Apr 21 2015

Marvel Legends (Allfather Wave): Odin Build-A-Figure by Hasbro

Ah, the Build-A-Figure! On the one hand it gives you an extra reward for being a good little collector and completing a Marvel Legends wave. On the other hand, sometimes you’re beholden to buying figures you don’t want just so you can get an arm or a leg. In the case of The Allfather Wave, I was perfectly happy buying all the figures in the assortment so that I could could build me an Odin. And yes, I said Odin as opposed to King Thor. You do get two different choices on how you want to go with this figure. The “Maidens of Might” variants gave you different heads, capes, and weapons and the “Avenging Allies” variants gave you the two different sets of arms. The obvious choice is, why can’t I have both? Well, if you’re welling to do a little boiling and popping, you could probably have your Asgardian cake and eat it too, but without applying some heat, it’s pretty tough to get those arms out once they’re in. I’m mainly only interested in Odin here so that’s the route I’m going. Of course, there’s no packaged shot, but let’s take a look at the pieces instead.

If you’ve completed the wave then you have all eight pieces needed for the build. That’s a head, a torso, two arms, two legs, a cape, and a staff. Everything locks together beautifully and the resulting figure is as solid as any of the individually boxed releases. Most of the time I tend to associate BAFs with larger figures that wouldn’t have been cost effective as a single release, but in this case Odin would have had no problems fitting into a Marvel Legends box. Then again with past precedents like Rocket Raccoon and Hit Monkey, Hasbro has certainly been redefining what it is to be a BAF and these days it isn’t just all about size anymore.

This is possibly my favorite look for The Allfather to date. It’s a nice cross between comic book style with some groundings in gritty historical garb. The plate armor that makes up the torso, shoulders and lower legs is just gorgeous. Not only is it sculpted with all sorts of different plates and rivets, but also with scrapes and weathering. The paintwork here is also quite amazing and creates a convincing patina that makes it look like genuinely well used armor. It’s hard to believe that this is the same company behind some of the shoddy or non-existant paintwork we’ve been seeing in the Transformers line, although I concede that it’s been getting better. In addition to the armor plate, you get a soft plastic “leather” skirt with a detailed belt, wraps for the wrists and a blue cape that pegs into the back. The shoulder pieces peg in pretty securely while still offering the luxury of detaching rather than breaking if you put too much stress on them.

And then you have this wonderful head sculpt. Odin oozes personality with the tip of his grey beard gathered into a… what is that, a beard pony tail? Honestly, I have no idea about the proper terminology here, but it looks great. The winged helmet is cast in a somewhat dull goldish plastic with two mighty ram horns coming off the sides. Odin sports a fierce expression with one eye patched and the other narrowed on his foe. Brilliant!

Despite being a BAF, the articulation here is more or less in line with what I’ve come to expect from the current Legends line. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, and wrists, as well as swivels in the biceps. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, and double hinged at the knees. There are swivels in the thighs and the ankles feature hinges and lateral rockers. The is a ball joint in the torso and another in the neck. I expected the costume to impede articulation a lot more than it does. The slits in the “skirt” actually allow for a decent amount of leg movement and if you cast off the cape, you can get more in the shoulders.

Of course, Odin wouldn’t be complete without his kingly staff and one included certainly fits the bill. It’s a great sculpt, although I can’t deny I would have liked some more paint apps on it. Maybe they blew the budget on that beautiful armor.

If you decide to go for King Thor Odinson, you get all the great work that went into the body with just a few changes. The Thor head is excellent, albeit not as elaborate as Odin’s. You also get the artificial left arm with the right one being identical to the one used for Odin. Finally, the cape is the same sculpt only red in keeping with Thor’s traditional color of garb, and instead of the staff you get his Axe. The Axe is probably the only thing I would consider disappointing here. It looks too scrawny to me. It’s definitely going into the Masters of the Universe armory.

There’s no better way to wrap up a fantastic wave of figures then by following it with a fantastic BAF and Odin is certainly that. He was a great choice of character and I think they did an absolutely… dare I say it? Marvelous job on him. He also means a little something special to me as I still kick myself every once and a while for not picking up the Hot Toys Odin when he was first released, but at the time Hot Toys were just something I admired from afar. Obviously, that version of Odin is a whole nother beast entirely, but it’s still nice to fill that Odin shaped hole in my collection, even if it is in a different scale.

