IRON MAN, LADY BULLSEYE, FIST NINJA, & MINDLESS ONE

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

Fun FiQ Fact #0017:  The “Marvel Knights” branding exists because of Marvel’s bankruptcy in the late ’90s, which caused them to hand over the publishing rights for a handful of lower tier characters to Event Comics.  The line proved a success, allowing the characters and attitudes of the stories to be folded back into the mainstream Marvel Universe in the mid ’00s.

As someone who’s been following Marvel Legends for pretty much the entirety of its over 20 year run, I’ve encountered an issue more recently where I don’t really feel the need to own *everything* Hasbro puts out for the line.  But, I do still have access to review most of it, so, I’m embracing my new format I launched last summer, and folding it into my tweaked format I launched at the beginning of the year, and here we are with another series wrap-up, where I throw all the figures I opted not to keep into a blender single wrap-up review.  So, let’s jump into another one of these!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Iron Man, Lady Bullseye, and the Fist Ninja are figures 1, 3, and 5, respectively, from the Mindless One Series of Marvel Legends.  There are the last three figures that contribute to the Mindless One Build-A-Figure, which is built by collecting parts from 6 of the 7 figures in the series.

IRON MAN

2022 saw the release of Marvel’s Midnight Suns, a tactical RPG which is *sort of* related to the Marvel comics “Midnight Sons” but only passingly so.  They share some of the same characters and a vaguely supernatural flair, so there’s that.  Since they wanted heavy hitters that the Midnight “Sons” line-up couldn’t provide, the game added some typically less supernatural characters who are nevertheless bigger names.  That included this dude, because you gotta have an Iron Man.  Despite being a kind of forced addition, Iron Man has turned around and also been most of the merchandising for the game (Ghost Rider got a limited release Pop!, but even then, Iron Man got 2 of those, so he still comes out ahead).  And Legends is just another piece in that arsenal.  The figure stands just over 6 1/2 inches tall and he has 30 points of articulation.  He’s a largely parts re-use figure, making use of most of the first  Gamerverse Iron Man body.  It’s a kind of stiff body in terms of articulation; it felt out of date when it was new, and it’s only gotten more so in the years since.  The details also don’t quite match up with the game model, but they’re close enough to fudge it, I suppose.  He does at least get a new head, torso, and shoulder pads, courtesy of sculptor Dennis Chan, to move his design a little closer to the game look.  I generally like them more than the prior pieces, but it feels like there’s something off about the way the neck works, so his head sits up too high.  You can pose it to look a little better, but it remains somewhat awkward to work with.  His color work follows the game aesthetic, making him black and gold.  It’s similar to his Marvel Now! design from the comics, and doesn’t look terrible here.  It’s at least somewhat unique.  The application of the paint is pretty cleanly handled, and isn’t missing any major details, which is a plus.  Iron Man is packed with two sets of hands (in open and fists), as well as two blast effects in red, and the right leg of the Mindless One Build-A-Figure.

LADY BULLSEYE

Hey, you know Bullseye?  Well, make him a woman, and you’ve got Lady Bullseye.  Okay, it’s a touch more involved than that…but not as much as you might think.  Lady Bullseye was introduced during Ed Brubaker’s Daredevil run and hasn’t ever really had anything of note done with her; mostly, she just gets used to stand-in for Bullseye proper when he’s not around.  At the very least, she gets a pretty cool and unique design, rather than just being stuck with some derivation of Bullseye proper’s costume.  The figure stands 6 1/4 inches tall and she has 29 points of articulation.  Lady Bullseye’s base is the same combination of existing body parts that Spinneret used.  It’s not a terrible set-up, since it’s got a good articulation scheme and fairly balanced proportions.  It’s only rather frustrating point is how many holes there are on the back of the torso, just from all of its prior uses.  The WCA Spider-Woman had used the Dagger torso to avoid this issue, and it honestly worked pretty well, so it’s a shame they aren’t doing that more.  Lady Bullseye gets a new head sculpt, which is a pretty nice piece.  It matches well with her usual comics depiction, and manages to give her an expression that doesn’t look totally devoid of emotion, which is always a plus, especially for female characters.  Her paint work does a pretty solid job of capturing her distinctive design, and doing it cleanly.  Lady Bullseye is actually pretty well accessorized, with two sets of hands (in fists and gripping), a katanna, two sais, and two fans, as well as the torso piece for the Mindless One Build-A-Figure.

