Tag Archives: Marvel Legends

Guest Review #0042: The Punisher

Posted by hodgeppodge42 in Guest Reviews and tagged with , , , , , ,

THE PUNISHER

MARVEL LEGENDS

Heyo! It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Last time, I was trying to review Mass Effect minimates (which I still need to finish, oops…) but I’m going to completely switch gears this time. Today, I’m going to introduce you guys to my gun-toting cinnamon roll Frankie (aka The Punisher)! Warning, throughout this review I will mostly call him Frankie, I know unprofessional –sue me .

THE FIGURE ITSELF

This figure is specifically designed after the character portrayed in the second season of Daredevil on Netflix. He comes in the same series of Hasbro’s Marvel Legends as Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and the build-a-figure Man Thing (who came up with that name???).

Frankie, here, stands at about 6 ½ inches tall with 30 points of articulation. According to Ethan, Frankie’s body is not reused from another figure; in fact, he is completely his own with all new pieces. What’s cool about this figure, and a lot of the newer Marvel Legends, is that some of his features are printed on. In this case, Frankie’s face and the skull on his chest have been printed, not painted, on. This allows for more precise detailing to be made on the figures, for Frankie it means that you can see a nice five-o-clock shadow going on there and a couple of small scars on his nose. I actually really like how Frankie’s face turned out, the detailing is fantastic and they were able to capture his serious, broody, and adorable face really well.  The detailing on his chest is pretty cool as well. You can see all the straps and buckles on his bullet-proof vest, they’re not painted on but are part of the chest’s sculpt. The print job on the vest is well done as well; it really does look like paint on a vest, and even includes implied rough texture of the vest’s material and a few drips of running paint. Frankie’s legs have a lot of subtle detail, with wrinkles, pockets, and rough texturing for the pants. I find his boots to be really interesting, while just normal plain combat boots, they were able to make it look like his pants were stuffed into his boots and not look like all one entity. His jacket appears to be removable, but suggest leaving it on because he would look weird without it, especially since his arms are sculpted to be wrinkly like coat sleeves. I also have to say a quick thing about his hands; if you look closely you can see the suggestions of veins and tendons, which is a neat little detailing. The paint on the figure is okay, it’s just black and skin tones. There are a few spots where his hair (mostly at the edge of his bangs is peach instead of black, and at the corners of his jaw his five-o-clock shadow doesn’t completely cover it.

For accessories, Frankie comes with two guns. The first is just your average pistol, painted silver with a textured handle and other small detailing related to that style of gun. The second is some kind of rifle…I’m not gonna lie, I don’t know guns and our gun guy isn’t here to tell me all the cool things about the larger of Frankie’s guns, including what the hell to call it. It’s a cool looking gun that I’m sure is supposed to fire rather rapidly, with a scope, a long, slightly curved magazine clip, and other gun do-hickeys. I’m sorry, I don’t know guns, you’ll have to forgive me or wait for this to be updated later with more (accurate) details on the gun. All I know is that Frankie’s larger gun is black and pretty badass looking.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Frankie came to me while we were packing up our apartment to move elsewhere. I was having a pretty stressful time, and my super sweet boyfriend decided to get me this figure when he saw it to try to help me out some. I fell in love with my gun-toting cinnamon roll after watching his part in Daredevil season two. My (over) enthusiastic love for the Punisher surprised Ethan a lot, especially since I normally don’t care for morally gray characters, but Frankie was just different and stole my heart with his sad brooding and love for lots of bullets. So when Ethan saw that they were making this figure he showed me and I’m sure our neighbors could hear my fangirl-screaming three-floors up, and I wanted one ever since. I love this design of the Punisher and I’m so happy he’s a part of my growing collection of figures! I’m also super excited for his Netflix show, and you can bet your bum I’m gonna watch it with this figure in hand!

#1395: Vulture & Spider-Man

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

VULTURE & SPIDER-MAN

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“Adrian Toomes uses a specialized flying suit to soar through the skies as the Vulture – but when this winged menace threatens justice, it’s up to Spider-Man to swing in and stop him in his flight.”

Didn’t I *just* review a Vulture & Spider-Man two-pack?  It’s like Hasbro has a reason to be releasing multiple Spideys and Vultures all of the sudden.  I mean, I guess it could be the movie, but I’m not sure.  As has become the norm these days, Hasbro’s taking advantage of the hype from this new movie and using it to put out a few comics-based figures in addition to all the movie fare.  Today’s focus set is a pair of those figures.  Let’s check them out!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Vulture and Spider-Man are a Walmart-exclusive two-pack, as part of Hasbro’s 6-inch Marvel Legends.  They started hitting not too long before Homecoming’s release.

