CYCLOPS

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“The leader of the X-Men, Scott Summers, AKA Cyclops, gears up to defend Mutantkind from extinction against a Multiversal threat”

There are certainly some missteps in the original X-Men movies, but one of the most notable is their handling of poor Cyclops, as portrayed by James Marsden.  Marsden himself was quite well cast in the role and gave it his all, but the material never quite met him, ending with his rather quick departure early into Last Stand.  He made a brief return at the end of Days of Future Past, but we haven’t gotten to see Marsden’s Cyclops in action since X2, 24 years ago.  Even Deadpool & Wolverine’s love-fest for the Fox movies was notably without Marsden, whom I’d really been hoping to see don a more comics accurate costume, akin to Hugh Jackman’s tiger stripe design.  Marsden is finally making his return as Cyclops, however, not in an X-Men film, but rather Avengers: Doomsday, where he’s return alongside a bunch of other former X-Men actors (though, sadly, not Famke Janssen as Jean Grey), and he’s even wearing an actual Cyclops costume.  He’s been rather central to a lot of the merchandise, including a Marvel Legend, which I’m looking at today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Cyclops is part of the first series of Avengers: Doomsday tie-in figures from Hasbro’s Marvel Legends line, which started hitting at the beginning of October.  The figure stands 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 33 points of articulation.  His articulation scheme is pretty much the standard set-up we’ve been getting with more recent movie figures.  It works well enough and doesn’t need to break up the sculpt too badly to maintain its range, so it works.  Cyclops’s sculpt is all-new to this figure, based on his design from the movie.  Unlike his earlier appearances where he was sporting black leather, this time around Marsden’s Cyclops is wearing something akin to Scott’s Jim Lee designed costume.  Tye Sheridan had something along these lines at the end of Apocalypse, but this one I think threads the needle a bit better on accuracy versus practicality, and I like the general set-up a bit better here.  The sculpt does a nice job of translating it all to figure form.  The head has a solid Marsden likeness, certainly better than pretty much any of the prior offerings (barring *maybe* the 2009 figure), and the proportions of the sculpt are quite nicely balanced.  The costume details seem to line up well with what we’ve seen so far of the movie design, and the texturing and small detail work is quite sharply handled.  The assembly of the figure allows a great deal of his color work to be handled via molded colors, but there’s a decent amount of paint as well.  An issue I noted with my figure is that the black outline on his visor seems to easily chip away.  It seems like the slick plastic and flat paint aren’t a great combo, and on my figure, light pressure from my thumb wiped it off.  I wasn’t a *huge* fan of the outline, and think it looks better without, but it’s an oddity of the figure to be sure.  Cyclops is packed with an alternate visor with a spot to slot a blast effect through, a blast effect, and two pairs of hands (fists and open).  The optic blast is the same one used on the Vintage, House of X, and X-Men ’97 versions, and notably doesn’t fit properly against the head like it did for those two, which looks rather odd, but I guess it’s better than no blast at all.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I’ve been all-in on the Marsden Cyclops figures since the first movie tie ins, 26 years ago.  I was genuinely hoping to see an update show up amongst the 20th Anniversary figures back in 2020, but alas, none materialized.  I knew I wanted this one before it was even officially confirmed.  He’s generally a pretty by the numbers figure for a modern Legends release, but that’s hardly a bad thing.  There are some slight quirks to the figure, and I can foresee the visor paint being an issue, but I’m honestly just happy to have him at all.

Shoutout to my friends at All Time Toys, from whom I purchased this figure for review!  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay storefront.