SUGAR MAN

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

Mixed in with a lot of re-imaginings of prior characters, Age of Apocalypse did also have a few honest to gosh new characters, wholly original to this reimagined universe.  Included in that grouping is today’s focus, Sugar Man, a character that even 25 years later still has no main universe counterpart.  In fact, he’s more or less his own main universe counterpart, since he was one of the four character’s to travel into the 616 following AoA’s wrap-up, and spent a good 20 years cropping up in the background of various X-Men stories.  He’s also really gross.  Yuck.  Well, let’s review him, shall we?

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Sugar Man is the Build-A-Figure for the predictably titled “Sugar Man Series” of Marvel Legends.  Given his monstrous size and odd proportions, he’s a rather natural choice.  While this is his first Legend, it’s not actually his first figure, if you can believe it.  He managed to get a figure from Toy Biz’s 5-inch line back in the day.  The figure’s 6 1/2 inches tall, and just about as wide, and he’s got 38 points of articulation.  Though he’s got plenty of joints, he’s not exactly the most exceedingly mobile figure in the Legends line-up.  In the figure’s defense, however, a lot of the limits are imposed by the character’s design, and he’s certainly a dramatic improvement over the old ’90s figure.  Sugar Man’s sporting an all-new sculpt, which isn’t really that surprising, because really, who would he share parts with? It’s definitely an impressive sculpt, and a really hefty one, too.  The detailing is all nice and crisp, and there’s a great dynamic flair to him with the facial expression and his flailing tongue.  He is truly hideous, and I can’t really say I’d want him any other way.  Hideous is kind of Sugar Man’s game.  There’s also just a lot going on with this sculpt, from the unique gesturing on each of the hands, to the novelty buttons lining his suspenders.  Someone certainly had fun with this one.  In terms of paint, Sugar Man does a pretty solid job of translating the quite frankly rather messy color jobs the character was usually sporting in the comics into something that looks alright on a mass produced figure.  There’s a fair bit going on here, just like with the sculpt, with a fair amount of accenting, especially on the head/torso.  Sugar Man is packed with his hammer, complete with “SUGAR” inscribed on one side.  He can either hold it or keep it stored on his belt, though it’s a little tricky to get it in there, given his general shaping.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As with a lot of AoA stuff, I can’t really say that Sugar Man was a character I was dying to have in figure form.  Heck, I don’t even have the old one.  However, he did certainly look pretty impressive, and I was already planning to grab the whole assortment, so here we are.  He’s certainly one of the most unique BaFs we’ve gotten, I’ll give him that, and he fills out the rest of the assortment well.

This is definitely one of the most focused assortments of this line we’ve gotten, what with the very defined theme and all.  My favorite is definitely Morph, who’s quite basic, but just such a clean translation of his comics design.  X-Man’s another high ranking one for me, with Jean not too far behind.  Sunfire was certainly better than I’d expected, and I guess Dark Beast isn’t too bad either.  I can kind of take or leave Weapon X and Wild Child, but I definitely knew that much going in.