Apr 20 2015

Marvel Legends (Allfather Wave): Iron Fist by Hasbro

Happy Monday and it is indeed a happy one because it kicks off a glorious week of vacation for me where all I will have to do is lounge around the house, read comics, play video games, and obsess over toys. I’m also kicking off a Marvel Week, which marks one of the first themed weeks I’ve done in a long time, although I’ll still be breaking it up on Thursday for Transformers. Anyway, today we’re here to look at the final boxed figure from the Marvel Legends Allfather Series and it is indeed Iron Fist. I’ve been looking forward to getting this guy onto my Legends shelf for a long time, so let’s jump (kick) right in!

The packaging should hold no surprises by now. It’s the simple window box that we’ve been seeing all along. It displays the figure nicely whether standing on a shelf or hanging on a peg, and while the deco isn’t as wonderfully obnoxious as the packaging from the first couple waves of Legends’ return, I still dig it. I truly hope that Iron Fist is going to work his way into Disney’s Marvel plans at some point in time, ideally as a supporting character on the up and coming Luke Cage Netflix series. I’ve been so damn impressed by the Daredevil show that I’d love to see Fist go down this route as well and it seems like the perfect format for the character.

Iron Fist comes in his white and gold outfit, which is probably less iconic to many out there, but I really dig it. The white plastic hasbro used here is great and while the gold does have some of that swirly effect that I’m not crazy about, I’m still very pleased with the way the deco on this guy turned out. The dragon emblem on his chest is a crisp tampo and aside from the head sculpt and the waist sash, there’s not a lot of unique sculpting on this figure.

The portrait here is serviceable, although it doesn’t blow me away. He has a nice firm jawline and the mask looks good, complete with the two tails running off the back where it’s tied on. The black paint around the eyes is clean and sharply applied.

This body strikes me as being from one of the crossovers from Hasbro’s first attempt at Marvel Legends and the articulation is identical to the Yellowjacket figure from that initial wave. That’s mostly a good thing because while it does involve those rather annoying rotating hinges in the hips, you can still get some great movement out of this guy thanks in part to those extra lateral hinges in the shoulders. And let’s face it, Iron Fist is all about being limber! The rest of the articulation includes rotating hinges in the shoulders, double hinges in the knees and ankles, hinges and lateral rockers in the ankles, hinges and swivels in the wrists, swivels in the biceps and thighs, a waist swivel, an ab crunch in the torso, and both a ball joint and hinge in the neck. Nice!

Little by little, Hasbro has been including extra hands in with select Marvel Legends release, but Iron Fist is the first time that I can recall them going full Figuarts on our asses. Iron Fist comes with no less than four pairs of hands and all of them are great. You get a pair of fists, clutching hands, palm strike hands, and karate-chop hands. All of them are easily swapped out with a post and peg method. I’m not usually one to go crazy over extra hands, but in this case they’re definitely adding a lot to my play value.

Iron Fist will definitely be hanging out on my desk for a while because he’s so much fun to pick up and play with and the extra hands really go a long way to make a solid figure even better. He also rounds out what was an absolutely stellar wave of figures. Not only was the character selection great but every figure in this wave was well executed. In fact, I’d dare say I can’t remember a wave of Legends that has delivered this consistantly and that’s coming from someone who is more often then not quite satisfied with this line. But we’re not done yet! Tomorrow I’ll be back to pick all the loose BAF pieces out of my tote and assemble The Allfather himself!

Apr 13 2015

Marvel Legends (Allfather Wave): Sentry by Hasbro

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.

Apr 6 2015

Marvel Legends (Allfather Wave): Machine Man by Hasbro

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!

Mar 30 2015

Marvel Legends (Allfather Wave): Captain Marvel by Hasbro

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.

