ANT-MAN

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“While he occasionally dons the Ant-Man suit to promote his new autobiography, Scott Lang has put his super hero days behind him to bond with his daughter, Cassie.”

Remember when people could just, like, enjoy movies for what they are and not have to just tear every little thing apart? Me either. Well, earlier this year, we got our third Ant-Man film, Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania. It was officially the worst Marvel movie ever, taking the title fromLove & Thunder, which took the title from Eternals, which took it from Captain Marvel, maybe? I don’t know. Look, guys, I’m gonna level with you all on this one: Quantumania is hardly the worst Marvel movie. It’s not even close. Some of you haven’t seen the 1990 Captain America, and it really shows, okay? I promise, if the MCU puts out a worse product than that, I’ll let you all know.  In the mean time, let’s talk about something that’s *not* the 1990 Captain America, and also doesn’t make me want to blow my brains out:  Quantumania!  Or, more specifically, it’s version of Ant-Man!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Ant-Man is the one non-Build-A-Figure-piece-bearing figure in the Cassie Lang Series of Marvel Legends, which is the tie-in assortment for Quantumania.  Due to schedule shifts for the movie, the tie-in assortment wound up trailing the film release by about 2 1/2 months, hitting retail in that April-May window.  Not exactly striking while the iron was hot, but they at least got out before the movie switched over to streaming.  Scott’s gotten some sort of upgrade to his suit for most of his cinematic appearances, and Quantumania keeps that trend going.  It’s another batch of smaller adjustments adding up to a fairly similar looking design, at least at first glance.  This one’s a little more segmented on the red parts, as well as further downplaying the silver a bit more, and is also just generally a bit more streamlined than his prior looks.  I for one am most excited about him finally getting the black circle on his chest, which has been missing from the previous designs.  Ant-Man needs his black circle chest, you guys.  The figure stands a little shy of 6 1/4 inches tall (making him the shortest of the MCU Ant-Man Legends figures) and he has 29 points of articulation.  The last few MCU Ant-Men have had slightly more stilted movement, but this guy actually gets a pretty solid articulation set-up.  There’s still a little bit of restriction on that mid-torso joint, but it’s not bad.  I particularly like the range on the neck joint.  Ant-Man gets an all-new sculpt, and it’s definitely my favorite MCU Ant-Man sculpt to date.  It’s actually pretty spot-on to the film design, in contrast with the concept work for the first film and Civil War figures, and the scaling relative to other figures feels a bit more on point this time around.  I was also very thrilled to see that Scott finally got transparent lenses on a 6-inch figure.  I was really bummed that the AM&TW figure just got the painted ones, and this one winds up looking really good.  It just adds so much to the figure.  The color work on this guy is pretty decently rendered.  His paint drops a few of the smaller silver details, but really only where they’re outlining something else that’s already painted.  The detailing is all sharply handled, and he gets all of the main design elements, with nothing major getting skipped over this time.  He’s packed with two sets of hands, in fists and a pointing/open gesture combo, as well as an unmasked head.  I like the extra hands.  I’m not much of a fan of the unmasked sculpt.  The renders looked okay, but it seems like something happened to the mold during manufacturing, because the face and hair don’t look like they’ve gone together the right way.  It’s also a little large compared to the helmeted head.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I didn’t really think much of this guy when the figures were shown off, and was really only interested in this assortment’s Build-A-Figure.  I had the last Ant-Man, and I figured that was good enough.  However, I got the opportunity to mess with the whole set for review purposes, and discovered that I actually really, really liked this guy.  The unmasked head’s kind of a dud, but all of the unmasked Rudd heads kind of have been.  This guy is by far the best MCU Ant-Man release, though, so I’m opting to upgrade to this one for my main collection.

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.