THE THING

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

When it comes to cinematic adaptations, Ben Grimm, the ever-lovin’ blue-eyed Thing, has had a bit of a mixed presentation.  Michael Chiklis’s turn as Ben was undoubtedly the highlight of the two Story films, but Jaime Bell’s mumbling loner from Fant4stic was a particularly poor showing in an already poor film.  And, somewhere in the middle, you’ve got Micheal Bailey Smith and Carl Cialfalio’s two-handed Ben and Thing approach from the Corman movie, which is admittedly mostly just hampered by the film’s unfinished nature.  Where does Ebon Moss-Bachrach fall in the scale?  He’s at least as good as Chiklis, I’d say.  My only hang-up is that I don’t feel there’s as much time spent with him as the other three, so it’s a little harder to form a full opinion.  I do look forward to seeing more, though, and it’s certainly a much better approach than the one that immediately preceded it.  Anyway, here’s a figure of him!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The Thing is another entry in the First Steps tie-in assortment of Marvel Legends, and the last of the four members of the titular team.  The figure stands just shy of 7 inches tall and he has 30 points of articulation.  The film returns Ben to something closer to his ‘60s scaling, which means that this figure is the smallest of the Legends Thing figures to date.  That’s not a bad thing, mind you.  His articulation’s a little different from the other team members, given his bulkier stature.  We see a bit of a return to the “twisting meat” era with the biceps and the abdomen both having opposing joints that sort of cancel each other out.  It’s not quite as much of an aesthetic problem this time around, though.  Ben’s sculpt is all-new, and it’s…well, it’s not technically inaccurate,  but it’s not the look the character spends the bulk of the movie sporting.  In the film, in contrast to most depictions of the character, he has a full uniform to match the other three, but what we get here is something closer to how Ben’s classically depicted, sans shirt and boots.  We see him in action with this look briefly during the opening montage of the team’s first four years of exploits, and it also shows up a few times in the in-universe promotional images, keeping him more in line with the slightly adjusted hair styles of Reed and Johnny.  It’s ultimately a more quintessential look for the character, and I myself prefer it, but maybe we’ll see a more accurate final battle Ben, complete with bearded head sculpt later down the line?  This sculpt is a strong offering, though.  The likeness on the head matches his design in the film nice, and they do a good job of recreating the rocky texturing of his skin, as well as keeping his uniform’s stitching consistent with the other three team members.  I do especially like the more reserved expression on the head, which feels very in line with Moss-Bachrach’s portrayal of the character.  The paint work here is a bit mixed.  The rocky skin gets some really solid accenting, which really works well with the sculpted details.  On the flip side, the uniform is a bit sloppy, and one of the logos on his leg was all scratched-up right out of the box.  Ben is packed with two pairs of hands, one in fists and one in open gesture.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Ben’s my favorite FF member, and this was the figure from this set I was most looking forward to.  He’s a modern movie Legend, so if you’ve gotten a bunch of those, you know what you’re getting here.  It means he’s a pretty solid, pretty straight forward figure, though, and he certainly feels like he gets the character down pretty well.

Shoutout to 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.