Mar 23 2015

Marvel Legends (Allfather Wave): Scarlet Witch by Hasbro

It’s Marvel, It’s Monday, it’s Marvel Monday! I know, I’m taking my sweet-ass time working my way through the Allfather Wave of Legends, but I’ve got a lot of stuff sitting here and waiting to be featured so I’m trying to spread the love around as best I can. Today’s figure of choice is Scarlet Witch, only because I’ve been watching the trailer for Age of Ultron a lot and I’m getting really interested in seeing how she’s going to make out in the movie-verse. Also, this is one of those sad examples where the previous Legends release (from Toybiz) was an atrocity cast in plastic. I can remember digging mine out of a tote a few years back and being so horrified over how bad the paint was that I literally tossed her into the garbage. Some of them Toybiz Legends just don’t hold up so well.

Here’s the packaging. It’s more or less the same as we’ve seen before, although this time instead of The Avengers logo at the top, it just says Marvel. It’s also worth noting that Scarlet Witch’s name only appears on the back of the box in rather subdued print. This is one of those variant swap-out instances where the slot, called Maidens of Might, is shared between Wanda Maximoff and Carol Danvers. I used to hate these, but now that Hasbro is releasing case assortments with both variants included, as opposed to running changes, I got no beef with them anymore. I picked up this wave in one shot and got everything I wanted. It does, however, still blow my mind that they’re selling a figure without the character’s name on the front of the box. Craziness!

Wanda comes donning her iconic (and totally sexy) red outfit, which gets by mostly with paint apps and a little bit of new sculpting. I don’t recall seeing the high-heeled boots before and there’s some original sculpting defining the edges to her top. The oogity-boogity hands, however, are the same pair we saw used for Judith Chambers from the 2013 SDCC Exclusive Thunderbolts set. They worked well there and they certainly suit Scarlet Witch perfectly. The red paint is quite vibrant and accompanied by purple paint for her stockings and the flesh tones. The paint lines are pretty sharp and there isn’t much in the way of slop or bleeding. The cape is sculpted to fall just short of her feet, but with a slightly wide stance it can be used to assist in standing, since those tiny heels don’t offer a lot of stability. And if you prefer to go sans cape, you can remove it just by popping the head.

Ms. Maximoff isn’t stunningly gorgeous, but she’s pretty and I think Hasbro did a fairly solid job with the portrait. It definitely looks a lot better from some angles. The full lips are particularly well defined and the paintwork on the face, right down to her green eyes, is neatly applied. Her tiara looks good enough to be a separate piece and I really dig what they did with her hair, both in terms of the sculpting and the paint highlights.

We’ve seen this female buck more than a few times, so the articulation should be pretty familiar by now, but I’ll run through it anyway. The arms feature a rotating hinge trifecta from her shoulders to elbows to wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips and double hinged at the knees. There are swivels in the thighs and rotating hinges in the ankles. Wanda has a ball joint in her torso just below the chest and another in her neck.

Scarlet Witch comes with two magic effect parts. Many of you probably know I’ve never been a fan of Hasbro’s effect parts, but I really dig these. They’re basically like hoolahoops for her wrists. They clip on and present a nice mystical effect with translucent pinkish-purple plastic. Word is that these parts will be recycled for the Doctor Strange Legends figure and I couldn’t be more pleased to hear it.

This wit-chay woman is the third figure that I’ve opened in this wave of Legends and so far it has not disappointed. Scarlet Witch is a solid figure through and through, and with a lot of movie-goers about to get introduced to the character for the first time, it’s great to see her making an appearance in the toy aisles in her iconic comic book look. I’ll also say once again how happy I am that Hasbro is confining the whole variant thing to a single case so that these figures don’t become fodder for the scalpers. Or at least not as badly as what could have been. And speaking of variants, on the next Marvel Monday, I’ll go ahead and check out the other Maiden of Might… Captain Marvel!

Mar 16 2015

Marvel Legends (Allfather Wave): Hawkeye by Hasbro

I think I’m bringing back Marvel Mondays because I have a lot of these Legends figures to go through. I already checked out Thor and today I have randomly grabbed Hawkeye. We last saw Hawkeye in the Legends line back in 2013 when he was part of the Rocket Raccoon BAF Wave. Of course, that was his very modern look and this time we’re getting him in a far more classical style, so I’m not complaining about him turning up again so soon.

