Tag Archives: Karl Mordo

#3054: Master Mordo

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , ,

MASTER MORDO

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“Mordo has gone rogue since leaving Kamar-Taj, hunting other sorcerers for breaking the laws of reality, and is never far off the trail of Doctor Strange.”

In addition to some new faces, and some guest-starring faces, Doctor Strange: Into the Multiverse of Madness also has some faces that were in the last movie.  And the rest of the people attached to those faces, I suppose.  One of the returning person and face combos is Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Karl Mordo, though the face is now sporting a beard, so it looks a little different, I guess.  But, the face is still Mordo, and so’s the rest of him.  Well…mostly.  I’ll get to that.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Master Mordo is figure 3 in the Rintrah Series of Marvel Legends.  He’s the second-to-last of the movie figures, with the final one being the second of the two Strange variants.  Mordo’s getting his second Legends release here, since he was the only non-Stephen Strange figure to get a movie offering the first time around.  This one’s obviously based on his appearance in the sequel, which looks to be taking him a little closer to his comics roots, with longer hair, a beard, and some slightly more ornate robes.  The figure stands about 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 30 points of articulation.  Mordo’s posablility is okay.  It matches up more or less with Wong and Strange.  There’s some restriction at the shoulders, and the hair obviously has an effect on the neck joint, but he’s not bad at all.  The sculpt on this figure is largely new, though not entirely so.  The legs and feet are borrowed from the Vol 2 Star-Lord.  Not sure as to how accurate that’ll be to the final film, but they’re generally pretty hidden, and the details are vague enough that they don’t look super out of place.  The only downside is the visible pins at the knees, but, again, that’s pretty well hidden.  The rest of the sculpt is all-new, and it’s pretty good at that.  The head has a really strong likeness of Ejiofor, improving on the passable likeness of the last one.  The body sculpt exhibits a good selection of texturing and depth, which makes him quite visually interesting, and is a good use of the general space of the sculpt.  Mordo’s paint work is generally pretty solid as well.  The head now gets the printing on the face, which aids the sculpt a good bit more than the last one, and the clothing gets a lot of smaller details, which help to accent the sculpted elements nicely.  Mordo is packed with three sets of hands (fists, gripping, and open gesture), the Staff of the Living Tribunal (rather than the generic staff the last figure erroneously included), a crossbow, and the right arm to the Rintrah Build-A-Figure.  Oddly, the hands seem to have slightly different peg sizes, resulting in some of them fitting loosely after swapping them around.  It’s minor, but it’s annoying.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Mordo was my favorite part of the first film, and by extension my favorite of the figures from that set.  I’m looking forward to seeing him reappear, and likewise I was looking forward to the updated figure, so this one was on my shortlist from this line up.  He’s not without his flaws, namely the shoulder movement and the issue with the hand pegs.  That said, I still really like how this one turned out, and I’m even more excited about seeing his role in the upcoming film.

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.

#1245: Mordo & Kaecilius

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , ,

MORDO & KAECILIUS

MARVEL MINIMATES

When Doctor Strange was still in production and most of what we had was cast list, there was a lot of confusion about who exactly would be the film’s antagonist.  Mordo, one of Strange’s usual foes, had been cast, but Marvel was reporting he would be on the side of good this time.  Mads Mickelson had been cast, but as who?  Everything seemed to point to either Dormamu or Nightmare, since those are really the only two other foes anyone’s ever heard of.  So, it was a bit of a surprise when Mickelson was revealed to be playing Kaecilius, a rather minor character from the comics.  Ultimately, while he’s certainly a driving force in the film, Kaecilius takes the back seat to….pretty much every one else in the film.  He didn’t get picked up for either the Marvel Legends or Marvel Select tie-ins for the film, but fortunately Minimates can offer a more rounded cast, so he did show up there, alongside Mordo.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Mordo and Kaecilius are the second of the two sets shared between Series 70 of Marvel Minimates and the TRU-exclusive tie-in series for the movie.  They’re easily the oddest pairing in the assortment.  They are in some scenes together, but I don’t believe these two ever directly interact in the film.  I guess they’re a case of pairing the spares in the assortment.

MORDO

Mordo was definitely my favorite part of the movie, and clearly had a decent following, so it’s my guess that he’s meant to be this particular set’s hook.  The figure is built on the usual ‘mate body, and so he has all the standard articulation and is about 2 1/4 inches in height. He uses add-ons for his hair and skirt.  The hair is a re-use of TWD’s Battle-Damaged Tyrese, and it’s a pretty good fit for Mordo’s on-screen appearance.  The skirt is a new piece, ad it matches up pretty well with the design from he movie, as well as fitting in stylistically with the sculpted pieces from Strange.  I do wish it sat a little more flush with the upper torso, but that’s a minor complaint.  The paint work on Mordo is quite expertly handled.  The base color work is all pretty good; he doesn’t seem to have been brightened up like the others, but that’s okay for him.  The details are really top notch.  He’s got the appropriate scars on his face, and the slightest bit of stubble.  I don’t know that he’s the spitting image of Ejiofor, but he’s close enough that you can more or less make out who he’s supposed to be.  The most impressive paint work is definitely not he torso, which has a ton of really ornate work, on both the front and the back no less.  Mordo’s only accessory is a clear display stand.  It’s too bad he didn’t also get his staff.  The inaccuracy of the one included with the Hasbro figure and the total omission here leads me to believe it wasn’t included in the material sent to licensors.