VULTURE

It’s been twelve years since we got a comics Vulture.  Seems like a reasonable waiting period to me.  Where the last one was a classic Vulture, this one’s actually based on his Ultimate counterpart (who, if you want to get technical, isn’t Adrian Toomes like the bio says; he’s actually Blackie Drago.  Of course, the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon uses this basic design for Toomes as the Vulture, so I guess it’s not totally inaccurate.  Also, few enough people know Vulture at all, we probably shouldn’t be throwing a whole second, more obscure character at them.  This is a really long parenthetical).  The Ultimate costume isn’t that far removed from the classic design, just a bit more armored and sleek, and the wings are different.  The figure stands about 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation.  He’s built on the Pizza Spidey body, with a new head, torso, pelvis, and forearms.   The new pieces mesh pretty well with the old, and he replicates Mark Bagely’s artwork for the character very well.  The head in particular really gets that Bagley style down.  I really enjoy the crazy grin he’s got going on.  Sure, he’s a little young for my preferred Vulture, but that’s accurate to the source material, so I’m not going to complain.  One thing I will complain about ever so slightly is the wings.  Moving past the fact that I’m not super into the Ultimate Vulture styled wings (they just look too much like Archangel’s wings), I’m annoyed that they aren’t at all articulated.  They plug into place, and due to the way they attach, they don’t have any sort of movement.  It’s kind of boring.  I mean, they still look cool, but I just wanted a little more out of them.  Vulture’s paint work is pretty solid.  It’s very green, but it’s a few shades of nice, metallic green.  Everything is nice and sharply applied, and the colors all accent each other well.  In addition to the removable wings, this guy also includes an extra, helmeted head, which is based on his appearance from the cartoon.  It’s a fun extra, and makes for a cool alternate look.

SPIDER-MAN

Can’t have a Spider-Man multi-pack without another Spider-Man, I suppose.  This one’s a slight re-deco of the Ultimate Spider-Man from the Space Venom series.  I didn’t get that figure, but I did get Miles, who uses the same sculpt.  Miles was a very good figure, and by extension, this guy’s quite good too.  He has essentially the same paint work as the Space Venom figure, but with two minor changes.  First, the blue has been changed to a bolder, less teal shade.  Second, he lacks the stripes of red running down his arms.  Why make these changes? Because now, instead of being an Ultimate comics version of Peter, he’s Peter from the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon.  Which means this is actually another Spider-Verse figure.  I can get behind that.  The figure lacks the unmasked head, right fist, and left thwip hand of his single-release counterpart, which is a bit of a letdown, but he does at least get both open gesture hands.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I saw this set a few times and passed on it.  Vulture’s never been super high on my list, and the Ultimate design even less so.  Plus, I hardly needed another essentially standard Spider-Man.  I ended up grabbing this set because while I was out looking for the Homecoming series, I came across this pair on clearance for a 50% mark-down, at which point I was essentially just paying for the Vulture figure.  For that price, it seemed more worth it to me.  Vulture’s a decent enough figure overall.  I have some minor issues, but he’ll do.  Spider-Man’s decent in his own right, but is definitely a “more of the same” sort of deal.  I feel like it would have been nice to get a more unique variant, but at least this one gets us another Spider-Verse entry.

#1389: Loki

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

LOKI

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

““Forever a trickster, Loki’s allegiances are often unclear. However, one thing can be said for certain: Loki always looks out for Loki’s best interests.”

