LADY DEATHSTRIKE

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“With adamantium-infused bones and cyber-genetic enhancements, Yuriko Oyama pursues a ruthless vendetta against the X-Men… and Wolverine in particular.”

Lady Deathstrike is classically considered and X-Men/Wolverine foe, which is somewhat amusing when you delve into her earliest appearances and discover that she actually began as a supporting character in Daredevil of all things, before bouncing over to Alpha Flight, which provided her first run-in with Wolverine (who, contrary to the way adaptations tend to go, she didn’t actually have any prior history with), and led to her move over into the X-side of things.  While her exact role in things has never been huge, she’s got a rather distinctive look, a decent power set, and a solid name, so she does show up in other media a lot.  That includes getting a handful of figures over the years, including one quite recently, which I’ll be looking at today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Lady Deathstrike is figure 3 in the Xemnu Series of Marvel Legends.  This is only her second time as a Legends release; her first was back in the Toy Biz era, and was in fact part of their own completely villains-centered series.  She’s just a good fit for that kind of line-up, I suppose.  The figure stands about 6 1/4 inches tall and she has 29 points of articulation.  Her articulation scheme is a little limiting in a few areas, most notably the elbows and shoulders, but for the most part she does alright, and is certainly a step up from her last Legends go-round.  The ball joint at the waist in particular has some solid range, and it’s nice that she’s got the pinless construction for the knees.  Her sculpt is totally unique, which seems appropriate.  There aren’t exactly a lot of parts it would make sense for her to share.  It’s a fairly nice piece.  The head dress and the sleeves all have a dynamic flow to them, which makes for nice action poses, but they also look okay just in basic stances as well.  That’s never an easy balance, but Hasbro did alright with it here.  The detail work is all fairly crisp and clean, and there’s enough going on to keep her visually interesting, while also still avoiding over designing her the way the Toy Biz figure kind of did.  Her paint work is overall pretty basic work.  Aside from one tiny bit of slop on the side of her waist, my figure is pretty clean, and she looks the part.  Deathstrike is packed with no accessories of her own, just the torso to the Xemnu Build-A-Figure.  Maybe some alternate hands, or a pre-transformation head would have been cool, but honestly, there’s not a ton that could be given to her.  As a totally new sculpt, as well as getting the largest portion of the BaF, she doesn’t feel too light, so I can’t knock Hasbro here.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

My exposure to Lady Deathstrike is pretty much purely the cartoon and X2.  Mostly the cartoon, though.  I’ve never been overly attached to the character, really, since she mostly just served as a two-episode delay from getting to the absolute best portion of the cartoon.  That said, I do still somewhat fondly remember her, and I was down for a decent figure.  Thankfully, that’s what I got here.  This figure is very well put together, and certainly the best toy version of the character ever produced.  In an assortment that finally got me a good Red Skull, she still manages to stick out a little, and that’s great.

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 and their eBay storefront.