Tag Archives: marvel universe

Mar 1 2011

Marvel Universe: Constrictor by Hasbro

I’m still working on catching up on all the Marvel Universe figures that I’ve added to my collection this past couple of weeks. Today, I thought we’d check out Frank Payne, aka. Constrictor. While I think Constrictor was a great character for Hasbro to add to the MU lineup, there’s really one main reason I wanted this figure as badly as I did and that’s because he spent some time as Deadpool’s roommate,[Somewhere back in the #40’s of Deadpool, Vol. 1 -FF] along with Absorbing Man’s wife, Titania, who actually turned out to be Copycat in disguise. Yeah, great stuff.

Constrictor comes on the almost standard MU card. He was actually a Runner-Up for the Fan’s Choice Figure, so there’s a little band saying so in the upper left hand corner and the border along the left side of the bubble is foil, making the package stand out a little from the other ones on the pegs. He was released among the waves stylized after The Dark Reign story arc, so the package has the HAMMER logo instead of SHIELD. Constrictor is nicely displayed in the bubble in a fairly passive stance with his tendrils hanging down at his sides. I really like the character art used here. It’s actually a lot more exciting than some of the images used on the cards of far more mainstream characters.

No doubt, Constrictor is a pretty distinctive looking character, and the figure certainly does his design justice. There isn’t a whole heck of a lot of sculpted detail on the body, as it mostly relies a generic body sculpt and paint apps. The paintwork is overall very good, except for one major flaw. There’s a big blue dot right on his belly, which is pretty unsightly. The head sculpt, however is really fantastic, especially the grimace on the exposed lower half of the face.

Apart from his figure stand and cache of documents, Constrictor doesn’t come with any accessories, but he does have his two Vibranium tendrils that are permanently attached to his wrists. They’re made of soft flexible plastic and honestly look like gummi worms. I don’t really mean that as a criticism, because they really do look great and while they aren’t poseable, they work fine in pretty much any pose you put him in.

Articulation is what we’ve come to expect from the MU male figures. You get ball joints in the neck, shoulders and hips, hinges in the elbows and double hinged knees, swivel cuts in the biceps and wrists, both swivels and hinges in the ankles, and that universal type joint in the torso.

I’m not sure whether this character was all that high on a lot of collector’s lists. Yeah, he was a Fan’s Choice runner-up, but I tend to find these selections rather dubious. He does have a sufficiently deep background to make him warrant a figure, but as I’ve already said, the the main reason I wanted him is because he was Deadpool’s roommate in a particularly entertaining story arc. As a figure, he doesn’t break any major ground in terms of sculpt, but he’s a solid representation of the character and well worth hunting down for the fans out there.

Feb 18 2011

Marvel Universe: Moon Knight and Black Panther by Hasbro

I’m slowly going through the case of Marvel Universe figures that I got in a couple of weeks ago. This time I’m going to look at two characters that I admittedly don’t care a whole lot about, but I wanted to pick them up for one reason or another. Moon Knight has always intrigued me, but I’ve never read anything that he’s ever been in, apart from a cameo in issue of Deadpool. I’ve got some of Moon Knight’s stuff on my To Read list, but at my age I think my reading list is a lot longer than the time I’ve got left on this old world of ours. I’m a lot more familiar with Black Panther, but he is by far my least favorite of all the Avengers. Apart from the issues of his comics that coincided with theDark Reign saga, I’ve never read any of his books, so most of my exposure to him is from the second animated Avengers movie and Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. 

Standard Marvel Universe packaging, only these figures were released before the HAMMER theme took over from SHIELD. The character art on these cards is a little weak, but that might be more because both characters have fairly simple designs rather than any lack of effort on Hasbro’s part. The bubbles show off the figures nicely.

