that’s a big deal, as it’s a great looking figure, but as someone who is trying to ween myself off this line, introducing new bodies at this point isn’t a big deal to me. I suppose if this line were sticking to the $20 price range, than simpler figures like this would be fine, but as the price creeps ever upward, I’m looking for a little more for my money. Luckily, I was able to grab this pair off Amazon for $17 each, which also gave me two more pieces for my Bonebreaker BAF, and to be honest, if it weren’t for those, I would have likely passed.

Jan 9 2023

Marvel Legends (Bonebreaker Wave): Maggott by Hasbro

It’s time for me to open and start looking at a new wave of Marvel Legends, and as I laid out in my New Years Post, it may be the last complete wave of Marvel Legends I look at here. And then again, it may not. I completed this wave sometime at the end of November when it started going on sale, but even if it hadn’t I really wanted the Bonebreaker BAF, admittedly more than some of the figures I had to buy to get it. But then that’s just one of the reasons I’m scaling back on collecting this line. Now, with that having been said, I’m starting this assortment on the highest of notes with Maggott, a character that I thought would never, ever be made into a figure, and one that will likely be the high point of this wave for me.

Maggott represents both the pinnacle of Mutant weirdness and the epitome of underused characters. I remember re-reading some of his earlier appearances maybe ten years ago and then hunting to see if I had missed any story arcs with him, and sadly the answer was no. And the odd cameo here and there just served to whet my appetite and get my digestive juices flowing for more Japheth. His bizarre symbiotic relationship with his slugs Eenie and Meenie are exactly the kind of repulsive body horror that I love to encounter in my funnybooks.

And even if all that weren’t true, I’d still absolutely love this figure because of the great colors and the unique sculpting. Maggott is built on one of the beefier Legends frames, showing that his slugs have been keeping him well fed. The torso is just a generic buck with a white painted shirt, but just about everything else on this figure features some great sculpted detail. His outfit is characterized by a a pair of dominating shoulder pads with a forge hammered finish and some nicks and scrapes, along with giant yellow studs, and a long textured trench coat, with some really nice detail work in the stitching and pockets. He’s got rolled up yellow sleeves and red, fingerless gloves, which match his textured trousers. His chunky boots are blue to match his coat and he has a pair of studded gray knee guards. Wow, this figure is a looker!

The head sculpt is also excellent and packed with personality. He sports a broad nose and an even broader, toothy grin. He has a prominent brow, jutting chin, red eyes, and a shock of white hair protruding from above his forehead.

Articulation holds no surprises. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders, swivels in the biceps, double hinges in the elbows, and hinged pegs in the wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, double hinged in the knees, and have swivels in the thighs and at the tops of the boots. The ankles have both hinges and lateral rockers. You get a swivel at the waist, an ab crunch hinge, and the neck is hinged and ball jointed. All of the joints feel solid, and the trench coat doesn’t interfere with the range of movement too badly.

And for accessories, you get the slugs, Eenie and Meenie, and these are wonderfully creepy. One is sculpted in a coil so you can wrap it around one of Maggot’s arms, while the other is arched, so you can hang it on his shoulder. Both have a whole bunch of little stubby legs, and three red eyes.

I was originally going to save Maggott for the last review of this assortment, because I was pretty sure no other figure in this wave was going to live up to him, but to be honest, I was just too excited to get him out of the box and check him out. He’s a fantastic figure, and clearly Hasbro through some money at him, because I’m willing to bet he was the most costly boxed figure in this entire assortment, not counting the BAF. I’m certainly not complaining, but it’s hard to wrap my head around what Hasbro is thinking sometimes. I can rattle off at least ten X-Men that are far more prominent then Maggot here that got far less attention when it came to their figure. Maybe it’s a case of Hasbro knowing that people are going to buy a more well known character so why bother? I honestly don’t know, but I’m glad they put the effort in here.

Jan 2 2023

Marvel Legends (King in Black): Knull & Venom by Hasbro

If you read yesterday’s post than you know that Marvel Mondays are living on borrowed time. I’m planning on phasing them out in a couple of months and will try to get through as much of my backlog as possible before the end. After that whatever is left will just get tossed into the usual daily rotation of whatever strikes my fancy. And boy is today a perfect example of why I’m trying to ween myself off my Marvel Legends habit.

