DOCTOR STRANGE

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“Stephen Strange was a brilliant surgeon before an accident ruined his hands. Now he defends our reality from supernatural threats as Earth’s Sorcerer Supreme.”

I took a break from Marvel reviews all last month, largely because we’re in a waiting period on new Marvel Legends, which make up a substantial portion of my Marvel reviews.  Of course, that doesn’t stop me from digging into my backlog, I suppose.  I’ve had a number of “new” figures sitting off to the side waiting for a Legends-light period to slot them in, and I’m officially dusting some of them off!  And I do mean that literally…they’ve been sitting for a while you guys.  Anyway, here’s our second ever classic Doctor Strange, released more than a decade after the first!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Doctor Strange is a Walmart-exclusive Marvel Legends release, hitting in 2022 as a loose tie-in with the release of Multiverse of Madness.  He was only actually available online, rather than in-store, but that wasn’t a widely promoted thing, so it was easy to miss.  As noted in the intro, this was the first classic comic Strange since Toy Biz’s initial release of the character, all the way back in the Galactus Series, since Hasbro’s been sticking more to the modern side of things.  The figure stands about 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation.  Structurally, Strange makes use of the lower half of the ANAD 2099 body, as well as the upper arms from Kang.  Beyond that, he’s all-new, though a number of the parts were re-used for the Spider-Man: Animated and Wong two-pack Strange releases.  Ultimately, it’s a good mix of parts, which does a really good job of conveying the flow and depth of the design.  The cape (which is one piece that is thus far totally unique to this release) is glued in place at the front, so it’s not going anywhere.  On one hand, it’s a little annoying not to be able to display him sans-cloak, but on the other it means it’s not flopping about and falling off, which I do like.  There are two main heads with this release, one “standard” and the other meditating.  What’s interesting is that they aren’t just a simple change of expression, but also have different hair styles.  The meditating one is more ’70s-inspired (and was in fact sculpted by Paul Harding, based on his own “Marvel In the ’70s” Doctor Strange sculpture), while the other is shorter and more modern.  I generally prefer the meditating one, but it’s limited by those closed eyes.  This is definitely one of those “wish I could swap the hair pieces” moments.  Strange’s color work isn’t bad.  It’s certainly bright and colorful.  The yellow paint on his cape is particularly sloppy, and I find the greying temples on both heads to be a little unsubtle in their application, but generally, things look okay.  Doctor Strange is packed with a third, masked head, based on his era of extra super-hero-y-ness in the ’60s.  It’s just a repainted Silver Surfer head, and it doesn’t actually match the body it comes with, but how else am I gonna build my Kurt Busiek’s The Order line-up?  Strange is also packed with two pairs of hands (spell casting and a fist/grip combo), spell effects pieces, the Wand of Watoomb, and the Axe of Angarruumus, which is all pretty fun.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I recall this figure being shown off, and I recall him going up on Walmart.com, but I never did get around to ordering him or putting any real effort at all into tracking him down.  It’s not that I didn’t want one, but I did still have the Toy Biz release, which is really, really good, and I just wasn’t in a rush to deal with getting a Walmart exclusive.  One with a broken tape seal showed up a few months after the fact at All Time, and I took that as a good sign that I should get one.  He’s a solid classic Strange, and a good update to the Toy Biz release.  I can’t say there’s much to him beyond that, but does there really have to be?

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.