Tag Archives: Marvel Legends

#0136: Young Avengers

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

PATRIOT, IRON LAD, ASGARDIAN, & HULKLING

MARVEL LEGENDS (TOYBIZ)

Today, I’m once again venturing into the land of Toybiz’s Marvel Legends.  I’ve actually stated to dread these reviews a little because I was quite fond of these figures when they were released, but looking back at them takes away all the nostalgia.  It doesn’t help that most of them are also accompanied by a story of how difficult they were to acquire.  Some of the figures still hold up, though, and occasionally some of them even lack the frustration inducing stories.  The Young Avengers set is actually one of those.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

These guys were released as a boxed set during the final year of ToyBiz’s possession of the Marvel license.  They’re based on their appearance in the first issue of the original Young Avengers, which was also included with the set.

PATRIOT

First up, the effective leader of the team, Patriot.  Patriot was Eli Bradley, the grandson of Isaiah Bradley who was the “Black Captain America.”  He acquired the Super Soldier serum thanks to a blood transfusion from his grandfather.  He’s shown here in his original costume, which was patterned after Bucky’s costume.  It’s not the costume he spent the majority of his appearances in, but it’s actually my favorite of his two costumes.  Patriot stands about 6 inches tall and features 38 points of articulation.  Amazingly for a Marvel Legends sculpt, everything is actually well proportioned.  My only complaint would be that his feet are probably at tad too big, but the rest looks good.  The detail on the uniform is great, with lots of great little wrinkles and folds.  The head is also spot-on to Jim Cheung’s art on the series.  The paint work is all nicely done, with no real issues.  I do wish they had used differently colored pins for the lower knee articulation because the black actually ended up bleeding into the white plastic around it.  Patriot included the original Captain America shield and a display stand with his picture on it.  Small issues aside, Patriot’s my favorite figure in the set, in spite of being my least favorite of the characters.

IRON LAD

Ah, yes Iron Lad.  Remember how Patriot was my favorite figure and least favorite character?  Iron Lad is the exact opposite.  I loved the character, but the figure’s just eh…  Anyway, Iron Lad is actually a young Kang the Conqueror.  For those of you not in the know, Kang is one of the Avengers’ greatest adversaries.  Iron Lad found out who he was destined to become and rebelled.  The first arc of the series largely deals with the ramifications of this.  Iron Lad stands about 6 inches tall and features 30 points of articulation.  He doesn’t put his articulation to very good use, as some key points are missing, leaving him stuck in some awkward positions.  Iron Lad’s armor did have a tendency to change around a little bit, so I guess he was a bit hard to capture.  The head is great.  It looks just like the character.  Sadly, the body’s a mess.  The proportions are a mess, and the articulation is incredibly obvious.  The paint is also quite sloppy, which doesn’t do the sculpt any favors.  Iron Lad included a display stand with his picture on it.  I don’t hate this figure, but I wish it had turned out a little better.

ASGARDIAN

Next up is Asgardian, or as he’s been known in every appearance following the first arc, Wiccan.  He’s Billy Caplan, and he’s the reincarnated spirit of one of the Scarlet Witch and Vision’s deceased children.  It makes more sense in context.  Billy stands about 6 inches tall and features 35 points of articulation.  The sculpt looks pretty good, and his body sculpt is probably the best in the set.  All the proportions look about right, which is cool.  His head sculpt isn’t quite as nice as the other two, but it’s not terrible by any stretch.  The paint isn’t the best in the set, but it’s passable.  There’s a few spots with some noticeable slop, and the paint on the arms is super thick, but it doesn’t look too bad.  Asgardian included a staff and a display stand with his picture on it.

