It’s me! I’m back! After a terrible week of working nights, getting very little sleep, missing two days of FFZ content, and being generally burnt out, I’d like to tell you that I’m all rested up and ready for action, but I wouldn’t go that far… at least I’m here! And picking up from last week I’m back to open the last figure in the Crimson Dynamo Wave!

Yelena Belova, sometimes known as The Crimson Widow will apparently be a big part of the still yet to be released Black Widow film. I could have sworn reading something that referred to her as Natasha Romanov’s sister. I’m not sure if that’s was meant as her spiritual sister, since they both trained in The Red Room, or if the MCU is writing her as Black Widow’s actual sister, but I guess some day I’ll see the movie and all will be revealed. She’s svelt enough to be packaged with the biggest of the Crimson Dynamo parts, including not only his massive torso, but also his shoulder armor, and they still had some room in there for some accessories!

Let me start by saying that from a design standpoint, this is not a terribly exciting figure, but that’s not in any way Hasbro’s fault. They did the best with what the design that was given them. Yelena is wearing what appears to be a close copy of Black Widow’s white arctic suit, which we saw released as a Deluxe Legends figure a little while back. She even has the Widow’s Bite bracelets on her wrists. The biggest difference here is the green tactical vest that’s sculpted as part of the figure. And if I recall correctly we even see Natasha wearing something similar in part of the trailer.  It has some cross straps with painted silver buckles, and some black accents as well. Like I said, there’s nothing terribly flashy here, but it’s still pretty well done.

Yelena is wearing a belt, sculpted as a separate piece, with a silver belt buckle, donning the Black Widow emblem. The belt includes a holster, which is secured to her right thigh with two straps, and a brace of combat knives secured to her left thigh with a single strap. The holster works to hold one of her two pistols, but the knives are merely sculpted into place and not removable.

The head sculpt here is excellent. It’s not only a great likeness to Florence Pugh, an actress I’ve never even heard of before now, but there’s certainly a resemblance there to Scarlett Johansen as well, making me wonder if they aren’t supposed to be actual sisters in the film. I’ve never read anything that depicted them as blood relatives in the funnybooks, but if the push in the MCU will be to have Yelena take up the mantle as the new Black Widow, I wouldn’t be adverse to the MCU making that connection. Ah, but maybe that’s just me being sentimental. Anyway, the sculpted hair on this portait is especially well done, although the drawback is that it makes the neck joint extremely obvious from the back.

The articulation here is identical to what we saw with the Black Widow figure in this wave, and that’s to be expected. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, have double-hinges in the knees, swivels in the thighs, and the ankles have both hinges and lateral rockers. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders, hinged pegs in the wrists, and those super funky rotating hinges in the elbows, that I am not at all fond of. They give a decent range of motion for a single hinge, but they just look weird. The torso has a ball joint under the chest, and the neck is ball jointed. You get two sets of hands with Yelena, one set of fists, and one for holding her guns.

The guns are the only accessories she comes with, and I find it odd that she only has a holster for the one. It would have been cool to give her one perhaps on the back of her belt, but again Hasbro is just working with a film design here, and I’m not going to turn my nose up at an extra gun.

Despite a somewhat bland design, I actually ended up liking this figure a heck of a lot. Like Black Widow, she’s fun to pose and play around with. The outfit sports some sharp detail, the paint apps are used sparingly, but effectively, and the portrait is absolutely fantastic. All in all a great figure to end what has been an extremely solid wave. Now, normally, when I finish a wave of Marvel Legends, I like to double up and review the Build-A-Figure on the same day, but I’m still playing catch up on my rest from last week, as well as dealing with a bunch of other stuff that I need to tend to, so I’m going to cheat a little today and come back tomorrow and have a look at the Crimson Dynamo BAF!

It’s Marvel Monday, and I’m down to my last TWO figures to open in the somewhat Black Widow themed Crimson Dynamo Wave of Marvel Legends! I thought it was three, but it turns out somehow I wound up buying Red Guardian twice. That’s what happens when you have a huge backlog of these things. Anyway, if you told me back in January that we’d still be waiting to see this flick in August, I’d think you were nuts! And yet here we are. I was excited for this movie from the get-go, but once they revealed Taskmaster was in it, I’ve since gone to a state well beyond excitement! Come on, DIsney. Just put it on the streaming service!!!