Moon Knight is a really cool looking figure. In fact to find as nice a looking figure with virtually no paint apps, you’d have to look to Mattel’s Gentlemen Ghost from the DCUC line. He relies on a fair amount of new sculpt, a bulkier muscular build and and a really nice hood, cowl and cape piece that still allows for some articulation in the neck. His face is basically just a Jawa, but it really serves the original character design very well. He comes with his staff weapon and a moon dart, which looks exactly like a clipped toenail. Mine flew out of the package when I opened it and was never seen again. It’s a fair bet my cat ate it.

And speaking of figures with virtually no paint apps, next up is Black Panther. [See, there’s a reason I chose to look at these two figures together! -FF]  Of course, Panther hits the other end of the spectrum and is all black. I’ve tried many times to embrace this character, but I simply can’t do it. That’s not to say I didn’t want this figure, albeit solely because of his membership in the Avengers. I’m tempted to say there’s a lot of original sculpt on Panther’s body, because his torso looks to have fewer muscular lines than most other figures, but I’m not prepared to say one way or the other. I do think Hasbro did a fine job on the head sculpt. Panther comes with his Poleaxe.

While Moon Knight features all the standard articulation we’re used to seeing in the MU male figures, Black Panther has two exceptions: His knees. He doesn’t have the double hinged knees that Moon Knight and most other MU figures have. However, Both figures include their packet of secret SHIELD documents with file cards. On the other hand, these guys were released before Hasbro decided to start including the personalized stands. Boo!

And there you have it, another couple of solid offerings from the Marvel Universe line. I imagine that Black Panther will be a pretty well sought after figure just because of his Avengers affiliation, although it seems pretty questionable as to whether he’ll be brought into the picture when the Avengers assemble on the big screen in a year or so. I’m not so sure about Moon Knight. Granted, no matter how obscure a character, there will always be fans happy to get the figure, but I read a fair amount of Marvel comics and my exposure to him has been nil, so I have to wonder just how he’ll be received among the masses.

Feb 16 2011

Marvel Universe: Ghost Rider by Hasbro

It’s an amazing thing, but even that shitty movie with Nicholas Cage couldn’t manage to kill my fondness for Ghost Rider. Granted, I haven’t been as big a fan as I once was, but I still love the character and was really excited to be getting him in the Marvel Universe 3 3/4″ scale. And while I think this figure should have warranted some kind of boxed set that included his bike, I’ll take what I can get for now and hope for an exclusive or something later on down the line.

Standard Marvel Universe packaging. The character art is mighty fine and the bubble shows off the figure really nicely. Ghost Rider’s package is still part of the Dark Reign of Norman Osborne, so you get the HAMMER motif instead of SHIELD. Not much else to say here.

Let’s start with the head sculpt, because it is fan-friggin-tastic. Granted, Hasbro had a lot to work with here, what with it being a flaming skull and all, but this could have just as easily been a trainwreck. The skull itself is immaculately sculpted and the translucent orange flame makes for a cool effect. The slight orange tint to the skull helps carry the flaming effect along. His body sculpt isn’t terribly spectacular, but it certainly gets the job done and at least it relies as much on sculpt as it does paintwork. I like the high collar and the the black paint wash over the dark blue works well. I tend to think some sculpted chains on the figure itself, or possibly some sculpted in softer plastic to wrap around him would have gone a long way to make him even better, but that might be something reserved for a larger scale figure. Either way, there’s no question, Hasbro nailed the likeness here.

Marvel Universe’s articulation continues to impress me, at least for the male characters. Ghost Rider features ball joints in the neck, shoulders and hips. He’s got swivels in the biceps, wrists and thighs and hinged elbows and double hinged knees. He swivels at the hip and has universal movemen tin his upper torso. If there are more points of articulation to be found in a 3 3/4″ figure, I can’t imagine what they might be.

Ghost Rider comes with his little cache of secret documents including his file card. He also comes with a personalized figure stand and his chain/whip, which is partially made of the same translucent orange plastic that makes up his skull flames.

Hasbro produced a pretty distinctive and excellent looking figure here with Ghost Rider, but then again he’s not just another costumed super hero. He’s definitely among my favorite figures in the line so far, and that’s saying quite a bit. Owning him has motivated me to dig out some of my back issues and trades and give some of them a re-read. If nothing else it might help me in my quest to try to forget the Ghost Rider movie ever existed.

