DOCTOR STRANGE & THE ANCIENT ONE

MARVEL MINIMATES

Not gonna lie, I’ve kind of fallen behind with Minimates.  I used to pick them up as soon as they were released, but now I sort of grab them as I remember and have the available funds.  One set I totally missed when it hit was the tie-in stuff for Doctor Strange, which I’m finally getting around to picking up now.  Today, I’ll be taking a look at the title character and his mentor, the Ancient One!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Strange and the Ancient One were one of the cross-over sets for the Doctor Strange ‘mates, and as such were shared between the TRU-Doctor Strange assortment and Series 70 of the main line of Marvel Minimates.  Both figures are based on their looks from the Doctor Strange movie.

DOCTOR STRANGE

First up is the movie’s main character, Doctor Stephen Strange!  Stephen had a number of looks over the course of the movie, most of which found their way into ‘mate form, but this one is based on his primary look.  The figure is built on the standard ‘mate body, so he’s about 2 1/2 inches tall and he has 14 points of articulation.  The legs are rather restricted by the skirt piece, but his movement is otherwise pretty good.  Strange uses add-on pieces for his hair, cape, and skirt piece, all of which are new to this figure.  The pieces are quite nicely rendered; they preserve all the important details, while still keeping it simple enough that the ‘mate aesthetic is preserved.  The rest of the work is handled via paint, which is also quite nicely handled.  It does seem they’ve brightened his color palette ever so slightly, but I can’t say that really bugs me.  Apart from that, there’s a lot of really sharp detail work.  Most of it’s on the face and torso, but there’s also fully detailed boots on the legs, and they’ve even included his scars on the backs of his hands.  The hand thing in particular really impressed me, since that’s the sort of thing that is easy to miss, but very key to the character.  Strange is packed with a pair of extra hands with magic effects attached, which make for some very fun posing opportunities, as well as the standard clear display stand.

THE ANCIENT ONE

The Ancient One is another in the long line of expendable mentors in superhero origin stories (okay, it’s not just superhero origins, as one Obi Wan Kenobi will attest).  It’s a role that can sort of be on the shallow side, but I felt Doctor Strange’s portrayal of the Ancient One made for a pretty intriguing character, and one I’m quite happy to have a figure of.  Like Strange, she’s built on the standard ‘mate body.  She has the poofy upper arm pieces (first introduced on Series 29’s 90s Storm) to denote her robes, as well as a long skirt add-on and a hood (borrowed from Spider-Gwen).  The pieces aren’t exactly a perfect recreation of the Ancient One’s garb from the movie, but it’s pretty clear that one figure in this series really needed to just be parts re-use and the Ancient One was close enough to work.  And, in that respect, she’s perfectly fine.  Obviously for her, the pain carries a lot more of the weight.  Fortunately, it’s quite nicely done.  The robes are very cleanly defended and I really dig the bright colors.  The patterns on the front are also very nicely rendered, and keep her from being too drab.  The face looks enough like Tilda Swinton on the role that you can figure out who it’s supposed to be, which is good.  My one major complaint is that they left off the scar she had on the back of her head.  It’s pretty prominently seen at several points in the movie, and the fact that they remembered to include Strange’s hand scars makes its absence rather notable.  The Ancient One includes an extra pulled-down hood piece and the usual display stand.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Not being in the same state as my comic book store means that I don’t spot new Minimates when they hit, and that was the case with this whole series.  I kept meaning to order it online, but just never remembered.  On Valentine’s Day, Super Awesome Girlfriend and I were out and about, and we saw the the whole set at Toys R Us.  Since she hadn’t yet gotten me anything (in her defense, we said no gifts and then I went back on it), she picked them all up for me.  This set’s probably the strongest in the series, due to the prominence of the characters included and the general construction of both figures.  If you liked the movie, this is definitely a good set to grab.