It’s safe to say that King in Black didn’t grab me when I tried to give it a go, and that’s no big surprise since I’m definitely not a fan of Donny Cates as a writer. And yet at some point during the Holidays, this set got discounted enough to get me to buy it. I was mostly drawn in by the Venom figure, but Knull looked like an interesting figure too, and so here we are. I’m positive booze was involved. It usually is. The set comes in Hasbro’s plastic-free packaging with the figures and accessories wrapped in tissue paper. Let’s start with Venom…

Venom comes out of the box sans wings, so we might as well start there! It seems like a while since we last saw a regular Venom as part of The Absorbing Man Wave, but we’ve had a number of different Symbiotes since. This fellow isn’t anywhere near as beefy as the Space Venom BAF, but he’s still pretty sizeable with a lot of upper body bulk and borderline scrawny legs. Still, overall I like the proportions here, especially once we get the wings attached. And speaking of those wings, you can see the sockets in the back where they will get connected. I would have liked to see a couple of filler pieces for those, but oh well. The black finish on this figure has a nice sheen to it, and I really like the fact that it isn’t all smooth, but rather rippled in places, especially up near the shoulders. It’s like a crinkled trash bag look and it’s really creepy. So much better than just painting a muscled buck black and calling it a Symbiote! As for the white markings, I don’t think I’ve seen an instance of white painted over black on a Legends figure that looked this clean and fresh. There’s a wee bit of bleed through on the backs of the hands, it isn’t perfect, but overall it’s a very nice job. I also love his disgusting alien feet.

You get two head sculpts with the figure and both are quite good. The standard portrait has his rictus grin and white inkblot eyes, while the other option has his mouth open and his tongue lashing out. The second head adds a lot of red to the mix and the way the jaw line extends all the way up the sides of his head is just awesome. I’m really torn on which one I’m going to display him with the most. Tongue head definitely goes for the biggest impact, but there’s something marvelously creepy about the more subdued head.

The articulation here is pretty standard, with double hinges in both the elbows and knees, rotating hinges in the shoulders, pegged hinges in the wrists, ball joints in the hips, swivels in the biceps and thighs, ball jointed neck, and hinges and lateral rockers in the ankles. The biggest departure is the use of a ball joint under the chest instead of the usual ab crunch hinge, and it works fine. You also get two pairs of hands, which include fists and grabby hands.

And then you get these absolutely majestic wings! They have a black framework with red flaps in-between and some tattered holes throughout. The red only shows on the interior of the wings, whereas the backs are all black. The wings attach to the back via pegged hinges, and they also have hinges at the midpoint of each wing. Those mid hinges don’t really do a lot, as the sculpt makes them separate if you try to close them up too much. I’m almost convinced they were added just so that the wings could be disassembled for the box, rather than for actual useful articulation. I am, however, really impressed at how well the connections to the body support their weight, as I have not had them droop at all while posing him. They do of course make him extremely back heavy, as they are some pretty substantial plastic appendages. With all that being said, I was able to get some decent poses out of him without the use of a stand.

Sure, the whole, “Oh look, now all Symbiotes can just sprout dragon wings” seems like a stupid marketing ploy to sell action figures, and sure enough it worked well on me. I just love the way this guy looks, and I sure didn’t need to be a fan of the comic to want to add him to the collection. OK, let’s move on to Knull.

To me Knull was just the other figure that came in the box, but when I got him out I was kind of smitten by how much he looks like he could stand in as a Kain figure from my beloved Legacy of Kain video games. I know NECA made one a while back, but I only wound up getting Raziel and not Kain. Yeah, you can tell how much affinity I have for this character by the fact that I’m going off on a tangent about the Legacy of Kain games, but it really is an uncanny resemblance. And the figure certainly ain’t bad. He’s big enough that it feels like he could have been a BAF, but most of his size is in his height rather than bulk. The armor sculpt is well done with some pitting, and I like that his chest emblem is sculpted and not just painted on. I also think they did an exceptionally nice job with the tattered edges of the skirt and the sinewy texture in his upper legs. I wish they had done a little something with the paint to vary things up a bit between the armor plating and the sculpted cloth.

As with Venom, you get two head sculpts for Knull, one is just plain perturbed, while the other is a maniacal grimace. The highly stylized and exaggerated contours of his face definitely up his creepy appearance, and there’s some absolutely fantastic detail in the lines of definition in his face. The dramatically blown hair is sculpted separately from the head to give him a sharp hairline, but it’s too bad that he has a seam running across the top of the hair. The second head dials up the creep factor quite a bit with his toothy grin and adding even more severity to his facial features. I also dig the red beady eyes. This sculpt is a spectacular piece of work!

Knull comes with the Necrosword, which is big and beefy weapon. It’s black, almost amorphous body has an organic flavor to it and there are gross red tendrils all over it that resemble a circulatory system. It’s a shame that it’s cast in very soft plastic and I had to put some work into unbending mine, but it eventually straightened out pretty well.