KAECILIUS

Here he is!  The bland guy himself!  Okay, that’s not really fair.  Kaecilius was perfectly entertaining, and Mads Mickelson turned in a pretty great performance in the role.  But he really was rather secondary, wasn’t he?  Anyway, like Mordo, he’s build on the standard body.  He uses  add-ons for his hair and skirt.  Both pieces are new to this figure, and do a reasonable job of capturing Kaecilius’s look from the movie.  The skirt is a little on the soft side, but not horribly so.  The paint work on Kaecilius is okay, but probably the weakest in the series.  There’s a fair bit of slop on the base color work, which is rather frustrating.  The worst of it seems to be on the skirt, which doesn’t help the already present issues with the softness of the sculpt.  The detail lines are all pretty clean, and they sum up his look pretty well, but they feel a bit simplistic when compared to the really fine level of details seen on Mordo and Strange.  The basic head presents a decent enough likeness of Mickelson, but is rather bland.  There’s an alternate “powered” head, which helps to make him a little more exciting.  The details around the eyes are nice and sharp, and do a nice job of capturing the cracked skin as it looks on screen.  In addition to the extra head, he’s also got the standard display stand.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Like yesterday’s set, these two were a Valentine’s Day present from Super Awesome Girlfriend.  While Mordo’s probably my favorite ‘mate in the series, Kaecilius is definitely the weakest figure included.  He’s just rather bland, and lacks the really solid execution like we saw on the Ancient One.  Still, it’s not a bad set, and accents yesterday’s pair quite well!

#1113: Karl Mordo

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , ,

KARL MORDO

MARVEL LEGENDS

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Last week, Marvel Studios’ latest film Dr, Strange hit theaters. Like Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man before it, it was viewed as a slightly risky move for Marvel, since it would be rather different than prior films in style and “Dr. Strange” isn’t exactly a household name.  Also like Guardians and Ant-Man, the gamble seems to have paid off.  I saw Dr. Strange Thursday night and very much enjoyed it, from start to finish.  One of the standout parts of the film for me was Chiwetel Ejiofor’s turn as longtime Dr Strange foe Baron Mordo.  I’ve like Ejiofor since I saw him in Serenity (okay,fine, since I saw him in Love Actually.  Richard Curtis is my dude).  The guy is good at taking antagonistic roles and making them very likeable, and there’s a lot of that going on with his portrayal of Karl Mordo.   

THE FIGURE ITSELF

karlmordo2Mordo was lucky enough to be one of the three movie-based figures in the recent Dormammu Series of Marvel Legends (in fact, he’s the only non-Strange figure in the three).  The figure stands about 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 29 points of articulation. In the comics, Mordo just sports a green bodysuit and a cape (he’s also bearded white guy who’s nothing more than a two-dimensional card-carrying villain, but that’s another matter).  His movie design mixes things up a bit, presumably to make him not only fit in a bit better with the rest of the movie’s designs, but also to make him a little more visually interesting.  The design is still definitely in keeping with Mordo’s comics look, and the comic incarnation certainly wouldn’t look out of place wearing something like this.  For the figure, he’s lacking his larger over cloak, which sort of replaces the cape stylistically.  Though it’s cool in the movie, it’s also only really present for a few short scenes, so Hasbro’s decision to go with this look (which goes with their MCU Dr. Strange, being the look Mordo has during the film’s climax) is certainly sensible.  The figure gets an all-new sculpt, which does a fairly decent job capturing Mordo’s onscreen design.  The details on his robes could maybe be a little sharper, but they aren’t bad at all.  I did notice one small inaccuracy on the belt: the small brown leather belt should really be the outermost belt, but on the figure, the it’s under his sash.  It’s entirely possible it was originally assembled as on the figure and Ejiofor just wore it slightly differently when actually filming.  The figure’s head sculpt presents a passable Ejiofor likeness.  It’s not spot on; certain angles are better than others.  It has some very nice detail work regardless.  The one thing that really jumped out at me was the lack of Ejiofor’s trademark scars on his forehead.  They were particularly noticeable in his performance as Mordo (to me, anyway), so their omission is just a slight letdown.  Mordo’s paintwork is pretty good for a Hasbro figure.  The colors match up pretty well with his on-screen counterpart, though he could really stand to have a few more variances of green on the robes.  They look a little bland as is.  This is a figure that would be greatly aided by adding just a little bit of accent work, just to make him pop a little more.  Mordo is packed with what I’m assuming is supposed to be the staff of the Living Tribunal, which is the relic that chose Mordo and is his primary weapon for the film.  That being said, the included piece really doesn’t look like the staff from the film at all.  It’s far too long and lacks the notches and other details seen on Mordo’s staff, as well as the strap Mordo uses to carry it on his back.  Like the issue with the belt, it’s possible Mordo was set to use a different prop initially and this changed during filming, but it’s still a little annoying.  Mordo is also included the right leg of Dormammu, as well as new versions of the flaming skulls included with the SDCC Dormammu, but this time in green and blue, which looks really cool!

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As I noted in the opening, I’ve been a fan of Ejiofor’s work for a little while, so I was very excited to hear he would be in Dr. Strange, and intrigued by the new take on Mordo that the film was presenting.  He was easily the figure I was most anticipating from this particular set.  I ended up finding him at a nearby Walmart (like a day before the Hurricane hit, actually).  I loved the character in the movie, and while the figure isn’t perfect, he’s still a very good representation of the guy.

*Want a Mordo figure of your own?  He’s currently in-stock with our sponsors over at All Time Toys!  Click here to check him out!

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