The package is identical to what we saw with Thor and features The Avengers logo up at the top. Hawkeye is not a big dude, and in this case that’s a good thing because the BAF torso that he’s bundled with takes up half the package and looks like it uses almost the same amount of plastic as the master archer himself. Not a lot more to say about the package except it’s totally collector friendly and I’m about to tear my way into it.

Hawkeye is built on one of the slighter bucks and relies mostly on paint and extra bits to make up his costume. His belt and harness are all sculpted in one piece that fits over his neck and snaps around his waist. The body is blue with the exception of his purple boots and his partially bare right arm. The odd thing here is the use of Winter Soldier’s artificial arm. I say it’s odd, but it still somehow works on the figure, kind of like a reinforced sleeve being used as an extension of an arm bracer. Even the extended trigger finger on the arm looks like it could be positioned to draw the string on his bow. The metallic purple paint used for the arm and his scaled chest and shoulder armor looks great.

The portrait here is serviceable, albeit rather soft. It also looks an awful lot like some of the masked Cap portrats we’ve seen in the past. I do, however, really dig the classical stylings of the helmet and mask. Clint is sporting his “H” on his head, which I always looked great alongside Cap with his “A.” I can’t hate on Hawkeye’s modern look, but I’ve always liked a little cheese in my comic book hero designs, so this is still my preference. I also like the way his mask wraps around his helmet and flares up just a bit over the ears.

Clint comes with repaints of the same quiver and arrow that Hasbro used for the last Hawkeye release. Both are painted purple to better match his classic uniform. They were nice accessories then and hey still are now. He can comfortably hold the bow in his right hand and the quiver will peg right into his back. I do wish they had included a loose arrow, that would have been a useful and inexpensive bonus.

Articulation here is pretty good, although some of the joints, particularly the elbow hinges feel rather soft. I also think they missed an opportunity by not using one of the bucks with the lateral hinges in the shoulders. Being an archer, increased arm mobility would have made a lot of sense for Hawkeye. Nonetheless, here’s the rundown… The arms feature rotating hinges in the shoulders, double hinges in the elbows, and swivels in the biceps and wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, have double hinges in the knees, swivels at the thighs and boots, and the ankles feature both hinges and lateral rockers. Clint can swivel at the waist, has an ab crunch hinge in his torso, and his neck is both hinged and ball jointed.

Even with that one unusual choice of parts reuse, Hawkeye is a damn cool figure and one that I’m glad to get on my Marvel shelf. He’s a great balance between the classic and modern designs and certainly one of my favorite looks for the character. Collectors who are sticklers about parts and accessory recycling may object to this guy out of principal, but I’m not going to quibble about it when the end result is this good.

Mar 9 2015

Marvel Legends (Allfather Wave): Thor by Hasbro

It was almost exactly three years ago that I featured Marvel Legends Thor from the initial wave of the line’s triumphant return. I was totally blown away by what a great figure Hasbro had built and it had me convinced that Hasbro was taking Legends in the right direction. And now here I am with dozens of these figures on my shelf and Hasbro is gracing us with another version of the Norse God of Thunder. This new Marvel NOW! Thor is heavily built on the previous Thor’s body, so you may want to take a glance at my review of Heroic Thor first, because I’m going to be doing a lot of comparisons.

The packaging sure has evolved nicely. The 2015 Legends are still coming in these wonderful window boxes with opening side flaps that allow you to remove the tray without damaging the box. The window displays the goods quite well and there’s even an extended back to the card that lets you hang it from a peg or stand it on a shelf. With Thor’s big bulk, two accessories, and BAF part, there is not a hell of a lot of room left on that tray! The back of the box shows the other figures in the wave needed to build The Allfather, or King Thor if you prefer, but nope… I’m building Odin, baby!