In the end, I have no regrets at having picked up this set. I don’t have to necessarily have any attachment to the source material for me to appreciate a pair of outstanding figures, and these two are indeed that. The set originally retailed at around $69, which is right about in line with Hasbro’s ever increasing prices. I think I wound up getting this set on sale for about $52, which certainly makes it a lot more palatable. Both figures are decently sized, but it’s the sheer enormity of Venom’s wings that adds the most value here, and thereby probably justifies the price.

Dec 28 2022

Marvel Legends (The Controller Wave): Blue Marvel, US Agent, Speedball, Thor, and The Controller BAF by Hasbro

Welcome, friends, to the last Marvel Monday Review of 2022… and it’s on a Wednesday! Yup, instead of being productive, I decided to be really lazy on Christmas and just drink, eat, loaf around, and watch a bunch of videos and I can’t say as I regret it. But, I didn’t want to crap out on the last Marvel Monday Review, so not only did I bump it to today, but I’ve decided to speed-review the rest of The Controller Wave, so as not to end the year in the middle of a wave! So, that’s four figures plus the Build-A-Figure to check out today. LET’S DO THIS!!!

I already checked out Madam Hydra and Quake, and I didn’t buy the Iron Man from this assortment because he didn’t come with a BAF part, so that leaves us with this happy band of four figures to open. That’s a lot to cover in one sitting, so I’ll be brief where I can. We’ll go ahead and start with Blue Marvel!

I was very happy to see Adam finally get a figure in modern Legends, and I think this one turned out great. The costume is mostly comprised of a painted buck, but you do get fully sculpted boots with laces, plus a belt and a jacket. The coloring on this figure looks pretty sharp, with a mostly blue suit and black and white trim. The paint lines are clean, and thanks to the design of the suit, the unpainted pins in the elbows and knees don’t create a mismatched eyesore. I really like the sculpted stitching on the jacket and the chunky collar.

The head sculpt is excellent, with some great definition in the facial details. The hair is sculpted separately to create a clean hairline and I dig the creasing around his eyes and the prominent brow.

Blue Marvel comes with two sets of hands, one being fists and the other being what looks like accessory holding hands, but he doesn’t come with anything to hold. He does, however, come with some energy effect parts. These are cast in clear blue plastic and fit over his fists. I’m never going to complain about extra hands, but I think Adam would have been fine with just the fists. Either way, I love this figure and he’s definitely one of the highlights of this assortment. Next up… Speedball!

Speedball is a pretty simple figure, at least from the neck down, and built off what appears to be one of the Spider-Man bucks, as I’m pretty sure I recognize the pancake feet, plus he has the lateral crunches in the shoulders. The costume is achieved entirely through paint, but I have to say I really like what they did here. The molecular pattern on his boots, gloves, and belt looks really cool, especially against the blue of the suit.

I do like the head sculpt as well. The goggles are extremely well done, with yellow lenses that show his painted eyes behind them. His tuft of hair is certainly distinctive and you get the same cool molecular pattern on his hood. Very nice!

I’m glad they went for the extra articulated body here, but I think Robbie could have used an extra pair of hands, certainly more so than Blue Marvel. As it is, he’s the only figure of these four that doesn’t come with a second set of hands, so you know I gotta call him out. He only has fists, and I think either relaxed hands or the running kind with the fingers tightly closed into a chop would have suited him really well. Still, a very cool figure! Next… Thor!

This is Herald Thor and of all the figures in this assortment, this is the one I would have liked to single out and review solo if I had just one more Marvel Monday before the end of the year. I really dig everything about this figure. The black tunic and armor pieces over the traditional checkered silver armor looks great, especially with the red belt and bands on the boots and the white added to the tunic. The cape also has some great paint on the interior going from purple to red at the bottom. The spikes in the knee pads and arm bracers are a nice touch too!

The portrait is easily one of the most unique looks we’ve had for the character. He sports extremely long pale blonde hair, a black head band, and his eyes are light blue with white pupils, giving him a really creepy affect. The chiseled facial features give an awesome severity to his expression. This is great stuff!

Thor comes with a translucent blue version of Mjolnir with a lightning part that wraps around it and makes for a really cool effect! You also get two pairs of hands, one being fists and the other including a right hand to hold the hammer and a left hand that looks like it’s poised to cast forth a bolt of lightning.

And we aren’t done yet, because Thor also comes with the Ravens, Hugin and Munin, each of which are unique sculpts. One is posed at rest with his wings tucked in, while the other is in flight. This is an absolutely awesome, and easily my favorite release in this wave! The last figure to open is US Agent!

