DAREDEVIL

MARVEL LEGENDS RETRO COLLECTION (HASBRO)

“Although he is blind, Matt Murdock possesses superhuman senses and courage as the superhero Daredevil.”

You know, it almost feels wrong to discuss a new Marvel Legends Daredevil without also talking about a new season of the show, but, alas, the show tapped out with three seasons, and this is my fourth Daredevil.  There are possibly some talks about working the cast into the MCU, though, so maybe by the time I get to the next Legends release, I’ll have more to talk about.  Otherwise, I’ll just be forced to get all meta again, and that gets old real quick.  So far from Legends, we’ve gotten several prominent costume designs for the character, but there was one notable exception that we were all …that some of us were…I was waiting for: Armored Daredevil!  And look at that, he’s finally here!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Daredevil is part of the new Spider-Man-themed Retro Collection assortment of Marvel Legends.  The assortment has packaging that’s meant to patterned on that of the old Toy Biz Spider-Man line.  Interestingly, this version of DD wasn’t actually featured in that line.  He was, however, released in the Marvel Super Heroes line that proceeded it, which served as the packaging inspiration for the first two Retro Collection sets.  What am I getting at?  Well, it couldn’t possibly be that I’m angry that Hasbro took so long getting us this figure and that he clearly should have been released back at the beginning of the line…because that would be ridiculous.  Right?  Right.  The figure stands 6 1/4 inches tall he has 30 points of articulation.  While the last three Daredevils have been built on the Bucky Cap body from the same bank of parts, this figure changes things up by giving him a head to toe new sculpt.  I honestly wasn’t expecting that to be the case, but I certainly can’t say I’m upset by it.  It means that, for the first time ever on an Armored Daredevil figure, all of the armored elements of his costume are actually raised sculpted elements, which really makes the whole design just a bit more impactful, and certainly adds an air of sleekness and cleanness to it.  The build of the body beneath these elements isn’t too far removed from the Bucky Cap build, so it reads as more or less the same guy, but it’s slightly more refined this time, resulting in a more balanced, more natural look than the Bucky Cap figures have.  The actual construction of the body is also a touch sturdier, which I’m definitely down for.  Daredevil’s paint work is generally pretty impressive, with the metallic red in particular looking really slick.  There’s some slight bleed-over on the torso section on my figure, but it’s fortunately not too terribly obvious.  Certainly better than some of Hasbro’s previous attempts.  Daredevil’s accessories include two sets of hands in fists and gripping poses, two styles for his wrist guards, one with the batons attached and one without (improving from the permanently attached baton sculpt of the smaller-scale figure), the billy clubs in silver, and an all-new unmasked Matt Murdock head, which really benefits from not just being a repainted Hawkeye head.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Despite the fact that I’ve got plenty of DD figures already, this was definitely the figure I was most anticipating from this assortment.  Honestly, I’ve been hoping for this design pretty much since we got the updates to red and yellow, and counter to what my remarks early in the review might have hinted, I’m glad that Hasbro waited until they had really stepped up their game sculpting wise on the line to add this costume to the mix.  He’s very well served by the all-new sculpt, and I would put him on par with the Marvel Now Moon Knight in terms of how much a dedicated sculpt can do to really make a design like this amazing.  I think people are kind of sleeping on this figure right now, which is a shame, because he’s really fantastic.

Thanks to my sponsors at All Time Toys for setting me up with this guy for review.  If you’re looking for Marvel Legends, or other toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay storefront.