ARCADE

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“A brilliant assassin with shadowy origins, Arcade makes up for his lack of physical strength with a keen intellect and a vast personal fortune.”

Okay, for our latest round of “Ethan critiques the bios,” let’s address the fact that they wrote an Arcade bio without even alluding to Murderworld.  I mean, I can get not actually mentioning it by name, since putting something with “murder” in its title on the back of the box for a toy does seem like a not so great move, but not even a mention of him running a deadly amusement park or something along those lines?  I mean, it’s kind of his main gimmick, guys!  …Okay, enough of ripping these poor bio writers to shreds.  It’s probably not their fault.  Right, so Arcade.  He’s got some solid pedigree, having been created by Claremont and Byrne in 1978.  He first faced off against Spider-Man and Captain Britain, but he’s since faced off against most of the Marvel Universe, and is a really great all-purpose villain, always good for a fun story…well, most of the time, anyway.  His oddball persona and lack of tie to one particular group or hero does make him hard to nail down for merchandising, though, which is why he’s never had a figure.  Well, not until now, that is!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Arcade is figure 4 in the Xemnu Series of Marvel Legends.  Arcade is the perfect choice for a purely villains assortment, since he’s a classic character of decent prominence, who otherwise doesn’t fit into any other assortment breakdowns.  This way, he’s just one of a whole group of villains.  The figure stands 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 30 points of articulation.  Arcade is built on the Coulson body, which is honestly a pretty good choice for him.  The Fury body has slightly better movement, but it’s also larger, and there’s that shoulder holster that they’ve yet to get rid of.  He swaps out the standard jacket piece for the jacket/vest combo that showed up on the Movie Xavier figure last year, as well as adding a new tie piece, and a new head and feet.  The new tie is a rather absurdly large bow tie, which certainly jibes well with the character.  The standard head fits the general classic appearance for him, with a smarmy grin, and a slightly evil eye behind his gaze.  The new feet trade in the classic dress shoes for a far goofier set of platform shoes.  They more than anything else about this figure feel like an area where Hasbro probably could have gotten away with phoning it in, but they didn’t, and it makes the figure that much better, because they just give the character that extra bit of flair that Arcade absolutely needs.  Paint work on this guy is once again pretty basic, but he gets all the details he needs and generally looks pretty slick.  The polka dots on the tie and the piping on the shoes really work and are very cleanly applied, which is certainly a plus.   Arcade is packed with an alternate head with a longer hair style and a slightly crazier expression, for variety’s sake, I suppose, as well as his cane, and the leg to Xemnu.  Not a ton, but not nothing, so generally it’s a decent set-up.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Arcade is definitely one of those characters that I wanted in figure form, but that was always more in the back of my mind.  Like, I don’t think anyone’s really campaigning for an Arcade figure, but you keep remembering he’s never gotten one, and that doesn’t seem right.  I was glad to see him finally get his due, and the final figure is one that is fairly by the numbers, but in the right way.  He does what he needs to do, and that makes him a fun figure of a fun character.  I can certainly get behind that.

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.