HULKING

Lastly, it’s Billy’s boyfriend Hulkling.  Hulkling is also the offspring of Kree Captain Mar-Vell and the Skrull Princess, so there’s that.  Hulkling stands closer to 7 inches and features 34 points of articulation.  The sculpt is pretty good, and super textured.  Like, there are no smooth areas on this guy.  Even his arms have a pretty cool skin texture.  The head is spot on to Jim Cheung’s drawings of the character, and all the proportions look appropriate to the character.  My only real complaint is that the hands look oddly flat, which looks a bit weird from certain angles.  Hulkling’s paint is all very well applied, with no noticeable slop, and some rather nice dry-brushing.  Hulkling includes a stand with his picture on it.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I was very excited for this set when it was released.  I had been following the comic and was very happy to see them on display at Toy Fair that year.  I received this set form my parents for Christmas and have greatly enjoyed it since.  When I packed up my Marvel Legends a few years ago, it was amongst the very last of the items put away.  My greatest complaint about this set is that we never got the remaining members of the team.

#0124: Gambit

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

GAMBIT

MARVEL LEGENDS (TOYBIZ)

So, Happy President’s Day, I guess.  Um, I don’t really have that much in the way of presidential action figures, so I’m just gonna go ahead as if it’s any other day.  But I thought I’d point it out anyway.  Just to mess with you.

Looking back at my past reviews, I’m actually a bit shocked by how few reviews I’ve done of ToyBiz’s Marvel Legends.  For a while back there they were, like, the only line I really collected, and I’ve done quite a few reviews of DC Direct figures, which I collected about the same time, so it seems odd I haven’t really looked at any of them.  I think part of this might be that I have some bad memories of trying to track certain figures down, and part of it might be that the figures just haven’t aged all that well.  Or, I’m going by a totally randomized list, and not as many of them have popped up.  Who knows? (Well, me but that kinda ruins my intro).

So, in an effort to attempt to correct some slight oversight, I’ll be reviewing the Marvel Legends version of the X-Men’s own resident scum bag, Gambit!  Gambit isn’t as big a deal as he once was, but he was pretty big in the 90s, and even into the early 2000s, hence his place in the line.  So, let’s take a look at the figure!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Gambit was released as part of the 4th wave of ToyBiz’s Marvel Legends line.  He stands about 6 inches tall, and he has 40 points of articulation.  The figure depicts Gambit in him classic pink/blue/black leotard and brown trench coat look that everyone thought was oh so rad in the 90s.  It’s a truly hideous design, but I can’t help but be so damned nostalgic about it, because being born in the 90s ruined me as a person.  The sculpt was pretty good at the time, but now feels like one of the more outdated sculpts in the line, with huge hands, some pretty serious monkey arms, and an overall emaciated look to him.  I think the head still holds up, with that perfect floppy Gambit hair, and the totally in character smirk.  The coat isn’t the best tailored thing ever, but it isn’t too bad, and it does somewhat mask the odd proportions of the figure.  The figure’s paint is pretty good, though it can be sloppy in some places, particularly the face, which I’ve seen have some variance from figure to figure.  I do appreciate that this is one of the only Gambit figures to give him the appropriate black sleeves with those weird pink squares, instead of just leaving them pink.  The figure had a really nice assortment of accessories that I wish I still had, including: his staff, an energy explosion with a set of cards to simulate his powers, and a base sculpted to look like a fallen Sentinel hand.  These pieces were all pretty cool, and I think I still have the stand in a box with some others, but the other two pieces are long gone.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Believe it or not, Gambit was one of my favorite ToyBiz Legends.  I’m not really sure why, as I’m not that big a fan of the character, and the figure isn’t that amazing, but I really liked him.  I suppose coming early  in the line, he got a lot more play time than some of the later figures, and he was one of the figures in the line who you didn’t have to devote all your free time to tracking down.

He hasn’t aged amazingly well, but he’s still held up better than some of the figures, which does give a leg up.  And given Gambit’s rather quick decline in popularity, the character has yet to see any kind of rerelease in the more recent incarnations of the line, which I suppose makes this guy a bit more valuable.

#0075: Luke Cage

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

LUKE CAGE

MARVEL LEGENDS (TOY BIZ)

Today, it’s my second look at the early 2000s juggernaut, Marvel Legends.  I’ve mentioned in the past my issues with this line’s tendency to draw out the worst in the collector market, but the figure’s themselves weren’t always bad.  I’ll be looking at one of the figure’s from towards the end of Toy Biz’s run with the line: Luke Cage, sometimes known as Power Man.  Sweet Christmas!