Summer’s on it’s way out.  So, move over summer blockbusters!  It’s time for…the fall blockbusters?  We’ve had Guardians Vol. 2 and Spider-Man: Homecoming.  Now it’s time for the next Marvel entry, Thor: Ragnarok!  After being slightly underwhelmed by The Dark World, I’m hoping that Ragnarok can deliver something a bit more enjoyable.  The Dark World had only an incredibly modest offering of toys, but Ragnarok is getting a little more coverage.  The first of the product is just starting to hit retail now.  Today, I’ll be looking at the trickster god Loki!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Loki is figure 2 in the Ragnarok assortment of Marvel Legends.  This is actually the first time Hiddleston Loki’s been given a proper retail release, since the Avengers was only available as a Walmart exclusive, and then was re-released as part of the European version of the Hulkbuster assortment.  This one is, obviously, based on his Ragnarok appearance, which seems to have been somewhat influenced by the Lady Loki design of all things, along with a touch of the “Agent of Asgard” look.  It’s not a bad look.  The figure stands about 6 1/2 inches tall and he has 30 points of articulation.  His sculpt is new to this figure.  It has its ups and its downs.  By far, the best part is the head sculpt, which has quite a nice likeness of Hiddleston as Loki, slight little sneering grin and all.  I also quite like the hands, which are a nice open gesture, thus adding a lot of character when you pose him.  I’m a bit iffy on the torso, which seems slightly oddly shaped and kind of rudimentary.  Compared to some of the other Legends of late, this feels like a bit of a step down.  I’m also not a fan of the floating skirt piece on the waist.  I feel like a fixed piece would look better, and be less annoying when posing the figure.  Lastly, I don’t care for how the cape attaches.  Maybe it’s just my figure, but I found it to be rather difficult to bet both clips properly seated on the shoulders, and even once they’re in place, it doesn’t take much to knock one or the other out of place.  It gets a little frustrating.  On the plus side of things, the paintwork on Loki is pretty strong.  The best work is definitely the face; this is my first experience with the “printing” technique that Hasbro’s started to use on the movie figures.  Photos online had me skeptical about the process, but it person it looks really good.  The rest of the paint is pretty straight forward stuff.  The colors seem to match the movie design, and the application is all pretty sharp.  Loki includes his “helmet”, which has been streamlined down to more of a headband with horns attached.  It’s a little bulky, but fits on his head pretty well. He also includes the left leg of the series’ Build-A-Figure, Gladiator Hulk.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This guy snuck up on me.  I barely even knew of his existence when I found him at one of my local Targets.  I was actually looking for the Homecoming figures, which I still haven’t had any luck finding, when I came across this guy.  I was pretty excited to find him (and I’ve already tracked down a duplicate for Super Awesome Girlfriend).  Ultimately, he’s a bit of a mixed bag.  The torso on this guy is really poorly designed, just all-around, which is a real surprise from Hasbro these days.  Still, the good does outweigh the bad on this guy, and the end result is an overall nice figure.  He’s not going to be figure of the year, but he’s far from terrible. 

#1381: Spider-Man & Vulture

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

SPIDER-MAN & VULTURE

MARVEL LEGENDS – 3.75 INCH (HASBRO)

“When Vulture sets out on a nefarious mission to steal the world’s most powerful technology, it’s up to Spider-Man to shut down the bad guy and save the day.”

You know what was a good movie?  Spider-Man: Homecoming.  Oddly, the merchandise associated with it mostly didn’t go out until after the film premiered, and now, less than a month later, it’s completely disappeared from most store shelves.  Which has been rather frustrating for me, let me tell you.  I did manage to pick up the 3 3/4 inch Legends pack, which gives us the film’s protagonist and antagonist in one fell swoop!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Spider-Man and Vulture were released as one of pair of two-packs released in the lead-up to Homecoming’s release.  This pair is the movie-based set, with the Shocker and Spidey set being comic-based.

SPIDER-MAN

Can’t have enough Spider-Men, right?  I suppose this one’s fair.  It is his movie and all.  Peter is seen here in the suit he got from Tony Stark during the course of Civil War, which is also his primary look in Homecoming.  It’s a decent enough recreation of Spidey’s comic roots (there’s a lot of Romita Spidey in there), with a little extra flair to help it fit in a bit better with the other MCU designs.  The figure stands about 3 3/4 inches tall and he has 21 points of articulation.  The articulation is generally pretty good, but he’s really hindered by the lack of wrist joints.  Just two swivels would have gone a long way.  The figure’s sculpt is wholly unique to this release, and it has its ups and its downs.  The head is really strong, and definitely nails the design from the movie.  The upper torso and arms are also pretty decent as well.  Really, it’s the lower torso where it starts to fall apart; the two parts of the torso don’t match up at all.  And then the hips don’t really meet the waist very well.  And the upper legs don’t meet the knees all that well either.  It’s a bit of a mess.  It’s definitely not helped by the odd shape of the upper legs, which look almost like they’re upside down or something.  With the right pose, you can hide most of the issues, and the sculpt is decent enough as a whole, but I really feel like they could have workshop-ed this a little bit better.  The paint on this guy is passable; it’s about what you’d expect from a Spider-Man.  He’s red, blue, and black.  The application’s mostly pretty clean.  There’s some slop in a few spots (the arms seem to get the worst of it), but it’s okay overall.  This figure includes no accessories, which feels a bit off.  Not even an extra head, or a webline?  Something would have been nice.