Yup, I saved the dud for last. I think this is the second release of US Agent in the modern Legends line, as I can recall getting the first release way back in 2012 as part of the third wave. Heck, I even remember also reviewing that figure the week after Christmas, so how’s that for serendipity! And I honestly can’t figure out what the point of this release is, because it’s practically the same costume with just a few tweaks. You get the same red gauntlets and buccaneer boots, the same pattern on the chest, which is a little wider here, and a simpler and cleaner belt, which I think works a bit better for a classic comic look.

The head sculpt appears to be lifted directly from that previous release, and if it’s not well it’s pretty damn similar. I don’t think it’s aged well, nor do I think it’s a particularly great sculpt to begin with. The bulbous nose is off-putting, and the facial features are really soft. I just don’t like it.

You get two pairs of hands, which include one set of fists, a right hand to hold the shield from the edge and a relaxed left hand. These later two hands are perfect for displaying him about to throw the shield. The shield itself has a new paint job and omits the star in the center that the previous release had. It’s equipped with both a peg and a clip, so he can wear it on his back or attached to his wrist. This is an OK figure, but nothing for me to get too excited about. It’s marginally better than the original release, but I’m not sure why we got him again at all. TO THE BUILD A FIGURE!!!

The Controller is your reward for buying six out of the seven figures in this assortment and he goes together exactly like most other BAFs do. Plug the arms and legs and head into the torso and you’re good to go. I’ll freely admit that this BAF was what compelled me to hunt down all the figures in this wave and I’m overall pretty glad I did, as it’s a really nice looking figure, even though the reuse of the collar and shoulder piece from the Deluxe Thanos release is super obvious. The two-tone blue costume looks good and I do like the super glossy finish on the Thanos piece.

The portrait is a real winner too! The Controller’s craggy face looks fantastic and they did a wonderful job with his expression. The deep set pupil-less eyes and the downturned mouth showing a flash of teeth looks like he’s about to kick some serious ass.

And hey, you get two pairs of hands too! And guess what? One of those pairs is a set of fists! The other pair includes a relaxed left hand and a right hand clutching a pair of Slave Discs. Very cool! I will note that while this big guy features all the usual articulation I expect to see in a BAF, the elbows have almost no range of motion because of the way they’re sculpted. You just get the teeniest bit of bend there.

And there you have it, the last wave of Marvel Legends for 2022. Overall, I think this was an excellent assortment with just US Agent there to offer up one slot of mediocrity. The ladies were great, Thor is amazing, I’m very happy to have Blue Marvel, and Speedball was there too! On a side note, this is actually the second to the last complete wave of Marvel Legends that I have in the pipeline to review, although I have quite a few multi-packs waiting to be opened. This coming weekend I’m going to be putting up some of my collecting resolutions for 2023, and one of the big ones is centered around Marvel Legends, so you won’t want to miss that! In the meantime, I’ll see you all back here on Friday for the last review of the year, and I have no idea yet what that will be!


Dec 19 2022

Marvel Legends (The Controller Wave): Quake and SHIELD Agent Two-Pack by Hasbro

It’s the second to the last Marvel Monday of 2022 and I’m continuing my jaunt through The Controller Wave! Last week I checked out the new version of Madame Hydra, so let’s just get both of the ladies of this assortment front and center. And that brings us to Quake… or is it Maria Hill? It’s both! And since this seems like a good opportunity to toss in the SHIELD Agent two-pack that Hasbro released a little while back, let’s have a look at those figures as well!

While this release is intended to be either Daisy Johnson or Maria Hill, Daisy wins out and gets the name Quake on the front of the package, and that’s the head that comes on the figure. Maria’s head is off to the side, as well as two pairs of her hands, and the BAF parts. We’ll start with Quake…

Here’s a great example of a pretty simple figure that works very well. Quake consists of a blue femme buck with painted white boots, sculpted shoulder straps that are also painted white, and a belt and two thigh straps, which are sculpted separately and worn on the figure. You also get a zipper pull running down the front of the top, which reminds me of the zipper pull from the original Madame Hydra that they left off the one in this assortment. Did they leave the zipper pull off of this Madame Hydra figure just so Viper and Quake wouldn’t look so similar? Maybe! You do get a spiffy SHIELD insignia printed on her left shoulder. The only thing I really have to nitpick here is that the chest doesn’t run very flush with the lower abdomen. It’s no big deal, but it does give the figure a little bit of a mismatched appearance.

The portrait is pretty good, although I don’t have a huge attachment to this character so I can’t really comment on the likeness. I can barely even remember what she looked like in the comics. I do like the hair sculpt’s tussled look. The printing on the eyes and lips do their usual thing of looking blurry when you get in close with the camera, but it looks fine with the naked eye. The seam running down the center of her throat is a little unfortunately placed.

