DORMAMMU

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“A maniacal cosmic being with an unquenchable thirst for conquest, Dormammu uses extra-dimensional abilities to invade realms across all planes of existence.”

Dormammu, I’ve come to bargain.  See, it’s funny, because it’s that thing from that movie, where he keeps saying the same…get it?  Yes?  Not funny?  Got it.  Right, so there’s this whole villains assortment for Marvel Legends, and it focusses on foes of some of the biggest Marvel characters, a category that now includes Doctor Strange, someone who was very definitely not one of Marvel’s biggest characters when we had our last Legends villain assortment.  But, by virtue of that change-up, we get our third Dormammu Legend in the last six years.  Good for him.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Dormammu is figure 1 in the Xemnu Series of Marvel Legends.  He’s the third Dormammu in the line (though really only the second, since the prior two were minor tweaks on the same figure), but the first to be sold as a standard figure.  He’s also a classic Dormammu, going back to the Human Torch head with purple long-johns look, which may be slightly goofy, but is also an important look for the character, and one that’s been overlooked all but one time before when it comes to toy coverage.  Honestly, it’s a pretty good counterpart to Red Skull’s green jumpsuit look, which also gets its proper due in this assortment.  The figure stands about 6 1/2 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation.  Structurally, he’s quite similar to the aforementioned Red Skull, since he uses the same core body.  It’s pretty sensible to build the two of them off of the same bank of parts, given the general similarity of their body types and their jumpsuits.  It also makes that all new tooling even easier to justify.  Dormammu gets a new head, forearms, and shins, as well as new add-ons for his collar and belt, all of which helps to make him look rather distinctly different from Red Skull, to the point that their shared bodies really aren’t that immediately obvious, unless you’re doing something silly like reviewing them back to back.  Who would do something like that?  The new parts accent the shared parts well, and as a whole he does a pretty respectable job of capturing that classic Dormammu look.  The crown is removable from the head, and it’s probably the only part I’m not too keen on, due to how easily it falls out of place.  It does seem a little bit overkill making it removable, but I get what they were going for, and it’s hardly the end of the world.  Dormammu is pretty basic on the paint front, mostly relying on molded colors, but the work on his head is pretty nicely handled, and in general his palette is bright and eye-catching.  Dormammu isn’t *quite* as impressively accessorized as Red Skull, he does still have quite a bit.  He gets all of the same hands as Skull (so, that’s fists, open gesture, and gripping), plus two flame effects, and the left arm of the Xemnu Build-A-Figure.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

While I enjoyed the prior, more modern-inspired Dormammu from the Book of Vishanti set, I was definitely still very much wanting a proper classic version of the character.  It’s been a little bit of a wait, but it finally came around, and it really feels like it paid off.  He doesn’t quite knock it out of the park to quite the same degree as Skull does, at least for me, but he’s still a very solid version of the character.  Now, how about a classic Dr. Strange update to go with him?

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