VULTURE

Vulture was a nice choice for the film’s main villain.  He’s got some general public recognition, but his characterization’s not quite as set in stone as some of the other Spider-Rogues.  Plus, he hasn’t been overdone, and his less earth-shattering persona allows for a slightly smaller-scale story.  He also has one of my favorite MCU re-designs, so that’s cool.  This figure is based on that design…in theory.  He stands about 4 inches tall and he has 20 points of articulation (21 with the wings).  He’s a bit less hindered by missing joints than Peter, but I might have liked some form of joint around his mid-torso.  Like Peter, he’s an all-new sculpt.  On it’s own, it’s an okay piece of work, I guess.  The pieces line up better than they did on Spidey, and his overall proportions seem a little better.  The big issue here is that he’s not particularly faithful to the source material.  He’s got the most basic elements, but they all seem to veer off slightly.  The helmet’s the most noticeable for me.  It’s way too boxy, especially in the mouth/chin area.  Everything is super boxy, which isn’t what he looked like in the film at all.  His visor is also a solid piece, attached to the rest of the head, thus removing the eery illuminated eyes from the movie design, which is one of the cooler elements.  The wings are also pretty far off.  They’re under-sized, which is somewhat understandable, given the price point, but they’re also just the wring shape.  Where the helmet when too boxy, these go the opposite direction; they’re too sleek for movie Vulture.  They seem more like Falcon’s wing pack than Vulture’s.  His body is a little more accurate; the only real issue is the gloves going over his coat sleeves, which is relatively minor.  The paint is similar to the sculpt, in that it’s fine removed from the source, but rather inaccurate.  In general, the colors are far too light.  Areas that were a dark, gunmetal grey in the film are a pale, largely flat grey here.  This is most obvious on the head, which is made to look even larger than it is thanks to the lighter color.  The visor has been made an opaque metallic green for some reason; even if they couldn’t afford to make the visor a separate piece, couldn’t they have at least tried to replicate the eyes via some clever paint work?  Vulture’s only real extra is the wings, which still puts him above Peter, but I wouldn’t have minded getting an unmasked head or something.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I bought this set for two reasons.  First, to tide me over until I can finish finding the 6-inch Legends Homecoming assortment.  Second, because for reasons I can’t begin to fathom, Target started clearancing this set a week before the film’s release, so I was able to get it for $10.  It’s not a fantastic set.  There’s some very frustrating choices here.  But, for $5 a figure, it feels like an okay deal.  I’ve gotten worse figures.

#1360: Invisible Woman

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

INVISIBLE WOMAN

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“With HERBIE by her side, Sue Storm uses psionic energy to suit up as the incredible hero, Invisible Woman!”

Fantastic Four Marvel Legends?  It’s a Christmas miracle!  Or something.

The poor FF has fallen out of fashion in recent years, in no small part due to the lackluster-to-atrocious quality of their live-action films and the fact that their film rights aren’t currently with Marvel proper (it also doesn’t help that creative teams who actually know what to do with the characters are a dying breed, meaning their comic hasn’t really been selling well either).  On the plus side, it looks like things are on the upturn for the Fab Four, with a triumphant return to the toy aisles, starting with Sue Richards, aka the Invisible Woman!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Invisible Woman is the latest Walgreens-exclusive Marvel Legends figure.  This marks only the second time that Sue’s been offered as a single figure in the Legends line. Unlike prior Walgreens exclusives, Sue’s not attached to any other particular series.  Instead, she’s the first of a sub-set of FF figures exclusive to Walgreens, and she’ll be joined by her brother Johnny later this year.  The figure stands about 6 inches tall and she has 27 points of articulation.  She’s built on the new base female body (seen previously on the likes of Phoenix, Kitty Pryde, and Kate-Guy), which is, as always, a welcome choice.  It’s a pretty solid base overall, and serves as a good starting point for Sue.  She also gets a new head, which is just a, pardon the phrase, fantastic piece.  Easily one of my favorite head sculpts from Legends as of late.  Definitely Hasbro’s best female, and that’s saying something, given their recent track record.  Sue’s had a number of hair-dos over the years, and a lot of them have been really period-specific.  The one they’ve gone with is pretty timeless and true to the character.  I like that the face is calm and friendly, as Sue should be, rather than being too bland or intense.  The paint on Sue is pretty decent, but there are a few things that seem a little off.  The overall application is really sharp and bold.  The face is particularly clean, as is the emblem.  The emblem being all in grey is a little different than I was expecting, but I can’t say I dislike it.  The only real issue I have is how they’ve implemented her powers.  The actual work isn’t bad; her right arm starts full color and slowly fades out.  It’s a cool effect, and very well rendered.  The real issue is that there’s no option to swap the arm out, meaning she’s always stuck like that.  Still, that’s a pretty minor issue.  Sue *does* include an extra hand, that’s done up to match the right arm, so that’s cool.  And, since it’s going to be a little while before the rest of her teammates are released, Sue also includes a HERBIE pack-in figure to keep her company.  Believe it or not, this is actually HERBIE’s third time as an action figure, and second as a Marvel Legend.  He’s about 3 inches tall and has a joint as the neck, as well as a removable flight stand to let him hover.  His sculpt is pretty awesome, and his paint is nice and clean.  He’s just an all-around awesome inclusion.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Here’s a shock: I got this Walgreens exclusive figure at Walgreens.  I know.  Thrilling.  In all honestly, I’ve been patiently waiting for this figure ever since Toy Biz released Reed back in Series 5 of the original line.  14 years is a lot of waiting.  Ultimately, I’m glad I waited, because this is best Invisible Woman figure ever released.  I can’t wait to get the rest of the team to match!

