I’m still trying to get through the last of the Marvel Universe figures that are stacked in the corner so that I can put the line to bed and move on to the Infinite line. To that end, I’m digging deep and checking out a figure that has been waiting to be opened for almost a year. Yes, it’s Elektra. Now, I find Elektra to be a pretty cool character in the comics, although I rarely encounter her in the books that I read, but the truth is I’ve been ruined on her. It all goes back to a flight to New Jersey where they showed the Jennifer Garner movie. At first I thought I was lucky. I like looking at Jennifer Garner, (who the hell doesn’t?) and I was curious about the movie. Soon I realized that I would have rather stared at the front seat in front of me than watch the movie in its entirety. I found myself wishing I had a parachute. But let’s not hold that against comic book Elektra…

Hey, there’s the Marvel Universe packaging! We won’t be seeing this many more times, which is kind of sad because I always loved these little cards and I’m not really sold on the bland design of the Infinite packages. Elektra’s card shows off some wonderful character art and the figure looks great it the bubble. I actually have some doubles of MU figures hanging on my wall. In another life, I could see myself collecting this line mint on card. Anyway, let’s get her out and see how she is…

As is often the case with the MU figures, Elektra uses a generic body and lets the paint do most of the work, although the addition of the sculpted sash around her waist goes a long way to make the figure look quite distinctive. Sure, the sash is a bit big and clunky, but I think it works fairly well for the scale. In addition to using red paint for her top and boots, Elektra also has red straps painted on her arms and thighs, all of which is extremely evocative of the Psylocke figure. There’s a wee bit of slop here and there, but all in all I’ve got no complaints about the paintwork here, especially when I think back to how bad it was on a figure like Warbird.

Hasbro went all out for the head sculpt on this figure. I really dig the face sculpt itself, but it’s the elaborate hair and bandanna that really makes this figure shine. The hair on her right side is split to fall partially over the front of her shoulder and the rest falls down her back reaching to her waist. I particularly like the long strands coming off from where her bandanna is tied. It’s all wonderfully punctuated with some beautifully crisp paintwork.

Elektra is one of the more articulated female figures in the line. The arms have ball joints at the shoulders, hinges at the elbows and swivels in the wrists. The legs have ball joints at the hips, double-hinged knees, swivels at the thighs and tops of the boots, and hinges and rockers in the ankles. She has a swivel just under her chest and her neck features both a ball joint and a hinge. There are, however, a few problems here. First off, the hinge in the neck is almost useless because of the sculpted hair. No surprise there. The more frustrating issue is the very limited range of motion in her hips. I think this is because of the pelvis sculpt, but you have to really work to get much movement in there. For an acrobatic character like Elektra, the range of motion at the hips is disappointing.

Elektra comes with her pair of trusty Si. These are wonderful and tiny little pieces, with silver blades and guards and painted handles. They can be tucked into the sash, either front or back, which is very cool. Another great little touch is that Elektra’s hands are sculpted so that her index fingers wrap around the guards to make her hold them better.

There’s no doubt that Elektra is a fantastic looking figure. Hasbro worked their usual magic with a lot of paint and a little fresh sculpting to portray the character perfectly. Yes, that articulation in the hips is damn frustrating. I wanted to spend a lot more time posing and shooting her, but the limitations got the better of me. Still, considering that most of the time my figures are just posed on the shelf, it’s not enough to ruin the figure for me. It’s also worth mentioning that despite being off the market, Elektra can be had for a pretty good price. I think I wound up paying $10 for her and she was definitely worth that. At least now I have someone to keep Daredevil company on the shelf.

I’m making a concerted effort to open the last of my Marvel Universe figures so that I can move on to the new Infinite branded line. As a result, today I’m checking out Richard Rider, aka Nova! It’s been a long working weekend, my back is killing me, and I’m anxious to have some drinks and collapse onto the sofa, so let’s get right to it…

Ah, it’s nice to see the MU packaging again. It may be defunct now, but we’ll be seeing it a bunch more times as I still have a lot of figures in the line to cover. You get some nice character art and the figure looks great in the bubble, but there’s not a lot going on in there. Nope, no stand or accessories. I’ve been hunting Nova for a long time and I finally found him hanging on a peg in Target, which surprised the hell out of me. I was clearly so delighted that I had to explain it to my Marvel-challenged buddy who I was with by labeling him as the Green Lantern of the Marvel Universe. Despite the ignorance of my friend, I think Nova’s probably pretty popular right now because of his role in the Spider-Man cartoon. I’m guessing he’s going to be a popular figure in the coming days since the Nova Corps will be featured in the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy film. Man, I can’t wait… August can’t come soon enough.

Nova makes clever use of a standard, modern MU buck with extra bits attached to make up his Corps uniform. The added gold parts go a long way to add depth and complexity to the outfit, but the pieces on his legs and arms do tend to flop around about. As a result, you need to adjust them almost every time you repose the figure. It’s annoying, but at least it makes sure that they don’t impede the articulation. Still, a strategically placed spot of glue on each might remedy the situation. The buck is uniform dark blue, and the added matte gold parts really make the figure pop on the shelf.

The portrait here is certainly very comic inspired. Hasbro really nailed the bucket-style helmet with the red starburst on the forehead. The exposed part of the face seems rather stylized, though. It might just be because of the shape of the helmet’s cut-out, but the jaw and the lips seem super pronounced. It still works for me just fine.