Luke Cage was a character created in the 70s to somewhat tie-in to the trend of “blaxplotation” movies.  Marvel wanted to try and appeal to that market, so they created Luke Cage, Hero for Hire.  He starred in his own series for a while, that was very 70s.  When his own series started to suffer, he was rolled in with fellow 70s character Iron Fist.  It was here that the two characters found their audience, and it’s how they’re often remembered.  When the 70s passed, Cage fell into obscurity, but he came into a bit of a revival in the last few years, and is set to appear in his own Netflix-original miniseries in 2015.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Luke Cage was released as part of the 14th Series of ToyBiz’s Marvel Legends line.  He’s a little bit over 6 inches tall, and he has 35 points of articulation.  The figure depicts Luke in his original yellow and black look.  It’s incredibly dated, but given that the character seems to just where normal clothes these days, this is the most interesting look the character’s had.  Luke’s sculpt isn’t too bad.  The body sculpt is one of the better ones that the line had to offer.  It doesn’t have some of the stranger proportions that plagued the line, although his super articulation does make some parts of the sculpt look a little…off.  The head looks fine, if a bit on the angry side.  Most of the figure is molded in the proper color, but there’s some nice accent work done to bring out the sculpt’s details.  Cage included a piece of Series 14’s Build-A-Figure Mojo, and a copy of his first appearance.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

In my last review of a Marvel Legends figure, I lamented how difficult it was to get a hold of the figures.  Well, but the last two series or so of the line, this was less the case, so I had no real issues getting Luke here.

#0021: The Vision

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

VISION

MARVEL LEGENDS (TOY BIZ)

Today, I’m looking at the first of what I’m sure will be many Marvel Legends reviews.  Back in the early 2000s, this was THE line to collect.  They had killer sculpts, awesome paint, and of course, a huge quantity of articulation!  And let’s not forget the scalper appeal.  While this line didn’t start the trend of action figure scalpers, its high demand and tendency to pack fan-favorites as short-packs led to high prices, and a whole lot of “legitimate businessmen” trying to corner the market.  It was so great.  No, wait, I meant the other thing.  Terrible.  It was terrible.   I’ll be looking at the Vision figure from the line.  For those of you who are unaware (which is probably a large portion), the Vision is a long standing member of the Avengers.  He was a synthezoid (basically an android) created by the villain Ultron to destroy the Avengers.  However, he was created using the brain-patterns of Wonder Man, a reluctant villain who the Avengers had tried to help before his unfortunate demise.  Apparently, Wonder Man’s emotions overpowered the synthezoid, and he rebelled against his creator and joined the Avengers.  There’s a lot more to his story, but that’s the basic gist.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Vision was part of the seventh series of Toy Biz’s Marvel Legends line. He stands roughly 6 inches tall and has 33 points of articulation.  He also included a clear poseable stand that can simulate his flying ability.  He was available in both regular and “Phasing” versions.  The regular has a normal paint job, while the phasing is cast in various translucent plastics.  I managed to get a hold of both versions, and since they’re the same sculpt, I’ll be looking at both today.  The phasing version was technically the variant.  I say technically because Vision was only one to a case, meaning which version of him was in said case was fairly random.   Both figures depict Vision in his original green and yellow costume.  Vision was built on a base body, with the details added via paint.  The body’s fine, though the abundance of articulation does give it some odd proportions.  The head is this figure’s real strong point.  It’s an all new sculpt, and it’s really well done.  It has that perfect “just too perfect to be human” look, which is great!  The painted figure has some sharp paint ops that really highlight the sculpt well.  For this reason, I think the regular version is a bit better than the phasing version, as the details can get lost in the clear plastic.  Both figures are topped off by a nicely done rubber cape.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

So, you saw the displeasure up there about the whole scalpers charging insane prices thing?  Yeah, that pretty much sums up my experience with this figure.  While I was eventually able to track down both versions of this character for my collection, it wasn’t until well after Toy Biz’s Marvel Legends were done and gone.  Being less than one per case (thanks to the variant) he was near impossible to find, and instant scalper bait, resulting in a high after market price.  I was fortunate enough to track down both versions loose from a local toy store that had just bought someone’s collection, which made me a happy collector indeed!