#1336: Astonishing Wolverine

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

ASTONISHING WOLVERINE

MARVEL LEGENDS (TOY BIZ)

“Little is known about the man known as Logan whose past remains shrouded in mystery. The feral warrior, code-named Wolverine, possesses genetically endowed animal-keen senses of smell, sight, and hearing, as well as a mutant healing factor that can mend almost any wound. His deadliest weapons are his razor-sharp claws and skeleton both made of unbreakable metal alloy called Adamantium. However, with these abilities comes a curse, a bezerker rage that he must forever struggle to control. Now Logan must contain the beast raging within while he battles to protect a world that fears and hates him.”

Though my opinion of it has waned in recent years, at the time of its release, Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men was a serious breath of fresh air.  I was never much impressed by Morrison’s “let’s put everyone in black leather and completely disregard prior character interpretation” New X-Men run that immediately preceded it, so taking the X-Men a bit more back to basics was pretty cool.  I also really liked John Cassidy’s art for the series, as well as his returning of several of the cast to more classically inspired costumes.  While most of the team eventually made it into toy form, it took quite a while.  Unsurprisingly, the first team member to make it into plastic was Wolverine, who I’ll be looking at today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Astonishing Wolverine was released in the 12th Series of Toy Biz’s Marvel Legends, also known as the “Apocalypse Series.”  It was the fourth Wolverine in the line, and was at the time his current look. There were both masked and unmasked versions of this guy; the one I’m looking at today is the masked version, obviously.  This figure also served as the inspiration for the larger Marvel Legends Icons version of the character, although he was slightly tweaked to offer an alternate version of this costume.  The figure stands 5 1/2 inches tall (it’s one of the first times they actually got his scale right) and he has 40 points of articulation.  In terms of sculpt, this figure was all-new, and he’s based on Cassidy’s work from the comics, albeit somewhat loosely, since Cassidy’s style doesn’t quite lend itself to super-articulated action figures.  The head’s definitely the best work; there’s a lot of smaller detail work that looks really nice, without being too over-done like a lot of Legends Wolverines.  The rest of the body was good for the time, but doesn’t as much hold up to scrutiny these days.  Once again, there’s a lot detail work that’s really nice on the stitching and the piping.  However, he’s really, really scrawny, which removes some of his intimidation factor.  It’s the worst in the legs, where the precedence clearly went to the joints, resulting in an almost skeletal set of limbs.  And of course, they split the belt in two for the waist articulation.  Why did they do that?  Beats me.  Seems it would have made a lot more sense to go either above or below.  Worst case scenario, you could do the joint where it is currently and have the belt be an add-on.  But splitting it right down the middle just seems lazy to me, like the base body was already sculpted and they added the details later without taking placement into account.  On the plus side of things, he’s probably got the best claws we got on a TB ML Wolverine; they’re well-shaped, unlikely to break off, and resistant to heavy warping.  In terms of paint work, the figure’s decent enough.  The base colors match up pretty well with what was being used on the comics, and most of the application is fairly clean.  The only part that’s a little odd is the arm hair, which really just looks like a bunch of brown tally marks that someone’s drawn on him.  Wolverine included no accessories of his own, but he did come packed with one of the legs of Apocalypse.  So, that’s cool, I guess.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This guy was a Christmas present from my friend Charlie.  He and I shared a love of Marvel Legends, and in particular, we were both on the lookout for the perfect Wolverine.  So, when this series hit, he made sure that I got this guy, which was very nice of him (I repaid the favor a year later when I made sure he got a completed Mojo Build-A-Figure).  He’s definitely got some flaws, but I really do think he was Toy Biz’s best take on Wolverine, and the best Legends version  of the character until Hasbro’s recent Brown Costume figure.  It’s honestly a little surprising that TB never retooled him into a more conventional Wolverine.

#1329: Iron Man

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

IRON MAN

MARVEL LEGENDS (TOY BIZ)

“To the public, Tony Stark is a handsome, jet-setting industrialist and inventor. What they don’t know is that he leads a second life as Iron Man. The armored Avenger gets his fantastic powers from his suit of micro-mesh armor. It gives him superhuman strength, the ability to fly via his jet boots, and a variety of built-in weapons, foremost among these being his devastating repulsor rays! Iron Man is dedicated to defeating those forces that would threaten the security of the nation and the entire world.”

