Marvel Legends (MCU)

Review – Marvel Legends – Gladiator Hulk Wave – Loki

Apparently, in order to get a proper figure, the Loki had to turn into the Hero. Ok, I have not seen Ragnarok, but it sort of feels like Loki was working with his brother again in a few spots int he Trailer. Maybe I’m completely misreading it. Also, that low blow probably isn’t warranted since Hasbro has been pushing out a lot more figures of MCU villains lately. We get Hela in this very wave, Vulture was a pretty cool Build A Figure, and even Ego got a figure. Maybe the voice of the people is finally being heard, maybe they will go back and pick up Trevor or Ronin.

Anyway, there was a figure released years ago for Avengers of Loki but it was kind of mediocre and the likeness wasn’t super good. Thor Ragnarok is getting pretty good treatment for a movie line, a few new Thors, Hela, Valyrie, the new Gladiator Thor, and of course Loki. He definitely has a better likeness from the previous Loki, Hasbro is doing something new with it’s movie lines because all of the heads are looking really good lately, with a good resemblance to the actors. He’s not wearing his older gold armor anymore, so he’s not necessarily a great straight replacement for Avengers Loki, depending on what you want from an MCU Loki. The new armor is still pretty decent and matches his new look for the new movie.

It’s not perfect though. His cape is really funky. A lot of the capes in Marvel Legends are kind of meh, but they tend to at least stay attached. Traditionally there’s a peg hole in the figure’s back and a post on the cape, and you just stick the cape on. Often there are little shoulder bits that curl around and provide at least a little bit of friction based hold to keep the cape attached. Loki does something new. Instead his cape has a pair of pegs on the shoulder bits. In theory this actually kind of makes things look cleaner.

Except the pegs are a pain in the ass to get into the peg holes and don’t stay in the holes very well at all. This isn’t helped by his hair getting in the way at every opportunity. So the cape at best kind of looks off because it isn’t pegged in properly.

The other problem with poor Loki is that he has no accessories apart from his crown. A couple of knives, maybe his staff, even though he doesn’t have it anymore, some sort of weapon would have been nice. Especially since every other figure in this wave got something. Things have been getting better on the accessories front with Marvel Legends, which is why it’s so disappointing that Loki has nothing.

Loki, as a basic figure isn’t a bad figure, he looks good, the sculpt is there and the paint is there and he is a character desperately in need of an update, but he ends up catching a couple of the traps that Marvel Legends have been plagued with on the way.

Review – Marvel Legends – Giant Man Wave – Black Panther (Civil War)

Jul 24th, 2017

by Ramen Junkie.

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Review – Marvel Legends – Dormammu Wave – Doctor Strange (Movie)

Mar 20th, 2017

by Ramen Junkie.

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The Doctor Strange wave of Marvel Legends, the one with the Dormammu Build a Figure, is the perfect example of how awful and mismanaged Marvel Legends waves can get. For starters, there was recently a boxed set for SDCC centered around Doctor Strange that included a Brother Voodoo, Astral Doctor Strange (Comic not movie, granted), and a Dormammu, non Build a Figure version. So, ok, the SDCC sets are not the easiest to get, but there also aren’t a ton of Strange fans I imagine clamoring for these characters, so doubling up like this instead of making less overlap seems like it would have been a better route. To add some additional insult, this wave also included a comic Doctor Strange that is essentially identical to the one included in the very recent Hulkbuster wave. Then there’s the extremely mediocre Astral Movie Strange, which is a clear version of the normal version reviewed here, minus the accessories. The Astral form strange, honestly, would probably have been better done with clear colored plastic matching his normal form, though I imagine the cost there would have been too much vs the basic transparent that we got. More annoying is that we don’t get figure of Wong or The Ancient One, both characters who could have really used figures, based on how cool they were in the movie.