Quake’s gauntlets are very well done, consisting of sleeves that fit over the forearms and the hands that peg in afterwards. They’re sculpted with the fingers opened and spread as if she’s working her mojo. And look! Quake is sporting double-hinges in the elbows and bicep swivels! It’s always nice to see a female Legends figure get this articulation upgrade. The rest is right in line with what we usually see in the Legends ladies, making Quake loads of fun to pose and play around with. And with a quick swap of head and hands, you can turn Quake into…

Maria Hill! And I think the transformation works pretty well. Sliding off the gauntlet sleeves reveal white painted gauntlets underneath, and you get a choice of splayed figure hands or gun holding hands. The gun is a compact automatic pistol and serviceable but not really special. I do think it would have been cool if Hasbro included an attachable holster or something, because Agent Hill doesn’t have anywhere to put her shooter when she’s not holding it.

The Maria portrait is pretty decent, with a shorter and more tidy coif. I like the stray strand that crosses over her forehead. She also has her trademark earpiece and microphone on the right side of her cheek. I like this look enough that I probably would have picked up a second figure to display as both, but this one has crept up in price a bit lately, and it’s more than I’m willing to spend now. It does make me wish Hasbro would release a female SHIELD agent two-pack. I’d be all over that! And speaking of which…

Here’s the SHIELD Agent two-pack that Hasbro did release. I’m pretty sure this was a Pulse Exclusive, and I got it back in the beginning of the year along with the Skrull Soldier that released at the same time. The figures come in a fully enclosed box with some nice artwork on the front, and you get a tissue-paper bag with all the extra stuff to customize your agents.

I gotta be honest, I was not thrilled with these when I took them out of the box. The joints are horrifically gummy and it took a lot of work just to get them to stand naturally without looking weird. They are identical, with the same blue buck with painted white boots and gauntlets and SHIELD patches stamped on their shoulders. They also share the exact same gear, which includes a shoulder strap with a chest holster and non-removable pistol painted silver, double waist belts with plenty of pouches, and a double thigh strapped holster on the left legs with more pouches. The gear looks really bulky and awkward, and why include a faked out gun holster on the chest when they have functional holsters on the hip? All this stuff bothered me at first, but the more I played around with them, the less irksome it became, and eventually I was able to have some fun with them.

The figures come out of the boxes wearing full tactical helmets with painted visors and breathers. One visor is painted red and the other is silver, which in itself is kind of weird. I appreciate the desire to make them look a little different, but why would you have two different color visors? Maybe I’m over thinking it. Besides, you also get three unmasked head sculpts to mix things up.

To show SHIELD’s ethnic diversity, the heads include Caucasian, African-American, and Asian portraits, all of which are excellent sculpts, especially considering they’re just supposed to be generic dudes. I’m not sure if these are based off of Hasbro employees or just completely made up, but I think they did a great job on all three, making me wish I had a third body to display them all on. Oh, I get it! Hasbro wants me to buy another two-pack! Well, that’s no going to happen, but I do like these unmasked heads better than the helmets.

As for the other extras, you get some pairs of hands, and some weapons. You get a pair of gun holding hands for each figure, but you only get one pair of fists between them, which I thought was really cheap. You also get a set of gesturing right hands, one pointing with one finger, and the other pointing with two. They’re all good choices, but not including a pair of fists for each figure really cheeses me off. As for the guns, each figure gets an identical pistol, which is kind of a futuristic design, or at least not like any pistols I’m familiar with.

Additionally, you get two identical rifles, a third with a foregrip, and a BFG with a red magazine. The guns are OK, but I don’t really love any of the designs. I would have rather had some real-world weaponry included with these guys, but at least it’s a pretty generous assortment.

These figures all go together very well, which makes it rather serendipitous that I waited to open the SHIELD agents until now. Quake works great as either Daisy or Maria, and I even liked trying out the Daisy head without the gauntlets as a generic female SHIELD agent. Yes, the SHIELD agents took a little time to grow on me, and I’m still not a fan of how bulky their equipment looks, especially the pouches on the thigh straps, but in the end they won me over and I’m glad I picked them up.

Dec 12 2022

Marvel Legends (The Controller Wave): Madame Hydra by Hasbro

After meandering about with some one-offs, multipacks, and a statue, I’m headed back into opening a new wave of Marvel Legends. Well, not really a new wave, but new to me. Counting today, there are only three Marvel Mondays left in the year, so I doubt I’ll get through all these figures before the end, but let’s see how far we can get. I’m kicking off The Controller Wave with a look at Madame Hydra, a do-over of a character that was released all the way back in Wave 2, about ten years ago!

