DAREDEVIL VS HYDRO-MAN

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

Fun FiQ Fact #0083:  Despite both characters making appearances on the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man cartoons in the ’90s, Daredevil and Hydro-Man were never both present in the same episode.

I gotta be honest, of all the ’90s Marvel cartoons, Spider-Man: The Animated Series is probably my least favorite.  I know, bold statement.  I’m a guy that defends Avengers: United They Stand and Silver Surfer; how can I take a swing at one of the big ones?  Hard to say.  Something about the show’s pacing always bugged me.  I can appreciate its significance, and it did give us some very cool toys back in the day.  After doing a year of figures based on X-Men: The Animated Series, Hasbro switched over to Spider-Man, which I had less need for, of course.  But then they went and got me with a set I couldn’t pass up.  So, let’s look at Daredevil vs Hydro-Man!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Daredevil and Hydro-Man are the fifth release in the Spider-Man: The Animated Series sub-set of Marvel Legends.  They keep the X-Men set’s VHS-style packaging, but they’re now all two-packs, instead of singles, with each pairing being a hero/villain match-up.  This set is a Hasbro Pulse-exclusive, at least thus far.  The whole line was *supposed* to be exclusive, but three of the six two-packs jumped to a Fan Channel release, so it’s hard to say.

DAREDEVIL

Our second Hasbro Pulse-exclusive Daredevil in rather short succession, and yet again he’s part of a multi-pack.  At least it’s just a two-pack this time.  The aim of this one seems to really be just getting more mileage out of the new stuff from the last one.  The figure stands 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 38 points of articulation.  Structurally, he’s identical to the three-pack figure I looked at not that long ago.  That figure moved Matt to the Renew Your Vows body, which works well for the character.  He uses that figure’s Paul Harding sculpted head sculpt, as well as getting  a new one, with his teeth bared.  The calm one’s no slouch, but that new sculpt is really solid.  I really like it.  The big change-up to this figure is the paint work.  He’s still in the same general costume, of course, but the show very much dialed into the comics’ tendency to go for very dynamic shading on Matt’s costume, and that’s reflected here.  He gets a lot of black shading, done with a cross-hatching style to it.  I wasn’t sure about it at first, but I turned out really, really well.  It’s not like a lot of the other cel-shading, where it’s really directional; it feels like a proper dynamic design for DD, and I think it adds something that was missing from the three-pack release.  I especially like the actual distinction for the boots and gloves this time around.  DD gets the two heads, three sets of hands (in fists, gripping, and open gesture), his batons, and a line to go between them, which is impressive, since the three-pack figure actually came with a fair bit less.

HYDRO-MAN

Our villain this time around is Morris Bench, aka Hydro-Man.  I last reviewed a Hydro-Man before the release of Far From Home, a movie which didn’t *actually* feature him.  Sure looked like it would at the time, though.  Hydro-Man only has two appearances in Spider-Man: The Animated Series, but he was used in the show’s opening credits, which gave him a little extra staying power.  The figure stands 6 1/2 inches tall and he has 30 points of articulation.  Like his last figure, he uses the Netflix Luke Cage as a starting point.  He actually keeps the figure’s arms this time, rather than using the water ones from before.  He gets a new head sculpt, which is a bit more dialed into the animation look.  For full accuracy, his hair should be a bit longer in the back, but it’s ultimately not bad.  Since the standard black T-shirt and jeans look was covered pretty well by the last Hydro-Man, this figure’s coloring replicates his fully water form, molding him entirely in translucent blue plastic.  It works well, and he’s quite striking.  He gets a little bit of white accenting to give him a little extra flair, which I dig, but it’s minor.  Hydro-Man is packed with the water effect pieces from the last figure, as well as two sets of hands in fists and open gesture.

THE ME REMAINDER OF THE EQUATION

The rest of this line’s been very easy to skip, and I thought DD would be too after I got the three-pack release.  Then I saw this set, and the new stuff with DD just made it impossible to pass this one up.  The shading works so, so well, and the extra head and hands make him even better than an already very good figure.  This is my definitive DD Legend, and there’s no question about that.  Hydro-Man?  Well, he was more along for the ride.  I don’t mind having him, and he’s certainly fun, but I also don’t see him replacing the other figure outright in my collection.  Still, he’s certainly fun.