FIST NINJA

The Hand was lacking in derivatives, apparently, so in addition to the ones we already have, we also got “The Fist.”  You know, it’s like a hand, but more violent!  Do you get it?  Do you?  It’s edgy, right?  All joking aside, the Fist may be a pretty tried concept, but they’re part of Chip Zdarksky’s recently wrapped up DD run, which I did actually enjoy.  Also, it ties in well with the King Daredevil figure from this same assortment, which is cool.  The figure stands about 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 34 points of articulation.  As a derivative of the Hand, the Fist Ninja is, unsurprisingly, using most of the same parts as the standard Hand Ninja.  Honestly, apart from the visible pins, it’s a good set-up of pieces.  The Hand Ninja was a pretty fun figure and, by extension, so is the Fist Ninja.  He gets a new torso, which looks similar to the prior release, but upgrades the articulation scheme, and he also gets a new belt/loincloth piece, which gives him a new spot to stow his sword.  With his sculpt being largely the same, the figure relies on tow things to distinguish him, the first being colors.  He’s not drastically removed from the Hand Ninja, but there’s a fair bit of black accenting the Hand’s predominantly red palette.  I did find the general application of paint to also be sharper on this guy, especially on what we can see of the face. The only thing that slightly annoys me here is the red being ever so slightly different from King Daredevil’s shade.  Why does that annoy me?  I’ll get to that in a moment, when I discuss the other notable change-up from the Hand Ninja: the accessories.  He gets the same sword, as well as one of the two kama from the Hand Ninja, but they’re joined by two sets of hands (in fists and gripping, with the gripping being shared with DD), and an alternate skull head with its own removable hood.  Now, here’s the thing: I’m glad this guy gets the two sets of hands, and it’s cool that the gripping ones are even shared with King DD.  The trouble is that with the shades of red being slightly different between the two, you can’t also use the fists for King DD, which is kind of a bummer.  Ultimately, it’s not really this figure’s fault, though.  In addition to all of his own parts, he also includes the left arm and an extra hand for the Mindless One.

MINDLESS ONE

The Mindless Ones are perhaps one of the more ingenious creations of the early Doctor Strange stories, being a great pre-made army for just about any bad guy to make use of if they so chose.  Despite how tailored they seem to be to unending army building, they’ve never gotten any action figure coverage before this point, which is kind of crazy.  The figure stands just under 7 1/4 inches tall and he has 30 points of articulation.  The Mindless One is sporting a brand-new sculpt, which is honestly a touch surprising for a character of this caliber, but certainly welcome.  The sculpt patterned on a more modern incarnation of the Mindless Ones, specifically seeming to be patterned on one of the illustrations from the Marvel: Avengers Alliance game, a frequent source of inspiration for Hasbro’s Legends over the years.  It’s a good sculpt, with plenty of texturing.  He’s big and stocky as well, and the articulation is surprisingly mobile given his size.  His color work is rather on the basic side, since he’s mostly just molded in a dark grey plastic.  He’s got a separate bright red piece for his “eye,” as well as some rather subtle brown accenting on the body.  The Mindless One gets two sets of hands in fists and open gesture, as well as a really cool energy effect piece that plugs into the eye (and is also patterned on the AA illustration).

THE ME REMAINDER OF THE EQUATION

This set was an interesting one for me, because I was honestly not very interested at first glance, but it kind of evolved.  My initial plan was to just get DD, Clea, and Power Man.  Then I decided I wanted to keep the Build-A-Figure.  Then, after getting the set in hand, I was invested in Blade enough to keep him as well.  Then I shot the photos, and divvied up the reviews and set up the schedule, and felt really confident about what I was keeping…and then I broke on the Fist Ninja too.  I know, I broke the format!  Ultimately, I like this set a lot more than I’d expected to.  The Mindless One is a ton of fun, as is Clea, and they’re both great debuts for the characters.  Blade and Luke are great versions of the characters, and DD is a solid, fun variant.  And, clearly the Fist Ninja was cool enough to push me to keep him.  Honestly, Lady Bullseye only got cut because I have no real attachment to the character.  Iron Man is the only one that I feel is truly a weak figure, and that’s really just because there’s so many Iron Men to choose from.

Thanks to my sponsors over at All Time Toys for setting me up with these figures to review.  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay storefront.