MAGNETO — HOUSE OF X

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“Magneto forges an unlikely partnership with Xavier in pursuit of a lofty common goal: the protection of all mutants.”

The counterpart to Charles Xavier’s peaceful co-existence philosophy since the very beginning has been the more militant Magneto.  Magneto, however, is a character defined by his tendency to switch sides as his morals check in and out.  Recently, they’ve been checked in more often than not, and he’s spent most of the last decade as an ally of the team, with “House of X” later retconning him as a secret ally the whole time, throwing out all pretense entirely.  At the same time, the comics have become big on going for this whole monochromatic set-up for his costume, because I guess that’s clever.  Or something.  Legends already gave us an all-black Magneto, so I guess it was only a matter of time before we got an all-white one.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Magneto is figure 6 in the Tri-Sentinel Series of Marvel Legends, and is, like the rest of the set, based on the character’s appearance in “House of X” and the ongoing titles that followed.  It’s not terribly far removed from the character’s handful of Marvel Now! looks, being Magneto’s classic costume set up with a new palette dropped on it.  The figure stands 6 1/2 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation.  Like the other two current gen comic Magnetos, this guy’s based on the Spider-UK base body, which continues to be a good base for the character.  He re-uses the cape add-on piece from the 3-pack Magneto, along with an all-new head, forearms, and belt.  The head’s got the separate pieces for the helmet and underlying head, much like the last two releases.  It’s quite similar to, but still distinct from, the calm head from the 3-pack.  It feels like it didn’t need to be new to me, but Hasbro presumably felt differently.  The helmet’s nice, but there’s definitely something a little bit off about the underlying face.  It looks rather goofy, and maybe not as stern as they were aiming for.  The new arms and belt help to bring the figure’s design more in line with the comics appearance, and do their job pretty well.  I was a little disappointed that they didn’t take advantage of retooling the forearms to remove the exposed pins, as they have on a few other recent revisions, but it’s possible it didn’t cost out.  Other than that, the figure’s sculpt is pretty much just business as usual.  In terms of paint, this guy embraces the monochromatic nature of the modern Magneto design, so there’s not a ton of variance going on.  There are some silvers and blacks thrown in for accenting, and they aren’t bad.  The application’s also pretty sharp, which is a plus.  He does ditch some of the ribbing on the sides of his costume, but at least he doesn’t ditch everything wholesale like Xavier did.  Magneto is packed with three sets of hands, open gesture, gripping, and fists.  It’s a nice assortment, and nice to get all the variety.  Additionally, he’s packed with all three of the Tri-Sentinel Build-A-Figure’s heads.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Magneto’s classic color scheme is really hard to top for me, so I tend to be resistant to current trends of going all black or all white.  The all white look in particular tends to strike me as being just sort of odd for the character.  So, with that said, I wasn’t really feeling this guy when he was announced.  And, if I’m entirely honest, I don’t know how much I’m feeling this guy in-hand.  The 2019 release is just hard to top, and this one’s got the issue of that wonky face to deal with.  It’s not bad, I suppose, just a little uninspired feeling at the end of the day.

Thanks to my sponsors at All Time Toys for setting me up with this figure 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.