So, let’s start off with what’s recycled here. You get the same legs with a bit of a paint change. New Thor’s leg armor is painted black on the inside of his thighs whereas Heroic Age Thor’s were all silver. The silver paint used on the new Thor is also more vibrant. The torsos and capes are both reused from Heroic Age Thor, again with some little paint changes. NOW! Thor lacks the two extra silver disks painted near the bottom of his tunic and the sculpted disks on NOW! Thor are painted a brighter silver to match his chain mail legs. The belt buckle is now silver instead of bronze and while the sculpted piping on Heroic Age Thor’s tunic was painted bronze, This new Thor’s is left black. The biggest change below the neck is found in the arms, which are brand new sculpts. NOW! Thor casts off his chain mail sleeves from the Heroic Age outfit and goes full on bare arms with just a pair of black fingerless gloves.

And that brings us to the portrait. Both Thors seem to utilize the same face sculpt, which features a great, stern and powerful visage. That’s the face of a God that is about to smite you! The main differences lie in the helmet. Heroic Age Thor wore the more traditional skull cap with the feathered wings, which had its roots firmly set in his classic design. NOW! Thor features a more elaborate and far more modern helmet with metal wings and cheek protectors. It’s painted bright silver and it does indeed look glorious!

The articulation here is identical to what we saw with Heroic Age Thor, but let’s run through it anyway. The arms have swivel hinges at the shoulders, elbows, and wrists, and have swivels in the biceps. The legs have swivel hinges in the thighs and ankles, and double hinges in the knees. There’s a generous ball joint in the torso and another in the neck. For a bulky figure like this, the articulation is very good and there’s no mushy joints. He’s also nicely balanced even with that big cape.

As expected, Thor comes with Mjolnir and it’s just a repaint of the same accessory that came with Heroic Age Thor. The handle seems a little less bendy and it is a nice, hefty version of his trusty hammer.

You also get a sword and I really dig the sculpt on this beauty. Not sure I’m going to go the sword route when displaying him, but I’m not going to turn my nose up at such an awesome looking piece of 6-inch scale cutlery.

So, it should be no surprise that I love this figure. Sure, it’s just a variant of the Heroic Age version, but that was three years ago and I think Hasbro waited the appropriate amount of time to roll this new version out. As to which one is my favorite, well that’s a toughie. Heroic Age Thor has that more tarnished and armored up look to him that I really dig along with the classic style of the helmet. I also think that Heroic Thor totally nails the likeness to the character design of the time. Marvel NOW Thor, on the other hand is just gorgeous newness and the helmet and bare arm look nicely bridges the gap between comic and movieverse for a rather exciting look. Aw, I can’t choose which one I like more, so I’ll just be content to have them both!

Feb 27 2015

Marvel Legends: Ms Marvel, Captain America, and Radioactive Man (Target Exclusive) by Hasbro

I just got in the new Allfather Wave of Marvel Legends, but before moving on to opening those, I have unfinished business in the Legends Universe. Some time last year Hasbro rolled out this Marvel three-pack as a Target Exclusive. I saw it a couple times on the shelves, but it didn’t seem worth the fifty bones they were asking for it. As it turns out a lot of people felt the same way because the set piled up on clearance and I was eventually able to grab it off the website for about $33 shipped. Since then it’s sat in my closet waiting for just the right day to be opened. I guess today’s that day.

The figures come in a fairly impressive window box with “Collector’s Edition” across the top and the characters names on the bottom. The set itself doesn’t really have a name, which aggrevates my OCD just a bit. There’s some nice comic art on the side panels and the back of the box has pictures of the figures and blurbs about the characters. The whole ensemble is fairly collector friendly, as you can simply open the side flap and slide out the tray. Space being the valuable commodity that it is for me, I certainly won’t be keeping the box. Let’s start with Captain America…

Who’s up for a kit-bash? Collectors of the Legends line should find this figure pretty familiar as it’s just a repaint and remold of the Ultimates Cap that came out in 2013 as part of the Hit Monkey Wave. Apart from the paint, the most notable differences are his jacket being swapped out for a shoulder rig and the holstered pistol missing from his right hip. The new paint includes swapping out the gray pants for blue ones and stars painted on his shoulders. I liked the original release of this figure a lot, but this one? Mmm… not so much. The paint isn’t nearly as good as the Ultimates Cap and those stars on the shoulders were a bad idea because they’re painted right on the hinges and only line up if his arms are positioned a certain way.