Here’s the packaging, and it’s nice to see this window, because I’ve had some bad luck with Hasbro’s new fully enclosed boxed figures. But more on that at a later date. Here we get Madame Hydra surrounded by her accessories and a big chonky leg for The Controller BAF. Let’s tear this box open and dig right in.

So, straightaway, this isn’t a huge departure from the character design we saw in the first release. She’s still wearing the green body suit, but here her boots are painted on as a brighter green, instead of a metallic olive. I approve of the color change, as it really makes this figure pop! Her gloves are painted instead of sculpted, which is a bit of a step down, although you do get a sculpted ring around the biceps where they end. I do miss the zipper and pull on the previous figure’s top, as its absence here also feels like a little bit of a downgrade. Although, if you’re looking for a cleaner comic look, this one may be the favorite. The proportions here look a lot better, although that’s pretty much all thanks to the legs, which are less spindly and no longer have those terrible looking ball joint hips.

The sculpted belt is all new, and cast in bright green to match the boots. It’s a criss-crossed double-gun belt with a functional holster on each hip. The buckles and snaps are painted gold, and there’s a really nice Hydra insignia stamped in gold on each holster. I really dig this belt!

The portrait on the first release was a huge bone of contention with collectors, as being really angular and ugly. This one is technically an improvement as it has a much more traditional rounded face, but there’s something about it that’s just not selling it to me. The mouth seems a bit weird, like it’s too close to the nose. That may be caused by the heavy handed green lipstick. The eyes are OK, and have some decent green eyeshadow. The hair is very chunky and is sculpted so as to partially cover the right part of her face. It looks fine, but it’s a real pain when trying to get her to turn her head. To be honest, I was never too bothered by the previous portrait, as it certainly looked villainous, albeit downright ugly. I’d say this one is still an improvement, but maybe not as much as I would have hoped.

Even after ten years, the articulation here is pretty much the same as what we saw in Madame Hydra V1. In fact, the only real difference is the previously mentioned hips. I’ll forever be thankful Hasbro jettisoned that design, even though it doesn’t make a huge difference in range of motion, the current hip joints are easier to work with and look so much better. This Madame Hydra seems to have a little bit more range of motion in the elbows, but since they’re still rotating hinges, she can only manage about a 90-degree bend. Otherwise the figure sports some pretty solid articulation, even if it hasn’t changed much over the course of a decade.

Madame Hydra comes with two sets of hands: Fists and gun-toting hands, and she also comes with a pair of matched Lugar-style pistols. These are amazing little guns, with some excellent detail in the sculpts and some beautifully painted grips, which have something like a snakeskin pattern. The previous figure came with a similar pistol design, but it was really oversized. She also came with a rifle, while this new release does not.

In the end, I do like this figure a lot better than the first release of Madame Hydra, and I’ll certainly be retiring my old figure in favor of this one. The few gripes I have here are pretty little nit-picks and the good far outweighs the bad. And yes, Wave 2 Madame Hydra did have to surrender her rifle to this new version, because she won’t be needing it while she’s rattling around at the bottom of a storage tote in the back of a closet. This was a solid figure to start out the wave with, and if the rest of the assortment can keep it going, I should be in for a treat!

Dec 5 2022

Marvel Legends (Retro Fantastic Four): Psycho-Man and The High Evolutionary by Hasbro

While this is the first time these are appearing here on FFZ, I have been collecting the Retro Carded Fantastic Four figures since they first started hitting the toy aisles. But, since I originally set out to collect these mint-on-card, I haven’t actually reviewed any. Well, now that these are turning up on the cheap at some online retailers, I have been buying doubles to open. I don’t know that I’ll get a complete second set, but for now I thought I’d open up two of the baddies of the assortment: Psycho-Man and The High Evolutionary!

Oh, I do love me this packaging! You get the beautiful Fantastic Four logo at the top with the team depicted just below the 4. The large bubble showcases the figure and also has some personalized character art at the bottom of the bubble. The card is made of decently hefty stock, so as not to easily bend or tear, making them perfect for mint-on-card collectors. I got this set from Amazon and even with their firm belief in using zero packing materials whenever possible, they arrived in great shape. The cards also featire both a J-hook and a balanced bottom surface, so these beauties are at home either hanging on the wall or standing on a shelf. Let’s start with Psycho-Man!

Encased in his suit of armor, the microscopic Psycho-Man features a deliciously distinctive character design that manages to be retro and yet still pretty fresh. The white suit consists of heavy rumpled leggings and stocky boots, which look like they’re straight off an Apollo Astronaut. These are encased in a framework of metallic green rods and rings. His torso is clad in a white sculpted tunic, with a partial green-paneled belt, a green gorget, and green gloves that run all the way up to his armpits! The simple deco looks amazing thanks to the beautiful metallic green paint contrasting with the bright white. It’s all so delightfully Kirby, no wonder I freaking love it! Alas, there’s a little bit of rubbing on the green paint at the bottom back of my figure’s tunic, but better there than in the front, I guess.