Feb 9 2011

Marvel Universe: Wolverine and Jean Grey by Hasbro

So, I picked up a case of Marvel Universe figures the other day. Actually, I pre-ordered them last year and they finally came in. I just got tired of hunting for some of these figures and even though it netted me doubles of Classic Cap and Modern Thor, I think it was still worthwhile. It also netted me that shitty looking, and yet oh so desireable Phasing Vision, which I promptly put up on Ebay so I could get the proper one. Today, we’re going to kick off looking at some of the figures in this case with two of the assortment’s X-Men, Wolverine and Jean Grey.


It’s the same old MU packaging we’ve been seeing for a while. This pair are still part of the Norman Osborne reign with the HAMMER insignia, as opposed to the SHIELD insignia on the older and now the current packages. The character artwork on the cards is as awesome as ever and the figures are really displayed well in the bubbles.


Wolverine is a decent looking figure, and pretty much exactly what I expected. His classic costume is well executed, mostly via paint apps and with a sculpted belt buckle and separate straps for his legs. There’s a wee bit of slop here and there around the blue and yellow borders, but I’ve definitely seen worse. Wolverine’s claws are produced in soft plastic, so as not to break easily. The real shining point of this figure, though, is the head sculpt, which Hasbro really nailed. I doubt we’re going to see a better one in this scale any time soon. The only thing I’m not crazy about here is the really weird sculpt of his neck and shoulders. It’s always been a bit weird on Hasbro’s modern GI Joes, but it’s really off putting here when you view the figure from the side.


And then there’s Jean Grey. From the neck down, I’m pretty happy with how she turned out. She uses the basic female body for the line with some sculpted detail to make up her shoulder pads, belt buckle, and arm bracers. The yellow and blue look good and overall the paint apps aren’t at all bad. From the neck up is a little bit of a different story. It’s hard for me to put a finger on exactly what’s wrong with her head sculpt. On the one hand it looks too small and the face is a tad wild eyed and generic. I also think they should have gone a different route with her hair sculpt. Between the hair and the shoulder pads it looks like she’s hunching really awkwardly. I’ve seen a lot of hatred for this figure among collectors circles, and while I can certainly see where it all comes from, I can’t say that I really hate her. Did the character deserve better? Yeah, most definitely. What we wound up with is just kind of average and awkward.

Both figures come with the Top Secret packet containing her file card and and secret document. They also both include figure stands, which is always a welcome treat. Wolverine doesn’t come with any other accessories, but Jean Grey comes with a little ball of energy that can fit over her hand.

All in all this is a decent pair of figures, but neither one really blew me away, which is disappointing because I’m usually a pretty easy sell on X-Men figures. Wolverine edges out Jean as my favorite of the pair, but I can’t summon up the hatred that some people seem to have over Jean Grey. I’m certainly not sorry I added them to my collection.

Feb 5 2011

Iron Man 2: “Fury of Combat” Boxed Set by Hasbro

The Iron Man 2 action figure line must have an Arc Reactor of its own keeping it alive. It’s not the first time I’ve pointed out that while other movie figure lines shoot their load and get whisked away to the clearance bins before the DVD release, Iron Man 2 keeps on chugging along and I keep buying the figures. Granted most of the single carded ones I pick up these days are impulse buys, but today’s boxed set of four figures is one that I actually hunted down. The set includes the Mark VI Iron Man armor, two Ground Assault Drones and Nick Fury himself.

The set comes in a long window box, somewhat similar to some of Hasbro’s Star Wars boxed sets. It’s set up so that Iron Man and the two Drones are in the main window and Nick Fury gets his own little window on the side as if he’s a bonus figure. The box has a similar deco to the single carded figures and has a really nice illustrated backdrop that you can use as a diorama to display the figures if you’re so inclined. You’ll also note by the sticker that this set is a Toys R Us exclusive. The box is pretty collector friendly, as the tray just slides right out, but the figures are positioned pretty awkwardly in the box with Iron Man looking like something akin to a ragdoll.

