THOR & LADY SIF

MARVEL LEGENDS — MARVEL STUDIOS: THE FIRST TEN YEARS

Though very successful, and overall very good at creating a sense of consistency throughout its films, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is not without its missteps.  Incredible Hulk is the result of inheriting an initially unrelated production late in the game, but I still like it.  Iron Man 2 is a slightly bungled attempt at doing the whole wider universe thing in a solo film, but once again, I still quit like it.  So, let’s talk about my least favorite MCU entry by some measure, Thor: The Dark World.  Boy did I want to like it.  And it’s not a *bad* movie.  In fact, there are some truly fantastic sequences in it.  The trouble is, they all seem to be immediately followed or preceded by a rather terrible sequence that just sucks all the joy right out of you.  Through coincidence, The Dark World is also the least merchandised of the MCU films.  While the first Thor got a rather comprehensive 3 3/4 line, plus a Legends scale Thor, and Ragnarok at the very least got its most prominent players as Legends, The Dark World only got a very small handful of 3 3/4 inch figures from Hasbro, and no Legends at all.  At least that last bit’s getting amended now, with Thor and Lady Sif!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Thor and Lady Sif are entry 5 in the Marvel Studios: The First Ten Years sub-line of Hasbro’s Marvel Legends.  It follows the lead of the Captain America and Crossbones pack, with one brand-new figure, and one slightly tweaked.

THOR

Thor fills the slot for “slightly tweaked.”  Of course, that’s far less of an issue for this figure than it was for Cap, since the Amazon-exclusive figure this Thor’s based on was actually a pretty solid offering from the start.  This figure’s purpose is more to offer a slightly tweaked costume design. Like the figure he is built from, this guy stands 7 inches tall and has 28 points of articulation.  While it’s a little odd to be getting a figure at this point in the line that lacks the usual style of neck articulation, thanks to the hair, it’s not like he’s missing anything.  This figure uses most of the same pieces as his AoU counterpart, but gets a new set of chain-mailed arms to differentiate him ever so slightly.  Differentiating him even a little bit more is the paint work.  Aside from the obvious changes to the arms, they’ve also slightly changed the shade of the metal bits on the front of his costume, so that they now match the gold-er hue from The Dark World.  Of course, the biggest change by far is on the head, since this figure makes use of the fancy new face printing technique.  This does sort of have one downside, which is now that I’ve seen this head with a much better paint job, I now know for certain that it’s the sculpt and not the paint that had a slightly off Hemsworth likeness.  Well, at least he looks more like a real person, right?  Thor is, as usual, packed with his hammer Mjolnir, which remains a very well sculpted piece.

LADY SIF

And, of course, Sif is the brand-new component here.  Though she never got a super huge part, Jaime Alexander’s Lady Sif was one of my very favorite parts of the first two Thor films (in fact, the scenes with her and the Warriors Three are the real saving grace of The Dark World for me), so the fact that she hadn’t yet gotten the Legends treatment was quite sad indeed.  Sif is seen here in her slightly tweaked Dark World armor (which was also used for her appearance in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), which I will admit is a slightly better design than her look from the first movie.  The figure stands 6 inches tall and she has 27 points of articulation.  She’s got an all-new sculpt, and it’s a very strong offering.  The head has a pretty much spot-on likeness of Alexander, and the hair manages to not be incredibly limiting for the neck joint, which is certainly a plus.  The body is possibly a touch skinny for Sif’s fully armored appearance, but it’s not terribly far off, and the detail work is definitely impressive.  The use of separate pieces for her shoulder plates works out well, allowing for slightly better mobility, greater depth to the sculpt, and a much cleaner transition from skin to armor.  Sif’s paint work is all quite clean, and replicates her color scheme from the movie very well.  Like Thor, she uses the face printing technique, which really pays off here, and further highlights the sculpt’s likeness of the actress.  They’ve even gotten the small beauty spot on her right cheek; an easy to miss detail, but one that sells the likeness that much more.  Sif is packed with her shield, a single version of her sword, and two other swords that can be connected into a staff, just like in the movie.  Not a bad assortment at all.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Like the other three of these, I got this pair from Super Awesome Fiancee, who picked them up for me from work.  I wasn’t initially sold on getting the second Thor figure, since I had the Amazon one and all, but he’s definitely a solid figure, and I don’t mind getting the slight variation.  Sif is a truly amazing figure, and I’m glad to have finally been able to add her to the collection.  The only downside is that now I really want the Warriors Three to go with her…