Iron Man is easily one of Marvel’s best known characters these days, but that wasn’t always the case.  Aside from a brief cartoon runs in the ‘60s and ‘90s, he was largely out of the public eye until his 2008 film.  So, in 2002, when Toy Biz launched Marvel Legends as a follow-up to their successful Spider-Man: Classics line, and had Iron Man as one of the headliners of Series 1’s four figure assortment, it was a pretty big deal.  It’s hard to believe now, but when Marvel Legends debuted, the most demanded figure by far was the Iron Man.  Can you even imagine a time when the fanbase didn’t let out a collective groan at the inclusion of an Iron Man figure?

THE FIGURE ITSELF

As noted in the intro, Iron Man was released in the first series of Toy Biz’s Marvel Legends line.  There were actually two Iron Men in the assortment; the regular release reviewed here, and the one-per-case horned-mask variant.  Even later, there was also a Walmart-exclusive release, which decked this guy out in his stealth colors.  This guy is based on Tony’s classic armor from the 60s and 70s, which at this point hadn’t been released in plastic form for almost two decades.  The figure stands about 6 1/2 inches tall and has 38 points of articulation.  Some of the articulation (particularly the neck movement and the mid-torso joint) is a bit antiquated, but it’s mostly pretty workable.  Amusingly, some of the articulation the was more quickly deemed out of date within the line itself has actually become the more standard way of doing things, so in some ways he fits in better with the more recent Hasbro offerings than he does the later TB offerings.  Iron Man sported what was, at the time, an all-new sculpt, which would later be used for the Silver Centurion armor, as well as War Machine and Magneto.  The build is a little bulkier than the usual depictions of the classic Iron Man armor, but it actually makes sense, since it’s supposed to be wrapped around a normal-sized guy; it’d have to be a little heftier in real life.  The proportions are actually pretty solid for a figure of this era.  Compare this guy to his Series-mate Captain America, and you’ll note that he’s got a much more balanced anatomy.  He even avoids the dreaded duck feet!  The articulation is also pretty well worked-in for a Toy Biz offering; sure, there are still some spots where compromise has been made (the waist really sticks out), but it’s generally a good middle-ground.  In terms of detail work, this guy goes a bit more simplistic than later TB fare (another reason he fits in a bit better with the Hasbro stuff), but that’s definitely a plus.  All of the important details are there, they’re all very sharply defined.  The figure has a removable faceplate, which reveals Tony Stark beneath the mask.  I’ve always felt he bore a resemblance to Timothy Dalton, which is a neat little “what-if” casting idea.  The face has some of the best work on the whole figure, which shows real commitment on the sculptor’s part, since it’s largely going un-seen.  The faceplate is molded to fit into the contours of the face, and it actually stays in place really well.  In terms of paint, Iron Man’s handled really well. He’s got the base red and yellow, which are nice and vibrant, and then on top of that, there’s a hint of silver lightly applied to all the armored portions of the figure, which makes him look suitably metallic, while avoiding the issues of blending that plague the Iron Men that use gold in place of the yellow. Iron Man was packed with a display stand designed to look like a Stark Industries satellite and a reprint of Iron Man #149 (which contains “Doomquest,” one of my favorite Iron Man stories).

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This guy came from my Nana.  Every year, she’d take me and my cousin to Toys R Us at the end of school and let us each pick out one or two things.   Of course, I went through the usual back and forth, having to reassure her that yes I really did want this Iron Man fellow instead of a handful of Attack of the Clones figures like my cousin was getting.  At the time, this guy was still pretty hard to get, so finding him so quickly was pretty sweet.  He was my very first Marvel Legend, and I gotta say, dragging him out for the purpose of this review has reminded me that he’s still very definitely one of my favorites.  As far as classic Iron Men go, this guy really hasn’t been topped.

#1305: Captain America – Addendum

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

CAPTAIN AMERICA

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

-ADDENDUM-

Since Hasbro relaunched Marvel Legends, I’ve been consistently displeased with the heads on their Steve Rogers figures.  When the line was relaunched, all of the unmasked males suffered from what I call “Hasbro-Face”: they would have a deep scowl and incredibly squared-off features, and just generally look more like the titular character from The Goon than the superhero characters they were supposed to be replicating.  As the line has progressed, the Hasbro-Face has slowly died out, with the exception of Steve Rogers.  I guess Hasbro wants to keep all of the versions of him consistent, but it means I haven’t truly been happy with a Legends Captain America since Toy Biz.