The Iron Man figure has plenty of good and bad going for it. I was actually surprised to realize that I didn’t own the Mark VI armor yet, so this was a decent pick up for me, although it will probably be replaced on my shelf with the carded version that has the power up glow whenever I get around to buying it. The sculpting is as excellent as ever, and while the quality of the paint is fantastic with a thick, rich glossy lacquer, I’m not a big fan of the added gold on the thighs. On the downside, he does have some issues with articulation, particularly in the oddball joints used for his hips, and his head wants to perpetually hunch down, which makes for some awkward poses unless you have him looking off to the side. I doubt I would have been entirely happy with him as a single carded release, but he’s ok for box set fodder.


The Ground Assault Drones are practically worth the price of admission alone, so long as you don’t mind getting two of them. Seeing as how tough it’s been to find the other Hammeroids carded, it’s cool to get a pair of this variety. The sculpts are really off the charts for the 3 3/4″ scale and these guys are armed up the wazoo. They have built in grenade launchers with drum magazines on their right arms, belt fed machine guns on their left arms and the giant cannon that mounts onto their back and makes them look like walking Abrams tanks. They also have the drop down stabalizer plates on their feet to keep them from getting blown back on their asses when they fire those things. The paint is a realistic looking grundgy flat military tan and these guys have some excellent little painted details, including the tiny American flags on their chests.

And then there’s Nick Fury, which for a lot of people, myself included, is the real draw of this set, and I have to say Hasbro did a marvelous job with him. The body sculpt is very GI Joe-ish, but it still fits the character and the added softgoods trenchcoat really ties the whole figure together. The headsculpt is really one of the best I’ve seen in a while in this scale. He comes with a little grey automatic pistol, which sadly does not fit into a holster anywhere.

My only gripe with this set is that it doesn’t come with stands and armor cards. I don’t care so much about Iron Man missing them, since I will undoubtedly get one when I buy the power up glow carded version to display in my collection. And obviously Nick Fury didn’t need one, but I’m bummed that I can’t display these Drones with a stand and armor cards along side my other two Hammeroids. I’m not saying I really expected them to be included, especially considering the cost of the set, but not having them still messes up the feng shui of my Iron Man 2 display. Dig it?

This set was $24.99 on TRU’s website, which isn’t much more than the cost of three carded Iron Man 2 figures, so it really is like you’re getting Nick Fury as a bonus. Either way it’s a good price, even though chances are many collectors won’t be terribly excited and/or happy about the Iron Man figure that’s included. Whether it’s better than Target’s similar exclusive boxed sets, I can’t really say, since I’ve only glanced at those on the shelf a few times.

Jan 22 2011

Marvel Universe: Spider-Woman by Hasbro

It’s pretty rare for me to be anywhere near a current wave of Marvel Universe figures, as I’m often too busy scrambling to pick up the figures from three waves back to even take much notice of the new releases. And yet, I’ve had some luck these last few days and managed to grab a couple of the current wave at reasonable prices from merchants on this new Interweb thingie. One of those figures was Spider-Woman, so let’s take a looksy.

Spider-Woman comes on a standard Marvel Universe card… oh, but wait! The dark reign of Osborne has apparently come to an end because the Hammer logo has returned to that of SHIELD. Don’t take it so hard, Norm, you had a good run. Apart from the return of the SHIELD logo, there isn’t a whole lot that’s new about the packaging here. It’s functional, it looks good, and the character artwork is solid. Now let’s shred it to pieces so we can get to the figure.

Honestly, just about every figure in this wave looks amazing, so to say that Spider-Woman was one of the ones that to me really stood out, well that’s just saying something. Even with a reuse of the basic MU female body, Jessica’s a fantastic looking figure. The head sculpt is great, although the sculpted hair, as usual, inhibits the neck articulation. But what really shines on this figure is the amazingly crisp paint apps. Paint hasn’t always been consistant on this line, you can just take a look back at my Ms. Marvel figure to see that, but it seems like Hasbro has started to address the issue in this wave.

