STRONG GUY

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

Okay, let’s get way better with this Marvel Legends game, you guys.  Yes, the last three days haven’t been the line’s best form, but it’s okay, because it’s all worth it.  Today, you see, we get to the final piece of this assortment, or perhaps pieces, I suppose.  Yes, it’s time to take a look at the Build-A-Figure, one Guido Carosella, better known as Strong Guy, the heavy of X-Factor’s second line-up!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Strong Guy is, as you can probably piece together, the Build-A-Figure for the Strong Guy Series of Marvel Legends.  He actually stands out a little bit from the line-up that builds him, since they’re a X-Force/Deadpool mix, and he’s not really in either of those categories.  Presumably, they just wanted to make sure he had a slot to go into, what with the one proper X-Men assortment being AoA-themed this year.  This marks Strong Guy’s introduction into the Legends format, and his third figure total, following the 5-inch figure and the Minimate (which was itself released just in the last year).  The figure stands 8 inches tall and he has 27 points of articulation.  Strong Guy is sporting an all-new sculpt, which is appropriate, since it’s pretty tricky for someone of his unique stature to share parts with other characters.  Given his larger build, the articulation works quite well, with a solid range of motion, and some great stability, even with his wonky proportions.  I quite enjoyed the old Toy Biz 5-inch sculpt when I took a look at it earlier in the year, and I remarked that it was honestly one of the nicer ones.  This one?  It blows that offering out of the water.  The costume details are nice and sharp, and the head sculpt is one of the most character-filled expressions that we’ve gotten.  Hasbro has been really stepping up their game on the face sculpts in the last year, and Strong Guy just pushes that even further.  Perhaps the only slight down fall of this figure, if you can truly even call that, comes with the color work.  Hasbro’s been stepping up this area more recently, so the fact that Strong Guy is mostly reliant on molded colors, and has minimal accenting does make him feel just a touch unfinished in some areas.  At the very least, a few more details on his jacket would have gone a long way.  That being said, the application is pretty decent, and the basic work still puts him on par with the most of the line.  It’s certainly a step up from where things were when Hasbro first relaunched the line.  Strong Guy doesn’t get any accessories, but given the sheer size of the figure and how he’s a completely new sculpt, that’s honestly totally fair.  Plus, I can’t really think of much he’d need, anyway.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I dig Strong Guy.  I dig Strong Guy a lot.  Ever since we got our first taste of X-Factor with Multiple Man back in 2018, I’ve been looking forward to getting this guy in some form or another, and with the Havok and Polaris figures further filling out the line-up, was even higher on my list.  As soon as this guy was shown off, I was totally on-board, no matter what figures I had to buy to get him…which may have been for the best, but I’ll get to that in a second.  Strong Guy’s an awesome figure, and I’m really glad to have him.  He looks fantastic with the rest of his team.

This assortment is a definite mix of highs and lows.  Strong Guy’s a fantastic Build-A-Figure, and a front runner for my favorite BaF of the year.  It’s really just Crimson Dynamo he has to contend with.  The figures that build him range from surprisingly good to downright abysmal.  Maverick is on the high end of that spectrum for me, but Black Tom, Warpath, and Sunspot all make for a serviceable middle-ground figure.  The Deadpool variants, however, are really treading on thin ice now, and neither one offered here is anything approaching needed.  And Shiklah is garbage, and you can’t convince me otherwise.