Cap comes with two accessories: First you get an alternate head, which is the same one used on the Steve Rogers that was included in the initial Wave of Legends’ return back in 2012. It’s a great head sculpt and probably the best way to go when displaying this figure to at least set it apart from the Ultimates Cap. The other accessory is obviously his shield, which is the exact same one that was bundled with Ultimates Cap.

Now don’t get me wrong, the sculpt on this figure is still good and I still really dig the detail on his equipment belt. The articulation is also great and he is most definitely a fun figure to play around with. In the interest of getting through all three figures in one Feature, I won’t run down the articulation, but rather just refer you back to my look at the Ultimates Cap. If you don’t own that figure, this is a decent pick up, but I’d still recommend the predecessor.

Next up is Dr. Chen Lu, Radioactive Man, and we’ve got another figure borrowing heavily from Hasbro’s toychest. The most obvious is the reuse of the head from the 2012 comic version of Drax the Destroyer released as part of the Arnim Zola Wave. While I was all for getting a Radioactive Man in the Legends scale, when I heard about the reused noggin I did not expect to be receptive to this figure at all. Turns out I like it just fine. The green translucent plastic used for the buck makes for a nice effect and the I have to say the Drax head works surprisingly well for me. I really don’t have anything else to say, except that he comes with no accessories and features the standard Legends style articulation, which is to say it’s quite good.

In case you haven’t guessed by now, I saved the figure I was looking forward to the most for last. In fact, it wouldn’t be inaccurate to say that I pretty much bought this set to get Ms. Marvel. This version of Carol, in her Warbird costume, had a less than stellar Marvel Universe treatment (mostly due to terrible paint) back in 2010 and given Hasbro’s proclivity to double dip on a lot of characters in both scales, I’m surprised it took this long to get her. Was it worth the wait? Mostly.

Ms Marvel appears to be built on the female buck that I first encountered as part of the SDCC Exclusive Thunderbolts set and used for Moonstone and Judith Chambers. It’s a great body (har har) with solid articulation and no mushy hinges. From a quality standpoint, this figure exhibits a little sloppiness. There’s mold flashing hanging off her feet and some of the flesh paint on her thighs and arms manages to be uneven, chipping and gloppy all at the same time. I wouldn’t say the paint issue is terrible, but it isn’t great either. It’s one of those figures that you can look at and tell it was part of a multi-pack because the quality just doesn’t live up to the single carded figures. On the other hand, Carol makes up for some of the low points with a solid head sculpt and the paint on the face and the tampo of the gold lightning bolt on her chest is pretty crisp. She also features her trademark red scarf tied around her waist. In this case, it’s a molded piece of plastic that hangs loose on her hips.

I can’t say this set was a “must have,” but at a deep discount of about eleven bucks a figure, I’m fairly satisfied with the purchase. I think Ms Marvel would have been better had she been issued as a single carded figure, but even as she is, she gets the job done. Radioactive Man is certainly a nice addition to my Avengers Rogue Gallery and as for Cap, well I could have done without him. He’s an interesting variant, but unlike the other two figures, certainly not one that I would have purchased on his own.

Oct 1 2014

Marvel Legends Infinite: Agent Venom by Hasbro

So, I had originally planned on looking at DC Collectibles Starfire today, but my figure turned out to be all kinds of broken, so I’m working on getting a replacement. I also just made up a new rule. If a DC figure fumbles too badly to be reviewed then Marvel gets to take the ball. I suppose the reverse would be the case. Fair is fair. Anyway, today’s figure, Agent Venom, comes from that curious new breed of Walgreens Exclusives. Nope, that’s not a typo. I didn’t mean to say Walmart. As odd as it seems, Walgreens is indeed asserting their presence in the action figure game by signing exclusive deals with companies like Hasbro, Funko, and even Character Options to make them the only source for certain characters from Marvel, Game of Thrones, Star Wars, and Doctor Who. I actually had some luck getting one of the Doctor Who exclusives, but my hunt for Agent Venom proved fruitless. Luckily, thanks to this awesome dude, I was able to get me an agent Venom without having to carve out a piece of my kidney for him on Ebay. Although, his price on the secondary market does seem to be calming down.