Based on the product images, I couldn’t figure out how Hasbro was implementing the web wings, so getting to see that they were flexible plastic held on to her arms by straps was a pretty cool revelation. It was the best way to go to have her maintain her arm articulation while giving her this signature look.

Spider-Woman comes with a figure stand, but no matter how hard I shook the package, I couldn’t get the file envelope to drop out. Yeah, starting with this wave the file cards and classified documents are gone. I’m sort of bummed out by this. It’s not like I really displayed them or anything, but considering that the MU figures don’t usually come with any accessories and frequently reuse parts, I wouldn’t think Hasbro would really need to cut costs so badly as to remove a little printed card and slip of paper. I love these figures, but I still need all the help I can get to justify how much I usually have to spend to get them.

Jan 19 2011

Marvel Spider-Man: Toxic Blast Venom by Hasbro

I think it should go without saying that I don’t collect this Spider-Man line from Hasbro, but when I did my grocery shopping at the Wally World this morning, the toy pickings were pretty slim. They finally finished their toy reset, and guess what? They’re still not carryingMarvel Universe or DC Universe Classics. But, hey who needs those when you have 12 pegs of Iron Man 2 figures from a year ago and this sub-par kiddie orientated line of Spidey figures, eh? Anyway, I saw Venom here on the pegs and decided it would make a nice place-holder in my Marvel Universe line until the real thing comes along.

The Spider-Man cards have a very animated look to them, which makes me wonder if there isn’t an animated Spider-Man cartoon going on right now that I am unaware of. Anyone? Either way, as I already pointed out, this line is clearly designed for kids over collectors, which seems pretty suspicious since everyone knows that kids just play video games these days. Of course, it could just be one of those “use it or lose it”things that Disney has going on with their newly acquired Marvel licenses making this line just Hasbro’s stop gap until they inevitably start producing figures based off the upcoming reboot movie. Whatever the case, the packaging is bright and spends a lot of real estate advertising some battle card game included in the package.

Venom comes with a lot of crap. And I do mean crap. Besides the cards and instruction sheet for the battle game, which I didn’t photograph because they got tossed with the packaging where they belong, he also comes with a really soft web axe and a missile launcher that clips onto his arm so that it looks like it’s morphing out of the suit. It doesn’t have a firing button, you just hold back the missile and let it go. I really don’t get the axe. It’s got two holes in the handle and a peg at the end. I think it has something to do with clipping on to other web constructs from other figures, but I don’t know. He can sort of hold it, but not very well.

The figure itself, however, is not bad at all. The sculpt is very detailed with a ton of sinew and veins running through the body, and the headsculpt is just, well… wow. He’s got his huge rictus grin, bearing his fangs and a tentacle like tongue lashing out. The paintwork is pretty solid, with the bulk of the figure being black with some blue highlights, the mouth, tongue and teeth are all nicely painted and while there is some slop and bleeding on the white deco of the suit, it’s nothing that we haven’t seen worse in the Marvel Universe line from time to time.


The only place where this figure comes up short is in the articulation. The head is on a ball joint and the arms have ball jointed shoulders and elbows, so no problems there. The legs, however are only ball jointed in the hips and have no knee or ankle articulation and there’s no articulation in the torso whatsoever. Things could certainly be worse, but it’s worth pointing out that Venom’s articulation falls well below the Marvel Universe standards.

So, I picked up Venom here as a place holder for Marvel Universe and I think he fits the bill really well. He’s just a bit bigger than the MUSpider-Man and they look great together locked in combat. Maybe we’ll get a better Venom if Hasbro does a comic series subline to the new movie figures when they come out. If not, I’ll just wait patiently for a proper MU Venom to take his place, but for now I’m pretty satisfied with him.

