MOLTEN MAN

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

Compared to some of the others in this line-up, Molten Man is actually a pretty old foe.  He first appeared just two years into the original book’s run, and sort of followed the flow of fairly straight gimmick characters.  That said, he’s never majorly taken off as a character and has a tendency to sort of go away for long periods of time.  He’s also not generally been very prominent in much of the off-shoot media, though his name at least was used for the fire elemental in the build-up to Far From Home.  Said elemental also serves as the central Build-A-Figure for the latest round of Legends.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Molten Man is, unsurprisingly, the Build-A-Figure for the “Molten Man Series” of Marvel Legends.  As noted in the intro, he’s not the classic Molten Man, but rather the movie’s re-imagining of him.  Where Mysterio stuck pretty close, Molten Man is more monstrous than usual, so slotting him in as his comics-equivalent seems unlikely to work, unless you’re game for a very different take on the character.  The figure stands 7 1/2 inches tall and he has 30 points of articulation.  Molten Man’s sculpt is a brand-new offering, and a pretty in-depth affair.  By far my favorite piece is the head, which has this really awesome melted look to it, while still keeping his face rather expressive.  The rest of the body continues the fluid, melting appearance pretty well, though it maybe doesn’t work quite as well over larger surfaces.  I do like the melting girders sticking out of his arms, though.  Unlike a lot of Legends, Molten Man is definitely sculpted with a particular pose in mind; he’s meant to be slumped over and leaning on his left side, in sort of an ape like posture.  It works pretty well, and still leaves some room for variance, even if all of the poses still kind of center on one main posture.  The paintwork on Molten Man has its ups and downs.  The torso is the best, being molded in clear plastic, with the gold  being applied over top.  This makes him look like he’s being lit from within in the right set-up, but is unfortunately not carried through to the rest of the parts, where the gold is the base coat, with orange detailing painted over.  It doesn’t look horrible, but it’s not quite as impressive, especially when lit.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Molten Man is another character I don’t have a ton of attachment to, movie or comic-wise, so I wasn’t beating down the door to complete him.  That said, I did think he looked okay in the shots I’d seen.  In hand, I quite like this figure.  He’s a nicely crafted piece, and just a solid big monster baddie. I see this guy being pretty versatile in a display.  He’s definitely one of my favorite Build-A-Figures of the year so far.

Molten Man serves as a nice central point to another surprising assortment from Hasbro.  While I won’t deny there were a few figures that left me slightly cold (namely Stealth Spidey and the Doppleganger), there were far more figures that were a pleasant surprise.  There’s a strong basic Spider-Man, a fantastic new figure for a slightly lesser villain, two great movie villains, and serviceable updates of two more classic characters. Definitely a strong assortment.