Because Nova is built on the most modern of MU bucks, he sports some crazy articulation. The arms feature ball jointed shoulders, double hinges in the elbows, and swivels in the biceps and wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, double hinged at the knees, hinged at the ankles, and feature swivels in the thighs and again below the knees. The torso swivels at the waist and features a ball joint just under the chest and the neck is ball jointed for a generous amount of movement. As is often the tradeoff with these newer bucks, Nova can be a bit tough to stand without assistance and some of the hinges feel a little soft.

With no accessories, that’s pretty much all I have to say about Nova. He’s as solid a figure as they come and he’s definitely a welcome addition to my army of MU figures and a pretty timely release on Hasbro’s part. Considering that the pegs here are just full of Caps and Iron Mans, I was beside myself when I found him out in the wild. I didn’t even have to dig through the pegs for him as he was just hanging there in plain sight waiting for me to grab him. Yes, this is what figure hunting in my neck of the woods is like, folks. It’s brutal and most often non- productive. Anyway, Nova’s been sitting on one of my online wish lists for a while now at a couple bucks above retail and I’ve just been waiting to pull the trigger. Good thing I waited!

Surely everyone has heard by now that the Marvel Universe 3 ¾” line is dead, but in reality it’s just being rebranded as the Marvel Infinite line. While the MU line and I have had our ups and downs, I’ve been a loyal collector from the early waves and even though it’s just a name change I’m still sorry to see it go. I haven’t looked at anything from this line since back in November of last year, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been buying them. I actually have a sizeable stack of unopened MU figures that I’d like to get through before I start covering the Infinite figures. So, let me try to get back on track with that today with a look at Cloak and Dagger.

I was first introduced to this pair when I was about 15 when I bought the four-issue miniseries from 1983 in a used bookshop downtown. I don’t remember the exact circumstances, but considering my age at the time, I’m thinking I picked it up for three reasons: Dagger’s tight white unitard on the cover and boobs. I never thought this pair would ever make it to Marvel Universe but I’m certainly glad they did. The last time I owned these characters in figure form it was that unfortunate boxed set from Toybiz. Here they come single carded on the usual MU packaging. The excellent character art features both characters and the insert identifies them only as “Marvel’s Knights.” Uh-oh. You know what that means! Yes, Hasbro offered this duo as two variants in one slot and it’s a terrible f’cking idea. Who is going to want just Cloak or Dagger? Why do you do this shit to your customers, Hasbro? Fortunately, I was able to snag a pair online for only eleven bucks a figure. Let’s start with Cloak.

Cloak was a really easy figure to make. He features a totally black buck with a newly sculpted head and cape. The cape is what you would probably expect. It’s sculpted to billow out and it fits right over the neck post. There’s some decent texturing, a grey clasp at the neck, and the back has dark blue striping, which represents some of the only paintwork on the figure. The sculpt of the cape doesn’t interfere too much with articulation, although the fact that it falls just short of the ground make Cloak a bit back heavy.

The head sculpt includes the hood all as one piece and it creates a nice illusion that it’s part of the cape. The head sculpt is excellent, with a suitably stern, almost blank expression. The face is painted brown and the eyes are white, which makes a nice effect of the eyes shining through from the hood.

The buck isn’t the most articulated of the modern 3 ¾” bodies, but it is close. You get ball joints in the neck, shoulders, hips, and ankles. There are single hinges in the elbows and doubles in the knees. You get swivels in the biceps and wrists, and a ball joint in the torso. The key thing missing here are the thigh swivels, which appear on what I consider to be the ultimate buck that Hasbro uses in this scale. It’s no biggie, although I do kind of miss the rockers in the ankles.

Moving on to Dagger, here we have another pretty easy figure for Hasbro to produce, as she makes use of the standard modern female buck with a new head popped on. The pearlescent white they used for her bodysuit looks fantastic and the dagger shaped cut out down her front is decently executed. My figure had some black spots on her white paint, which had me worried until I got the figure open and was able to scratch them off with my thumb nail. Not to take away from Dagger, but I can’t help but think with a little fresh paint and some tiny roller skates and Hasbro could easily turn this figure into a mighty nice Dazzler.

The head sculpt is good, but maybe a tad too intense. The paint is nice and clean and the hair looks fantastic, even if it does inhibit the neck articulation a bit. I think my biggest gripe here is the plastic used on the face is really waxy and can be a little distracting.

In terms of articulation, Dagger brings her A-game. You get ball joints in the shoulders, elbows, torso, hips, and ankles. Her elbows are hinged and her knees are double-hinged. You get swivels in the wrists, thighs and calves. The neck is both ball jointed and hinged, and you get rockers in the ankles. Nice! The hinges are a little soft on my figure, but that often comes with the territory on the skinny chicks.

Yes, Cloak and Dagger were easy figures for Hasbro, but that doesn’t make me appreciate them any less. This pair is a very welcome addition to my menagerie of Marvel Universe figures and I’m very happy I was able to score both at a reasonable price. In fact, the only criticism I have is that the way they were released seems to have been designed to torture and agitate fans and collectors. Hasbro simply should not have gone the variant route and it only serves to remind me of the fact that I’m still missing one of the Legends Wrecking Crew for the very same reason. WHERE’S MY BULLDOZER, HASBRO??? I know Hasbro doesn’t do Universe two-packs, but they do those three-packs, so they could have tossed in a Spectacular Spider-Man and made this an easy boxed set.