FALCON

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“Sam Wilson soars through the skies dispensing justice and restoring faith in humanity.”

Introduced in 1969’s Captain America #117, Sam Wilson, aka the Falcon, has the notoriety of being the first African American super hero in mainstream comics.  Since his introduction, he’s been an on and off fixture of the Marvel Universe, and he’s become especially prominent in the last few years, thanks in no small part to Anthony Mackie’s portrayal of the character in the MCU.  It’s been a little bit of time since we got a proper comics Falcon in figure form from Hasbro, but they’re coming back in for the save on the latest round of Marvel Legends, with a figure I’m taking a look at today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Falcon is the first figure from the Joe Fixit Series of Marvel Legends, which is the second of this year’s Avengers-themed assortments.  He’s one of the four comics-based figures in the assortment, and marks our first comic Falcon since back in the Toy Biz days in 2006.  That release had classic and modern (at the time) variants available, where as this one goes for Sam’s design from around the Brubaker era of the comics.  It’s become a go-to for his costume in various merchandising outlets, and is certainly far less dated than a lot of his costume designs, so it’s certainly a solid choice.  The figure is 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 34 points of articulation.  Falcon is built on the 2099 body, a strong starting point for the character given his usual build in the comics, and a good core body in general.  He also re-uses the recent comic-style Vulture wings from earlier this year.  There’s also a new set of arms to allow for proper connection of said wings, as well as a new head and feet.  The Vulture wings are still that wonky “fully detailed on one side, not at all on the other” set-up, but that’s at least less of an issue with Falcon’s adjusted color scheme.  The newly sculpted parts meld really well with the old, and are just generally impressive pieces.  The head feels right for Sam in terms of expression and features, and the new arms and feet certainly go beyond the bare minimum detailing for the design.  They certainly didn’t have to do the fully sculpted ridges on his gauntlets or the tread on the boots, but they did and it adds that extra flair to the design to help differentiate him from other uses of the body.  Additionally, these new arms use the pinless construction, further the figure’s sleekness.  Falcon’s paint work is rather straight forward.  It’s all just basic application, but it’s cleanly done, and the translucent plastic for the wings is certainly pretty cool, and, as noted in the sculpt segment, helps to hide the one-sided-ness of the wing sculpts a bit more.  Falcon is packed with two sets of hands (fists and flat) and the left leg to the build-a-figure Joe Fixit.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Toy Biz Falcon was a figure I really liked back in the day, but he’s also one of their figures that hasn’t aged quite so well, so I’ve been eager for a proper comics update for a little while.  This guy was high on my list for this assortment to be sure.  I’m very happy with the final product, and I’m happy to have a decent Falcon for my comics shelf again.  Of course, I certainly wouldn’t say no to using some of these parts for a classic Falcon down the road, if Hasbro feels so inclined.

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.