When it comes to Psycho-Man’s portrait, it’s hard not to be reminded of one of Kirby’s major DC creations, and I am of course referring to Darkseid. I think it’s the way the face is nestled in that hood, and the harsh contours of the face. The gold brings the only reprieve from all that green and white, with almost circuit-like lines protruding down his forehead. The two pupil-less white eyes gaze straight through my soul, and he looks decidedly displeased. It’s wonderful!

Despite the chonks of his armored suit, Psycho-Man sports the usual Legends articulation. Granted, you don’t have quite the same range of motion in the elbows and knees as you might with the leaner figures, but it’s still not bad. The tunic does impede the hip articulation ever so slightly, but the framework on his legs do not, which is pretty impressive. It’s worth noting that some of the joints are built on hinged pegs, which I found a bit odd. Maybe he was originally designed to be a Build-A-Figure.

You get one accessory with Psycho-Man, and that’s his Control Box. It’s a pretty simple sculpt, but a nice looking piece of kit, with the emotions, HATE, DOUBT, and FEAR clearly labeled on it. His right hand is sort of designed to hold it, but it’s a little snug. OK, let’s move on to The High Evolutionary!

Another banger of a Kirby villain with a batshit crazy past, The High Evolutionary really transcends The Fantastic Four, but it’s still nice to get him in this style packaging. Wyndham comes sporting his silver exo-suit, which is characterized by tight horizontal ribbing and some fine muscle tone. He has bright crimson gauntlets and boots, and a matching tunic and sash with a wide and spiffy belt, all decked out in silver studs and some pointed shoulders to look extra imposing. I do like the subtle variety found in the matte plastic used for the tunic and the glossy stuff used for the boots, but I’m not fond of the creases we get from the molding process with this particular plastic. Still, overall this guy looks great!

The head sculpt is solid, but is ultimately let down by the quality of this plastic. It does have a nice glossy sheen, but it doesn’t hold the sculpted details very well. As a result all those lovely panel lines just end up looking rather soft. We also get some more of the molding creases. On the plus side, the yellow eyes look decent, and I love the silver painted panels on the top of his head and the cut-outs in his mohawk. The close ups hot here also shows off some of those unfortunate creases in the tunic’s plastic. It’s certainly not as bad to the naked eye when you’re just holding the figure in hand, but it still somewhat mars what would otherwise be a gorgeous figure.

And as long as I’m piling on the criticism of the plastic, the jointing in the knees and elbows here is kind of mushy. Otherwise, the articulation is solid, and the slits on the sides of the sash help to not inhibit the hip articulation too badly. Herb does not come with any accessories, but he does have an extra pair of hands, giving him one set of fists and one set of open relaxed hands. He actually comes out of the package with one of each equipped.

I really dig both of these figures a lot! The coloring on this pair is gorgeous, and I’m very excited to add them to my Legends lineup. I think Psycho-Man comes out on top among the two, and that’s partly because I love his design so much and partly because Hasbro did such a fine job with it. It may sound like I came down pretty heard on The High Evolutionary, but even with his flaws, he’s not a bad figure, and one that I have had on my Legends Wanted List for a long while now. Both of these fellas are available right now for pretty cheap through some of the big online retailers, and I’m glad I was able to get doubles to open!

Nov 21 2022

Marvel Legends (X-Men): Mojo by Hasbro

Welcome to another Marvel Monday! I’m still meandering about and having a look at some one-offs and multipacks before starting in on a new wave of Marvel Legends. This week, I thought I’d keep the X-Men love rolling along with a look at the Deluxe Mojo release. So grab your favorite carbonated beverage, have a seat, and whatever you do, don’t touch that dial! We don’t want to tank the ratings!

I love Mojo! Or to be more accurate, I love all the backstory that surrounds him and the Mojoverse. It’s just the kind of batshit crazy sci-fi and on-the-nose satire that I love to find in my funnybooks! So naturally I was excited to the Grand Poobah of The Spineless Ones drop into the new Marvel Legends! This is the regular retail release of Mojo, but it was preceded by a multipack, which I believe Hasbro was calling an SDCC Exclusive. That set came with Longshot, Dazzler, and a Baby Wolverine. I was close to pulling the trigger on that release, but the Dazzler looked a lot like the retro-packaged release I already have, the Wolvie wasn’t really impressive, and I decided to just gamble on Longshot getting a release later on down the road, because… C’MON, HASBRO, YOU HAVE TO!!! Honestly, if it had included Spiral, I probably would have jumped at it, but now we know we’re getting her as a retro-carded release. Anyway… Mojo comes in a fully enclosed box with all his pieces wrapped in tissue paper. Yes, there is assembly required on this one, making me wonder if he wasn’t originally designed to be a BAF, like the old Toybiz version. The upper body and belly come in two pieces, the chair is three pieces, and you get two heads, two cables, and two sets of hands. Actually, a couple of the pieces are pretty large, so I doubt it really would have worked as a Build-A-Figure. Well, let’s slap this slug together and see what he’s all about!