Jan 18 2011

Marvel Universe: Luke Cage by Hasbro

Back in the day, I used to make a habit of reading comics that premiered right around the year I was born. It’s how I originally got so obsessesed with Jack Kirby’s New Gods and Mister Miracle, and it’s also how I was first introduced to Luke Cage from Hero For Hire. My interest in the character didn’t extend much beyond that book’s initial run, back when he looked like part of the Dolemite scene. In fact, with just one or two exceptions, I can’t really remember much of anything he’s been in that I’ve been reading or watching at all.

Cage comes on a standard Marvel Universe style card with the Hammer Industries logo. The card points out that this figure was a Fan’s Choice Runner Up, which really surprises me. Like I said, he hasn’t been a high profile character in what I’ve been reading, apart from Dark Reign, where I was pretty damn disappointed he didn’t take the helm of The New Avengers. Still, his appearance here definitely fits with the Osborne/Hammer theme of the recent MU releases. The bubble is pretty well packed as all of Luke’s accessories are mounted off of the figure. As always, this is a nice presentation with some good character artwork to personalize the card.  My figure’s card looks like it’s been kicked around quite a bit, but it doesn’t matter because I’m ripping this baby open.

Obviously, Luke is based on his contemporary look, which is vastly different from how I remember mostly him. I say “obviously” because I don’t think his 70’s look would fit in too well in the toy aisles and they probably couldn’t have fit his mammoth afro inside a standard-sized bubble. As a result, Luke Cage’s figure isn’t as iconic looking to me as it probably is to some collectors. Still, the sculpt is excellent and the paint and wash on his jeans is particularly well done. Both his skull cap and his bling chain are separate accessories, which I found both surprising and cool, as it offers up different display options. He also comes with a crunched steel girder, which he can wield like a club.

As with all the latest MU figures, Luke Cage comes with his file card, secret document and a figure stand.

Because of the disconnect in appearance between this Luke Cage and the character I knew, this figure wasn’t really high on my list. In fact, the only reason I bought him at all, was because I stumbled upon him in Walmart’s clearance aisle for five bucks. It’s worth noting that this is one of the very few times I’ve actually found a Marvel Universe figure at retail as the overwhelming bulk of my collection has come from online e-tailers. But overall I’m happy I grabbed him as he really is a wonderfully executed figure, and I’m glad to have him in my collection.

Jan 16 2011

Iron Man 2: Weapons Assault Drone and Armor Assault Drone by Hasbro

Iron Man 2 continues to be the movie property toy line that simply refuses to die. While most movie-toy ventures evaporate over night or linger on in the clearance aisles, Tony Stark continues to hang tough. Even after this past couple of weeks where most retailers have completed the post-Christmas reset of their toy aisles, Iron Man 2 remains on the planograms. While I’m still as weary as ever of seeing pegs full of the same few Iron Man armor variants that I saw last year, some of the newer figures are finally filtering out and many of them are spectacular. Even better, the two figures we’re looking at today will finally give my army of Iron Man armors something to fight beyond just Crimson Dynamo and any of those Whiplash figures, I’ll probably never find.

Think back to the distant past when Iron Man 2 was out in the theaters or, better yet, dust off your Blu-Ray copy and you may recall that these Drones were the Hammer Industries armor suits modified by Vanko to fight Stark and Rhodey in the big climactic battle. I’ve been waiting to get these guys in figure form for a long time. The packaging is still the same and it still looks really great. I can’t remember the last time I liked a movie line’s packages as much as I do the Iron Man 2 carded figures. The only real difference here is an added sticker that points out there’s a $5 off coupon inside toward your next Iron Man 2 toys purchase. Beyond that the figures are nicely displayed inside the bubble and the back panel shows some pictures of other figures you may never see on pegs still clogged with earlier waves of figures.


The Air Assault Drone is the simpler of the two figures, so let’s start with him. The sculpt is simply fantastic and this line continues to push the envelope of sculpted details on the 3 3/4″ scale. There aren’t a lot of paint apps on this figure, as he’s pretty much just a two-tone grey and silver, which reproduces his military style finish pretty nicely. Besides, the sculpt is so good, it doesn’t need a lot of paint apps to make it stand out. The backpack is removable, although why you’d want to, I’m not really sure, but then options are never really a bad thing.