In today’s review of Captain America, I noted that a major contributing factor to my finally acquiring him was seeing an image online of a mod for the figure.  This mod replaced the stock figure’s atrocious head with that of the very first ML Cap figure, which, in my opinion, is still the best Cap head ever.  The biggest hoop in performing this mod is getting the first TB Cap.  I have my old one, but I really didn’t want to put that one under the knife (or drill, as the case may be).  Fortunately, I was able to find a loose one sans accessories for $5, which is really the main thing that sparked this whole project (ironically, I actually paid a dollar more for my “junk” Cap than I did my original).

Perhaps the most difficult part of this whole project was just getting the TB Cap’s head off the body.  Toy Biz heads weren’t really designed for easy removal like their Hasbro brethren, so you’re pretty much going to have to use the boil-and-pop method, and even then, it took me a few rounds to finally get it popped off the joint.

As you can clearly see from the photo, the socket on the TB Cap’s head is maybe an eighth the size of the åHasbro figure’s ball-joint.  In order to get it to fit, it needed some significant plastic removal.  The best tool for such a project is really a dremel; I didn’t have one handy, so I just made do with a basic power drill, starting with a drill bit just a little larger than the socket and slowly working my way to larger bits, until it was a good fit.  I actually went the slightest bit too large on the socket, but that’s an easy fix.  All you need is to put little bit of super glue in the socket, do a few turns while on the joint, and then take the head off and let it dry for a few minutes.  This gives the socket a little more texture, which helps the head stay put on the joint.

Throw in the shoulder harness from the Target 3-pack Cap to replace the wonky straps from the original figure, and I’m pretty happy with this figure.  The head/body paint matches up surprisingly well (any differences are virtually invisible to the naked eye).  The smaller head is scaled much better with the body, and it even makes the body look a little less chunky (I think the chunkiness I was seeing was actually an optical illusion).  And, best of all, he cost me less than the retail of your average Legends release to put together.  Now I have a Legends Captain America I can be proud of! Added bonus: with the left over parts I can put together a pretty sweet Cap Wolf!

#1305: Captain America

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

CAPTAIN AMERICA

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“Steve Rogers is a soldier with superhuman strength and an indestructible shield!”

Generally speaking, I’m a pretty big supporter of Hasbro these days.  They run two of my favorite lines and generally do things that I support.  They get a lot of hate, and I think a lot of it’s undeserved.  With all that said, about a decade ago, I was NOT much of a Hasbro fan, due to a lot of very silly decisions on their part, both with the end of their DC license and the early days of their Marvel license.  While they’ve improved leaps and bounds, they do still have the occasional slip-up.  Today, I’m looking at one such slip-up.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Captain America is the first figure in the Red Onslaught Series of Marvel Legends, which was the first of the three vaguely Captain America: Civil War-themed series released last year.  I looked at a handful of figures from the series back when they were still new, but never got around to this guy, mostly for the aforementioned “slip-up” reasons.  This figure is, or is at least intended to be, an updated classic Captain America, which was a nice thought, given that the last actual classic Cap before this one was the Face Off version from Toy Biz.  He stands a little over 6 1/2 inches tall and has 32 points of articulation.  Cap is built on the Reaper body, which most of us had figured would be the case as soon as the Reaper body showed up.  I’m not sure it’s the best base for the character; it seems a little chunky for him.  That being said, it’s certainly an improvement on the body that was previously being used for Cap, so that’s a plus.  Cap got unique pieces for his head, forearms, shoulder straps, belt, and boots (the forearms, belt, and boots would later be re-used for Red Guardian).  The majority of the pieces are decent work, and they fit well on the body.  He really, really could have used at least one fist, but that’s minor. The first major nit I have with the figure is the straps on the shoulders; previous pieces have always been done as a single harness piece, but for some reason this time Hasbro opted to go with two separate pieces.  The issue is that they don’t have anything to connect to, nor do they have the tension that would be brought by connecting to each other, so the end result is that they’re pretty much impossible to keep in place.  They just fall right off the arms.  Just getting the one photo with them was a nightmare.  The second major nit, and the primary reason I held off on getting this figure for so long is the head sculpt.  I’ve never been happy with the Hasbro Legends take on Steve Rogers, and this figure really exhibits the worst of that, even more so than prior figures.  His head looks thuggish and angry, and just all-around ugly, which is hardly how I think of Cap.  He takes the squared off, scowlly “Hasbro Face” that I so despise and dials it up to 11.  On top of that, the head is super, super wide, like it’s been stepped on or something, and is in general just way too large for this body.  It’s almost like they scaled it to the Hyperion.  I wish I had something nice to say about this head, but I really, really hate it.  The paint on this guy is okay, but hardly Hasbro’s best.  It’s a bit weird stepping back a year to just before they started really making the strides in paint quality.  He’s okay, but there’s some noticeable slop, especially on the white sections.  Ironically, the head gets probably the best work, but it’s not enough to save it.  Cap is packed with his mighty shield (which is the same mold used for Taskmaster, Red Guardian, and Vance), a pair of gripping hands, a left hand that’s pointing, a right hands that flat, an extra Cap Wolf head (which is probably the coolest included piece, and at least gives the figure *some* value), and the back-thingy of Red Onslaught.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I saw this figure a ton of times over the course of the last year, but, despite being rather excited when he was initially announced, I just couldn’t bring myself to pay full retail for this guy.  A few things happened that finally got me to buy him.  First of all, Hasbro’s eBay shop marked the figure down to $8.99, which for those of you playing at home is less than half of the original retail price.  On top of that, I came across an image of a mod for the figure (which I’ll be posting about later today), which finally convinced me he was worth owning.  The basic figure is certainly disappointing.  That head is just terrible, and the shoulder straps are beyond annoying.  However, the base body is pretty decent, and at lest he’s got the extra Cap Wolf to make him more worthwhile.