First impressions? Mojo is a big, satisfying figure, but the sculpt is a mixed bag and Mojo himself looks really bland and in desperate need of more paint apps. Where’s the sickly slime? Where are the bumps and pustules? It’s just a lot of smooth skin. Couldn’t even paint them nipples, Hasbro? All in all, the deco is so simple, he looks more like an animated version. Actually scratch that, because I re-watched Mojoverse from the X-Men animated series while I was opening him, and the cartoon version really had more detail than this figure. The deco comes up especially short when compared to the delightfully gross look of the old Toybiz Legends release. You get a little bit of reddish shading around the bottom edge where his body meets the chair, and a little more around the shoulders and elbows, but that’s really it. What a shame!

The chair, on the other hand features some pretty nice detail, even if it is mostly just left as bare gray plastic. A little wash would have been nice, but all we get is some blue and red paint hits for some of the simulated lights I really dig the exposed nest of wires at the back of the chair, and the rather gross machine elements that intrude their way into Mojo’s flesh on the sides. It’s also cool how his skin is pressed in where the clamps secure him to the chair. The chair rests on four clear plastic bumps to give it the illusion that the spider legs are holding it up. Each of the legs are articulated with rotating hinges where they meet the body and at two other points, but they clearly aren’t up to the task of supporting the weight of Mojo and the chair. And that’s fine, the effect still looks good. You also get two grabber arms coming out of the front with the same rotating hinges to pose them. One has a partially closed claw, which is good for grabbing onto X-Men arms and legs, while the other is open. The hoses that connect to the back of the chair and into Mojo’s shoulders hold fairly well, but they did pop out a few times when I was posing him. The scorpion-like tail that arches up over the chair with its brace of weapons is rigid and not poseable.

The two portraits are pretty good. I especially like the detail in the cybernetic hair and all the little probes and wires coming down to hold his eyes open. This first head is my favorite of the two, as it has his mouth open and his tongue licking out between his agape jaws. It’s an excellent sculpt, and while the paint here is a little better than the rest of the body, I still feel like it needed more. There’s a splash of gloss around the mouth to give it a bit of slimy look, but the figure needed a lot more of that to keep it from looking so flat. The tongue and teeth really could have used a gloss coat too. The few scattered pimples on his neck, just serve to remind me how little else there is in the way of body detail.

The second head just features a big toothy, dementated grin. It’s still an excellent sculpt, but let down a little by the sloppy paint lines between gums and teeth. Everything else here is just as good as the first head, but I doubt I’ll display this one much at all. The other one is just so much more dynamic and expressive. I should note that I found it exceedingly difficult to get this head onto the ball joint. I had to use a lot of force to get it on, which is all the more reason for me not to swap them out very often.

Mojo’s articulation includes rotating hinges in the shoulders, swivels in the biceps. double hinges in the elbows, and pegged hinges in the wrists. You get two sets of hands, one are sort of open-grabby hands, the other set includes a right pointing hand, and a somewhat closed grasp that can be used to hold a figure. The upper body is on a ball jointed stalk, and the neck is set on a kind of dog bone ball joint. He attaches to the chair via three pegs, a strong central one and two smaller ones, so he is incapable of turning his body in the chair. Overall, I have no gripes with the articulation. He can do pretty much everything I want him to.

In the end, I like this figure a lot, but I don’t love it. At $55, there’s a lot of plastic here, two excellent portraits, and a lot of good articulation. But the paint apps are severely lacking. I’m totally fine with the chair, but Mojo himself needed some more detail in the body. Ideally, I would have liked to see more sculpted detail, but I really think that a decent paint job alone could have remedied the blandness that I’m seeing. It’s worth noting that the SDCC Exclusive got a bit more paint on the body, and that would really piss me off if it wasn’t executed in such a half-assed manner. The SDCC deco basically just amounts to some gray spots, and I’m it’s kind of a toss up to me, whether it actually looks better or worse than this retail release. In terms of larger Deluxe figures, this one is passable, but not nearly as impressive as the MODOK release.