We’ve had not one, but two comic versions of Taskmaster in the modern Legends line, and now it’s the ass-kicking mimic’s turn to debut on the big screen, here’s the MCU version. Taskmaster is the only figure in the assortment to not include a Crimson Dynamo BAF part. I’m not sure if that’s because they already crammed so much stuff into this box, or because Hasbro knew everyone would probably buy him anyway.

I think the costume designers did a pretty nice job on the MCU makeover. He’s easily recognizable as Taskmaster, and yet there’s enough of makeover to allow this design to work in the “real world” of the Marvel films. Actually, I think they gave him a little bit more comic flare than I was expecting, especially where the colors were concerned. Yes, he’s basically a dude in a tactical suit with some bits of armor strategically placed, but the metallic blue and the orange trim really make the otherwise muted dark blue suit pop, and they are certainly a nice nod back to his comic colors. That’s especially the case on this figure where the coloring looks fantastic. His cape from the comics has been reduced to a weird sculpted plastic scarf that is clipped onto his shoulders, almost like a reverse cape. On his back he has a rather understated backpack. One of the biggest surprises about this figure is his complete lack of holsters or clips to attach his weapons, but I’ll come back to that in just a bit.

Like the rest of the figure, the head sculpt teases the traditional Taskmaster look, but then goes and does its own thing. The skull motif on his silver mask is still there, but it’s very understated, and now the mask is dominated by a large black visor that looks like two giant bug eyes. It’s creepy and probably makes for some good psychological warfare when he’s facing down opponents. The hood is designed to turn with the figure’s head and features more of that snappy orange paint.

As expected, Taskmaster sports all the usual points of articulation, allowing him to mimic the fighting styles of my other Legends figures. 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. The torso swivels at the waist, has a really well hidden ab-crunch under the chest, and the neck is both hinged and ball jointed. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders, double-hinged elbows, swivels in the biceps, and the wrists are on hinged pegs to allow the hands to be swapped out. Taskmaster comes with a whopping three sets of hands, including one pair for holding accessories, one pair of fists, and one pair of scratching claws. Looks like someone picked up a few moves from Black Panther! Let’s move on to the accessories!

FIrst off, he comes with this bow and arrow, and I am not at all fond of these. The bow looks OK, but it has a really thick plastic “string” which means you can’t really pose him drawing it to fire. The arrow, on the other hand, is ridiculously large and chunky, and he can’t hold it all that well. And since there’s no way to have him wear the bow on his back, nor is there a quiver for his arrow, I doubt I’ll be getting much use out of these.

Thankfully he also comes with his sword and shield, and these are much better accessories! The shield is smaller than I’m used to seeing him carry in the comics, but it still has a variation of his triskelion pattern printed in orange on the front. The reverse makes use of one of those clip-peg combos that we’re used to seeing on the Captain America shields and it works well for attaching it ot his arm, but there’s no hole in his back for him to wear it, so they may have just been reusing that piece for cost or convenience.

The sword is a modern looking piece of cutlery with an orange stripe on the blade, which not only matches the accents on his outfit but maybe nods back to Taskmaster’s laser sword. He can hold it very well, but like the shield, there’s nowhere for him to wear it on his person when it isn’t being used. And that all sums up my biggest problem with this figure is that none of his gear can attach to him. A hole for the shield on his back and a loop for the sword would have gone a long way. Maybe those GI JOE Classified figures have spoiled me. Speaking of which, I think this figure would make a great mercenary to add to the GI JOE Classified shelf.

This figure looks great and it went a long way to sell me on the MCU Taskmaster design. That’s no small accomplishment, since the Hot Toys figure didn’t manage to do it. Or maybe I like it enough to have it represented in a $20 figure, but not enough for a $220 figure. Either way, I think Hasbro did a great job with the sculpt and paint, but I wish they had made the figure a little more accessory friendly. Sure, that may be a design element carried from the film, but since I haven’t seen the movie yet, I can only blame the toy for now. Otherwise, I dig him a lot. Next week, I’ll wrap up this wave with a look at the final boxed figure and the Crimson Dynamo Build-A-Figure!