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

#1294: Marvel’s Moon Knight

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

MARVEL’S MOON KNIGHT

MARVEL LEGENDS — 3.75 (HASBRO)

“A vision in an Egyptian temple leads Marc Spector to don a silver shroud and become the crime-fighting hero, Moon Knight.”

Moon Knight is one of the many Marvel heroes who began his career as an antagonist.  First created as a foe for Werewolf By Night, Moon Knight proved popular enough with readers to earn his own title, and in the process has become arguably better known than the character he was created to fight.  He was a fairly basic costumed vigilante to start with (he frequently found himself used as off-Batman); his only notable twist was that he had two secret identities, a wealthy playboy and a cab driver, neither of which was actually his original identity.  Which, for those keeping track, is a whopping four identities.  Eventually, it was decided that all these identities were actually due to Marc possessing a multiple personality disorder (which may or may not have been caused by the Egyptian God Khonshu’s influence on him).  You see, Marc isn’t pretending to be Moon Knight, or Steven Grant, or Jake Lockley; he *is* those people.  They’re all still very similar to Marc at their core, but each uniquely different in abilities, temperament, etc.  He’s definitely a fun character when handled right.  Above all, though?  He looks cool, and that makes for a good toy.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Moon Knight was released in the first 2017 series of the smaller-scale Marvel Legends line.  It’s sort of an oddball assortment of characters, but that’s honestly the best chance of getting made that Moon Knight ever gets.  The figure stands a little over 4 inches tall and he has 19 points of articulation.  Moon Knight is sporting his most recent costume; it’s got a lot in common with earlier Moon Knight designs, but with the usual streamlining we see on so much these days.  There are also crescents.  A lot of crescents.  Because the moon.  I’m generally a fan of this look, and I certainly like it more than some heroes’ modern designs.  He’s built on the most recent male base body, with a unique head, forearms, and shins, as well as an add-on piece for his cape and chest armor.  The base body is a good fit for Moon Knight.  It’s actually a first, I think; his base bodies have tended to be a little off on prior figures.  The new pieces are all pretty solid.  I wasn’t crazy about the head sculpt at first, but as I’ve had the chance to mess around with the figure and see it from different angles, it’s really grown on me.  It should be noted that it really looks best when viewed somewhat from above, rather than the upward facing angle most of the promo shots show it in.  The hood and cape both have a really awesome knitted texture going on, which helps to keep the figure from getting too monotonous, while still managing to not look overdone like some texturing at this scale can.  Moon Knight’s paint work is pretty straight forward black and white for the most part.  The application is all pretty clean; there’s some slop here and there, but nothing unacceptable for the scale.  I do like the presence of both flat and pearlescent white; it helps to differentiate between the armored bits and the cloth bits.  Moon Knight includes no accessories, which is a real letdown given the amount of money these things retail for.  At least give him his staff!

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

March was a pretty hard month for me in terms of purchases, so I swore I wasn’t buying any figures for the entirety of April.  Remember how I said I swore I wasn’t buying any figures in April?  Well, it turns out my friends and family are all big fans of loophole abuse.  Tim and Jill came down for a visit in mid-April, and I spotted this guy while we were out and about.  I looked at him, but ultimately put him back.  Of course, Tim saw me empty handed and demanded I show him where the figure was and then proceeded to buy it for me.  Because they’re all a bunch of no good enablers, that’s why.  One of these day’s I’ll pay them all back.  Literally.  Like, with money.  Or other goods.

I wasn’t initially sure about this figure, given that he was being released in such close proximity to his larger scale figure in there main ML line, but the timing of the releases worked out so that he hit right as I was really wanting a Moon Knight figure.  It’s for the best really, because if they’d been released at the same time, I’d have skipped this guy, and that’d be a real shame, because he’s actually really cool.  Here’s hoping the large figure’s even better!