Tag Archives: Super Adaptoid

#3477: Super Adaptoid

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

SUPER ADAPTOID

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“Originally developed by Advanced Idea Mechanics (AIM) to combat Captain America, the Super-Adaptoid can duplicate the powers and abilities of heroes nearby allowing it to contend with the entire Avengers team”

Look, all the cool super hero teams have a green guy that copies their powers.  It’s just what’s done.  The Avengers are just part of the quota.  First debuting as simply “The Adaptoid” in 1966, after copying the powers and traits of the whole active roster of the Avengers, the robotic creation of AIM took on the monicker “Super Adaptoid,” which has pretty much stuck ever since.  He’s fought more than just the Avengers, including facing off against the X-Men (where he tussled with their *orange* guy that copied their powers, Mimic), and even got to be a regular on Hulu’s MODOK series, shortlived though it may have been.  And now he’s getting some actual proper action figure treatment that’s not just a tie-in to a weird toys to life game.  Yay!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Super Adaptoid is part of Hasbro’s “Beyond Earth’s Mightiest” sub-line of Marvel Legends, celebrating the Avengers 60th Anniversary.  He occupies the same spot in this line that Surtur did in the “Infinity Saga” set, as an above deluxe-sized price point all his own.  This guy is ostensibly using the classic Adaptoid look, which is the best Adaptoid look.  There are some slight tweaks, and some reasons for those tweaks that I’ll get into later down in the review.  The figure stands just shy of 12 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation.  At his core, Super Adaptoid is using a large chunk of the molds from the 12-inch Captain America that they put out back in 2016.  It’s not the craziest idea, since a lot of his elements are borrowed from Cap, and it allows him to be at that slightly larger scale that he tended to settle into after absorbing Goliath’s powers.  It does result in him leaning a bit more into the modern Cap vibe than the classic, since that’s what the molds are geared towards.  Adaptoid gets a new head, forearms, hands, and boots, as well as modified shoulders to remove the extra shoulder pads from the Cap, and an extra piece over the star to change it to the Iron Man-looking reactor.  The new head gives him that classic Adaptoid appearance, and is a nice, clean sculpt.  The new gloves and boots do move him a little more into his classic appearance, which is honestly a nice touch; they make me kind of want to see the body get adapted to a more Classic Cap in general, honestly.  He’s missing the wings that were usually present with this look, but at this point, I’m taking what I can get.  His color work is a lot of green, as it should be.  It’s not a ton of paint, but what’s there works well, and it’s cleanly applied.  Super Adaptoid is packed with an imitation Cap shield and an imitation Mjolnir, both of which are just recolored from the 12-inch releases for those two figures.  They work alright, but the Cap shield runs into some issues having to do with the changes they’ve made for this release.  The original version had removable straps, since it was able to be mounted on the back of the figure.  They’ve removed the mounting function from the core figure, and also glued the straps in place, while also giving the figure only one set of hands: gripping right and fist left.  Unfortunately, this all adds up to the figure not being to really properly get the shield in place, since the smaller strap is meant to be gripped, but there’s no left gripping hand, so you have to try and fit it over the first, which it’s not designed to go over.  The new gloves are also too large for the forearms to fit through the larger strap, which means it’s all around an awkward experience, especially without the option to take off either of the straps.  Ultimately, I popped the glove off at the fore-arm cut joint, which it’s not *supposed* to do, but it can, so it *works* but only just barely.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I’ve been wanting a classic style Adaptoid figure of some sort for a good long while, so I was definitely excited when his name got leaked, albeit with the knowledge that he was *probably* going to be a re-tool like this.  So, I wasn’t shocked when he was shown off this way.  In hand, he’s got some issues to be sure, but I’m honestly just happy to have gotten him at all.

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.

#1234: Super Adaptoid

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

SUPER ADAPTOID

MARVEL AVENGERS PLAYMATION (HASBRO)

Man, the toys-to-life thing sure imploded fast.  After the success of Skylanders and Amiibo, everyone and their mother wanted in on it.  While Lego’s Dimensions attempt seems to have taken off in much the same way as the first two, Disney’s Infinity was discontinued in fairly short order (despite early success).  Somewhere along the line, Hasbro also tried their hand at the concept, creating their Playmation line, which I think most people were unaware even existed.  It got a handful of the figures out there, but its far more limited scope (they only did Avengers characters) and overlapping with the already failing Disney Infinity meant that never really took off or got any sort of notoriety.  It did manage to offer a few somewhat unique items, including today’s focus, the Super Adaptoid, an Avengers foe that had, up to this point, gone without any action figures.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The Super Adaptoid was released in the second round of basic Marvel Avengers Playmation figures.  The Playmation figures were bigger than most other toys-to-life items, being a just slightly smaller scale than Hasbro’s Marvel Legends and the like.  The Adaptoid stands just shy of 6 inches tall (which, with his slight kneel, means he’s close enough that you can fudge the scale, should you want to display him with your Legends collection).  Another change that Playmation offered was giving the figures some articulation; it’s not a lot, but the Adaptoid can move at the shoulders, neck, mid-torso, and a little bit at the hips.  You’re not going to get a ton of variety in how he can be posed, but it’s enough to make him more than a statue. The Super Adaptoid has had a few looks over they years, with his most prevalent being an all-green amalgamation of Cap, Hawkeye, Iron Man, Wasp, and Thor.  This figure isn’t quite that design, but it’s a slightly modernized take on it, I guess.  It’s sort of like they married his classic design with his design from Avengers Assembled.  It’s not a terrible look, and probably a lot less goofy looking than his original design, while still keeping a lot of the basic traits.  It’s workable, and I certainly prefer it to his last comics appearance design.  The figure’s sculpt is actually pretty cool; a lot of this line’s figures looked sort of odd or strangely inhuman, but for a character like the Adaptoid, it’s not a bad thing.  The various stolen hero details are petty cool, and you can pretty clearly discern what came from whom.  As far as the pose goes, it’s not too extreme a pose, but also not as boring as a simple standing pose.  The legs seem a little odd, but they aren’t terrible, and at least he can stand.  I also appreciate the small little base, which has him standing on the remains of one of the Ultron drones.  It keeps him standing steady and looks cool to boot.  That’s the way to do it.  Now, Hasbro could have taken the easy way out on the paint and just done him in mostly solid green.  However, they didn’t do that; they actually used a nice variety of greens, which keeps the consistency from the comics, while also providing some nice depth to the look. 

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I didn’t pay much attention to Playmation when it was hitting retail, mostly due to owning lots of the characters presented lots of times over, and typically in a superior form.  That being said, I caught this guy’s image on the back of one of the packages and was moderately intrigued.  I even thought about picking him up at full price a few times, but I just never got around to it.  Eventually, I ended up finding a whole bunch of them at Ollie’s.  This guy was like $3, which was good enough for me to finally pick him up.  I’m glad I did.  I still don’t really have any interest in the actual game these guys were attached to, but a cool Super Adaptoid is a cool Super Adaptoid.