I’ve got no packaging to show you, as I just asked that he be mailed to me loose or in a tray or whatever way possible. Suffice it to say, Agent Venom comes in a package very similar to what we’ve been seeing in Hasbro’s Marvel Legends Infinite line. Since there is no packaging to speak of, I’ll take the opportunity here to say that this was a character I desperately wanted in the Legends line. Flash Thompson is a fantastic and compelling character to me on every level. I loved that he didn’t get left out of the Superior Spider-Man run. Some of the interchanges between him and Doc Ock were priceless. And Agent Venom’s involvement in the affairs of Spider-Island was easily my favorite thing about that whole story arc. Well, him and J. Jonah, of course. It was cruel blow to find out that Flash was going to be a hard to find exclusive, and I’m really thrilled to have him in hand.

Cast entirely in black plastic, Agent Venom is an imposing looking figure. The sculpt here is fantastic and I’m particularly fond of the armor pieces that look like a cross between sports equipment, riot gear, and crustacean parts. You get a mix of what looks like fabricated straps with that cool bumpy texture that looks and feels a bit like natural shell. Most of the torso bulk comes from a soft rubbery vest that’s laid on over the figure’s buck, which thankfully has the shoulder pads attached. This means that they can flop up and down to avoid hindering the shoulder articulation. It works so much better than putting them on a hinge as I don’t have to worry about them popping off like the ones on the Space Armor Iron Man figure included in the recent Guardians wave. The paintwork on the figure consists almost entirely of his white markings. I know some have complained about rough paint on this figure, but I’m actually pleased with mine. I think the paint itself could have been laid on a little thicker, as the black tends to bleed through in some areas, but apart from that the lines are pretty crisp and there’s no slop to speak of.

In addition to all that great armor, Agent Venom sports a well stocked equipment belt, which is all sculpted in one piece. The belt features enough pouches to make both Rob Liefeld and Deadpool jealous. He’s also got a canteen, smoke grenades, regular grenades, and a combat knife. Oh yeah, he’s also got a sculpted hip holster with a permanently attached automatic. And the silver paint on that gun is the only other paint on the figure apart from those white markings. Wait, what? The gun doesn’t come out of the holster? Boo. Agent Venom needs weapons!

Well, ask and you shall receive. Flash actually comes with four guns. You get a pair of gray automatic pistols, a gray sub-machine gun, and a black pistol with a laser scope (oh, look! One more paint hit!) mounted under the barrel. Nice! And like a lot of other people who get this figure, I’ll be giving those matching pistols to my Winter Soldier Black Widow who also suffered from Guns-sculped-into-the-holster Syndrome.

In addition to an embarrasment of guns, Agent Venom also comes with a single piece of four tendrils that plugs into his back. The ends of the tendrils are sculpted into little “hands” to hold his guns, although this feature works with somewhat mixed results. It’s still a very cool option.

The articulation on this figure is great. There are no mushy joints and all the right points are there. His arms feature rotating hinges in the shoulders, double hinges in the elbows, and swivels in the gloves. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, although they are those somewhat frustrating ones that require you to reposition the joint to make it work in different positions. The legs have double hinged knees, swivels at the top of the thighs, and the ankles have both hinges and lateral rockers. Agent Venom can swivel at the waist, and despite wearing the vest he can still hinge forward and backward a bit in the torso. He also has a hinge and a generous ball joint in the neck. He’s well balanced and loads of fun to play with!

Man, do I love this figure and I am absolutely thrilled to add him to my Legends shelf. Whether or not Walgreens having exclusive figures pans out to be a benefit or headache to collectors remains to be seen. On the plus side, I’ve got at least three Walgreens within a 20 minute radius of my home, whereas the nearest Toys R Us is about an hour away. On the downside, distribution seems to have been a little spotty so far, but I suppose we need to give it time. In the case of Agent Venom, however, we have a figure that was cancelled from a previous wave and then still left out when that wave found it’s way to TRU’s shelves. As a result, I would have been happy to get this figure in my hands no matter who wound up offering it. Hey, Walgreens, how about that red Legends Deadpool? Maybe you can work your mojo with Hasbro and get your hooks into that one too!

FigureFan Zero

Action Figure Reviews, Toys & Collectibles…

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