THENA

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“A fierce warrior, Thena has the ability to use cosmic energy to form any handheld weapon she can think of.”

Introduced in Eternals #5, Thena, the second of the two female members of the original Eternals, was, rather unsurprisingly, meant as a stand-in for Athena, Greek goddess of wisdom, amongst others.  She was later retconned to also be the incarnation of Minerva (Athena’s Roman equivalent) who appeared in Red Raven Comics #1 some 36 years earlier, in effect making her one of Marvel’s oldest characters, predating even the name “Marvel.”  Thena is perhaps one of the least changed characters within the film adaptation, where she is played by Angelina Jolie.  I’ll be taking a look at her figure today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Thena is a Target-exclusive Marvel Legends release, the equivalent to Ajak’s Walmart-exclusive release, both of them released to coincide with the main Eternals assortment.  While Thena is certainly a more directly relevant character within the context of the movie, she does spend some of her time separated from the others, and, as perhaps the biggest name in the cast, it makes some sense that a big box store might want to lay claim to her.  In a perfect world, I’d probably swap her and Ikaris, but I can get why this is the direction they went.  The figure stands 6 1/4 inches tall and she has 27 points of articulation.  Her articulation scheme is largely the same as the others in the set, with the one slightly odd caveat of her knee joints not actually having knee caps.  It looks odd to say the least.  I mean, it’s hidden by the structure of the boots in just about every pose, but it’s still kind of a weird choice.  Thena’s sculpt is all-new to her, and it’s a pretty respectable recreation of her design as seen in the movie.  Said design is itself a pretty respectable translation of her comics looks.  The only real departure is the headgear, which is now admittedly more Wonder Woman-like than it was before.  The head sculpt is sporting a rather nice likeness of Jolie, certainly one of the best from this whole line-up.  The body sculpt more or less match with the other figures in the set.  The armor detailing is fairly sharp, and the proportions are decently balanced.  The paint work on Thena is all around pretty alright.  The face detailing is quite lifelike, and the hair gets some pretty nice accenting to bring out more of the details.  The armor is a mix of metallic paints and slightly pearlescent plastic, which does a good job of capturing the finish of her armor in the movie.  Thena is by far the best armed of the Eternals figures, as she not only gets two sets of hands, but also a staff, two styles of sword, and a small blade.  After the rest of them were so lacking in any sort of replication of their on screen abilities, it’s certainly nice to see Thena actually get some of the things she crafts in the movie.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I held off on Thena prior to the film, because I just didn’t know how I was going to feel about the character.  While I was able to get Ajak through a trade-in, I was none so lucky with Thena.  After seeing the movie, I felt the need to address that, so I actually went to a Target and bought her.  Crazy, I know.  What a concept.  She’s a rather nice figure, certainly the best accessorized of the set, and really the best overall package deal, I think.  She’d be better served as a non-exclusive, but at least she doesn’t seem to be a very hard to get one.