ANT-MAN

MARVEL LEGENDS VINTAGE (HASBRO)

“What matters most is not the size of the man in the fight, but the size of the fight in the man — and the bad guys take big hits from Ant-Man!”

A few weeks ago, I looked at *most* of the latest Vintage sub-series of Marvel Legends, but didn’t quite cover them all.  The two missing were Ant-Man and Hawkeye, and, while I still haven’t found a Hawkeye, I did manage to snag an Ant-Man.  So here he is!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Ant-Man is another piece of the second series of the Marvel Legends Vintage line, and is the natural pairing to the Wasp figure from this same assortment.  The set hit stores right around the time of Ant-Man and the Wasp’s home media release, so I guess they were pretty sensibly timed.  In terms of the character he’s representing (that being a Hank Pym version of Ant-Man), he’s actually a first for Legends, though in terms of the actual figure, he follows the rest of the assortment’s trend of being a lot of revisited ground.  The figure stands 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation.  Sculpturally, this Ant-Man is identical to the Walgreens-exclusive Black Ant from 2015.  Technically, it’s not a pitch-perfect translation, since the two designs hive some slight discrepancies, but it’s close enough that we’ve all pretty much been expecting this exact figure since Black Ant was first shown off.  That it took Hasbro so long to deliver it is the reals surprise.  His paintwork is the main difference, of course, as it returns Ant-Man to his classic red and blue.  It’s a striking combo, and the hues chosen are bold and eye-catching.  The silver for the helmet is just the raw color of the plastic, so it’s got that slight swirly effect going on, but it works alright for this particular design.  There are some slight flaws, most notably a spot of missing paint on the figure’s nose, but he overall looks pretty decent.  I was going to rag on this figure’s boots for being straight across the top and not jagged like his gloves, but a quick review of classic Ant-Man appearances shows that the boots were just as often depicted this way, so hey, Hasbro’s not wrong.  Since Ant-Man is designed to pair off with Wasp, he comes with the natural counterpoint to her mini Ant-Man accessory: a mini Wasp.  It’s the same one used twice before in the Marvel Universe line, but this time painted up to match the Wasp figure from this assortment.  I really do wish she had included a flight stand of some sort, but oh well.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Ant-Man’s a figure I’ve been waiting for, and I certainly didn’t want to miss out on him.  That said, I was willing to be patient, even when he wasn’t among the first round of these figures I found.  Fortunately, the same connection that got me Vision and Wasp was also able to snag Hank for me, so now I’m one step closer to a complete set.  Though there’s not a lot of new going on with this figure, the starting point was already a pretty good figure in the first place, and the new colors definitely make him pop.