The Weapons Assault Drone has the same awesome detailing as his comrade with a green and silver paint deco. Some of the components of the two figures are very similar in overall configuration, but the sculpted details are different enough to make them both very distinctive. The WAD has a few more added bells and whistles, including two shielded armor plates that fold out from his forearms and two sawblade attachments for his arms that can be swapped out for longer ones, which essentially look like Whiplash’s whips without the electricity. This Drone also has a swappable head, with a different front piece, although I’m not really sure why Hasbro went through the trouble or didn’t include the same extra for the AAD, which seems a little wanting for extras by comparison.

Both figures have the same basic articulation, which is good, but have some really weird hip joints, which can swivel, but don’t want to seem to do anything else. The heads are ball jointed, the arms include rotating shoulders with some lateral movement, elbows with hinges and swivels and swivels in the wrists. The legs include double hinged knees and ankles with hinges and swivels. They also each have ball jointed torsos.

As is the standard with Iron Man 2 figures, both Drones also come with a figure stand and the three Armor Cards, which can be fitted into the slots on the stand for a cool looking display.

Even if you aren’t the biggest Iron Man fan, these figures are worth looking at. They are wonderfully executed and would fit in well with a lot of different 3 3/4″ figure lines. Unfortunately, I count myself lucky just finding this pair, but if these guys ever became common, I’d happily army build a squad of each. Even after all this time, Hasbro still impresses me with the Iron Man 2 figures and whenever I’ve convinced myself I’m done collecting them, I wind up stumbling across a few more and falling in love with this collection all over again.

Jan 15 2011

Marvel Secret Wars Comic Pack #11: Thor and Enchantress by Hasbro

Slowly but surely, I’m finishing off my collection of Hasbro’s Secret Wars comic packs. I think I only have two more to go after this one. Lord knows some of these packs got a little random with the figure assortments, but number eleven is a pretty straight shooting Thor theme, which also allows you to add an excellent villain to your Marvel Universe rogues gallery. Let’s take a look.

As always, I love the packaging here. In this case, you can’t see much of the comic cover, but the artwork on the bubble insert sure is nice. This pack includes the penultimate issue of the Secret Wars series, which builds up to quite the cliffhanger, but other then that doesn’t feature a whole hell of a lot of action.

The Thor figure is a nice pick up, as he’s only been released as his modern design in the Marvel Universe line and this is his more classic and iconic look. Of course, with the Thor movie’s release right around the corner, I’m willing to bet there will be a newer and better sculpt of classic Thor released, assuming Hasbro keeps with tradition and includes “comic series” figures in with the movie toys. Nevertheless, this comic pack version of Thor is a pretty solid sculpt and doesn’t really suffer from any of the quality control issues that have nagged some of the comic pack figures. I’m not 100 percent satisfied with the head sculpt, and the way his cape seems to levitate off his shoulders is a little odd, but other than that I’m pretty happy here. Mjolnir even has the tiny inscription on the side, which is pretty damn amazing.

On the flipside you have The Enchantress, and if you’ve been keeping up with The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, then you’ve seen a fair deal of her lately. I honestly avoided picking up this set because I’ve read some rather unfavorable reviews of this figure, but having her in hand, I have to say I think she turned out quite good. The head sculpt is nice and the paint apps are relatively clean. The only thing I’m going to complain about here is the odd way her waist joins with her hips. It just looks awkward. Still, all in all I’m very satisfied with her figure. Granted, Enchantress is just as likely to get a comic style release as part of the new Thor movie toys, so you may want to wait to see what’s coming.

Secret Wars pack #11 is a nice score, especially for Thor fans who just can’t wait until the movie figures start turning up, which based on early photos are looking really amazing. While the Secret Wars comic packs are fast disappearing from the shelves, you may still be able to grab some of these straggling on the pegs at your local toy aisle. I found this one for $12.99, which is a pretty solid deal for two great figures and a comic book.