MS. MARVEL

MARVEL HALL OF FAME (TOY BIZ)

“Blasting out of the Marvel Universe are its most powerful heroines, the She-Force! Joining together to fight evil are mutants Marvel Girl, Wolfsbane and Dazzler along with Avengers Tigra and Ms. Marvel. Challenging the threat of the Brotherhood of evil Mutants, the She-Force has what it takes to get the job done. Using their combined abilities, the She-Force takes down the Brotherhood in one explosive battle!”

One of the things that made Toy Biz’s 5-inch run of Marvel figures so—wait, hang on a second, I seem to be repeating myself a bit here!  As it turns out, today’s review of a Toy Biz Marvel Hall of Fame Ms. Marvel from the “She-Force” sub-heading is a *completely* different figure than the one I reviewed a week ago.  Of an entirely different character at that!  See, last week’s Ms. Marvel was Carol Danvers, the originator of the title, who vacated the name for “Binary” in the late ‘70s.  Since brand synergy meant that Marvel really didn’t want to let a name like “Ms. Marvel” lapse, they had to introduce a new character to take on the mantle, which they did in 1985 with Sharon Ventura, a professional wrestler turned hero who first appeared as a supporting player to The Thing.  Sharon rather quick mutation into She-Thing has made that her more generally known identity, to the point that her being “Ms. Marvel” can get lost in the shuffle a bit.  Toy Biz themselves seems to have gotten confused in the above text from the back of the box, which refers to her as an Avenger, despite the fact that Sharon was affiliated with the FF, and wouldn’t have any actual connection to the Avengers until well into the ‘00s, when “Avengers” had essentially become a catch-all title for “group of Marvel heroes.”  Anyway, despite being better known as She-Thing, to date Sharon’s action figure is in her Ms. Marvel incarnation, which I’m looking at today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Ms. Marvel was released in the sixth series of Marvel Hall of Fame, as part of the second “She-Force” branded assortment of the Puzzle Zoo-exclusive line.  Sharon is seen here in her original Ms. Marvel attire, which I don’t believe she’d had in a while at the time of this figure’s release.  The figure stands about 5 inches tall and she has 8 points of articulation.  Structurally, she’s a total re-use of the X-Men line’s Phoenix.  It’s a good sculpt, with nice balanced proportions, and it’s even got a sash.  I do really think it would be better for Carol than for Sharon, with Sharon, to my mind, making a lot more sense as a re-use of the Spider-Woman body, since that’s a little more muscular, and has straighter hair, both more in line with Sharon.  As it stands, though, this is still a nice sculpt, and the only real drawback is the lack of neck joint due to the remnants of the no longer present light-up feature of the original figure.  The main selling point here is the paint work, and I have to admit, it’s really good paint.  The costume is very bright and eye-catching, and not saddled with any of the “ignore the sculpted details” issues of Carol, and the accenting on the hair is nothing short of inspired.  Like, that just looks really, really cool.  There’s still a bit of fuzz, especially on the yellow sections (it’s Toy Biz, so there’s really no avoiding it), but overall it’s not too bad.  Sharon was just really strong, so there’s not a lot easy accessories to be had, but they tried anyway, and so she gets Quicksilver’s machine gun with the stock?  It was weird for him, and it’s weird for her, and she really can’t even hold it.  Very odd.  She also got a Fleer trading card, which in my figure’s case is a Sabretooth.  Why not?

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I always seemed to get the Hall of Fame figures in batches, but this one is decidedly *not* a case of that.  She almost was, as one of my larger purchases was from a lot that did include her, but my Dad got that one, since I was already getting all of the others.  Instead, she wound up added to my collection courtesy of a sizable Toy Biz Marvel trade-in at work about three or four years ago.  She sat carded for a long time, until I decided that was stupid and lame, and opened her up, took photos, and stuck her on the shelf.  And she’s been there until now.  I messed with her for the review, and, apart from my quibbles about body choice, she’s a really cool figure.