Welcome back to another Marvel Monday! Last week I began my trek through the fairly recent Crimson Dynamo Wave with a look at a very comic-based Crossbones and today I’m going to tackle the first of the figures from the upcoming Black Widow movie. And hell, let’s just go with Natasha Romanov herself. Fun fact, whenever I see her final scene in Endgame I always manage to get something stuck in my eye. Weird.

Hasbro did some pretty cool and stylish art for the boxes on this wave and I whole heartedly approve. And I’ll confess that as I’m tearing open this lovely box, I’m thinking about how strange it will be watching a flashback MCU movie where we know the character is dead. Well, I guess at least we know she won’t get killed in this one, eh? I honestly liked Natasha’s heroic end, but it just drives the point home for me that this movie should have happened a long time ago.

And here she is and while you might think I’d be sick and tired of another MCU Black Widow figure, truth be told… I really dig this one! I didn’t pay much attention to the first solicitation shots, but now that she’s in hand I think that this outfit design is a fantastic blend of comic and film. Imagine my surprise to find that she’s actually almost a complete repaint of the Deluxe Black Widow that I reviewed back in April. Going from all white to this new deco makes for a big change. The costume also eschews the all black look that Natasha usually favors for a gray and black mix, which makes for a far more interesting look. The bulk of the black and gray has a matte finish with some high gloss reserved for the boots and the shoulder armor pieces. She still has that piping running down the front from the earlier outfits but the two-tone deco makes them pop a lot more. And speaking of pop, the gold paint on her belt and her Black Widow Bite bracers really transforms this figure into something special. Her belt is cast in soft plastic and includes holsters for her pistols with retaining straps around her thighs.

And from the back we can see Black WIdow is sporting a hardshell backpack with slots to store her batons. I do love a figure that can wear all her accessories! So what was changed from the previous figure? Mostly the upper torso, which was re-sculpted to give her the backpack and also that padding up by her neckline. They also reworked the buckle on her belt making it a little more prominent.

I’m sure I said this the last time we checked out an MCU Black Widow, but Hasbro has come a long way when it comes to sculpting Scar-Jo’s likeness. I seem to recall the original effort being a little rough, but this one is quite possibly their best. Yes, it seems to be the same as the Deluxe figure, at least the hair sculpt is identical. There are some differences in the face, but that might just be variances and not a whole new sculpt. It’s hard to tell. Either way, it really captures her lips and nose and the printing used for her eyes and the rest of the features is solid. Here’ she’s sporting a coif that is a little closer to her original Avengers look than we’ve seen in a while and I do like it a lot.

When it comes to articulation, we pretty much know what to expect from the ladies. And while the poseabilty here is great, I am not a fan of these elbow joints. Yeah, I usually bitch about Hasbro’s refusal to give the gals double-hinged elbows, but in this case I’m actually referring to these weird elbow hinges that stick out the back. I think I first noticed these on one of the Spider-Woman figures. Otherwise, her arms feature rotating hinges in the shoulders and pegged hinges for the wrists, which can swap out between fists and accessory hands. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, have double-hinges in the knees, swivels in the thighs, and the ankles have hinges and lateral rockers. There’s a ball joint under her chest and her neck is both hinged and ball jointed.

As mentioned, Black Widow comes with a set of batons, which can store in her backpack. These are really simple accessories and there’s really not much I can say about them. They’re sculpted in really soft plastic, which makes them very bendy and as such they don’t always look that convincing in her hands. But hey, in fairness I don’t think there’s much else Hasbro could do with these at this scale.

In addition to her beat-down sticks, Natasha comes with her dual Glock 26S automatics. These are tiny little guns and can fit snugly into the holsters. I have mixed results with getting her to hold them straight. Her right hand seems to work better with them than her left, which always seems to want to practice trigger discipline. But all in all, these are pretty nice sculpts for such small accessories. Remember that one Black Widow figure where her guns were sculpted into her holsters. Yeah… that sucked.

And so my hat goes off to Hasbro for producing yet another Black Widow figure and still keeping my interest high. I just love everything about the look of this femme fatale. The costume redesign lends itself well to an action figure and the gold just totally sells it. And while I thought her white costume was a nice change, I think this one just brings out all the detail so much better. Will this be the last MCU based Black Widow figure we ever get in the Legends line? Well, if so at least she’s going out on a high note.