I’m not here to rant about this poorly done wave of figures though. I have not, nor do I plan to pick up any more figures from it than I already have (3 total, one because it was on clearance). Instead, I want to talk a bit about the Movie Doctor Strange figure. This figure kind of feels like the end result of the price paid for that pretty lame Astral Doctor Strange. Where Astral strange has no accessories and is all translucent plastic (and, incidentally, the same mold as this one), this figure has many accessories and a pretty well done paint job and sculpt.

The core figure is effectively Cumberbatch’s Dcotor Strange as he appears in his “final form”. He’s in his complete robes, he’s wearing his cape, he’s got the Eye of Agamotto. He comes with an extra set of hands for some more varied looks as well as a shield like magic effect. The cape is removable, and even stands up on it’s own (if you’ve seen the movie you will know the cape kind of has a mind of it’s own. The Eye of Agamotto is also removable. Removing the came and Eye, give you kind of an early learner Doctor Strange. The removable Eye of Agamotto is also useful given the nature of what the Eye is for, possible future options of posing and interaction with other toys. Without going into too much detail.

A poseable cloth goods cape could would have been cool but that’s not really Marvel Legends’ way of doing things so it’s pretty forgivable. At least the cape is designed to stand on it’s own well. Where he could really use a bit of cloth goods is in his lower tunic bits, since the plastic limits the articulation he has in his legs, Doctor Strange isn’t really a martial artist but he is pretty dynamic, and he does come from a monastery of martial artist monks.

The extra hands are nice, and while he doesn’t have a sling ring accessory, they work for making the sort of gesture shown to operate the sling ring. Having one with the slink ring molded on would have been nice but that’s ML for you. There are some problems, at least on mine with mold flashing. I’m actually kind of ok with this problem, in this case, because it makes his hands look a bit dodgy and well, part of Doctor Strange’s origin was having his hands crushed in a car accident. Spoilers I suppose but it’s a very early and moderately trivial event in the whole scheme of things.

The movie version of Doctor Strange is one of the better Marvel Legends we’ve gotten recently, and definitely is the winner of the wave as far as quality and parts.

Review – Marvel Legends – Wal-Mart Falcon (6″)

Feb 27th, 2017

by Ramen Junkie.

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Poor Falcon, Major player in 2 Captain America Movies with a guest bit in Ant-Man. He’s even probably getting groomed up to be the replacement Captain America, if Bucky doesn’t get there first. Like Scarlet Witch, he’s gone for too long without getting a 6″ figure. I imagine a lot of this reason is his huge wings. This sort of accessory really doesn’t work too well with the current model of figure + BAF part. That’s probably part of why his release was a Wal-Mart exclusive along with a better repaint of The Winter Solider, in their own little wave.

The core piece here is of course, the wings. The wings are certainly very huge and very nice looking, however there’s no articulation in them. This is probably both good and bad. It of course sucks for pose variety. On the other hand, articulated wings on figures this size tend to amount to a hinge in one point that results in some funky gaps when extended too far in one direction or another. At the very least, some sort of hinge at the backpack would have been nice so the entire wing could swing up, down or straight out, but alas, it’s not there.

You can sort of fake a forward and backward sweep to the wings. The way the pegs work, they can peg on the front side or backside of the backpack, which will make them swing forward or backwards, depending on how they are pegged on. If the top and bottom holes were the same size you could fake an up and down sweep as well, though the coloring would be upside down with them turned upside down. Alas, you can’t actually do this since the pegs are different, probably done because of the coloration issue.

The base figure is decent, it looks like Falcon, he’s nicely poseable for flying and standing poses. He doesn’t come with any weapons though I imagine the budget mostly went into the Wings. He does include his little remote drone which showed up several times in Civil War.

This is the first and only 6″ MCU Falcon figure we’ve gotten so far. It’s a decent depiction, though the backpack could be better. I doubt we get a better version in the future though, any future Falcon figures will probably just use a repaint of this same wing pack now that they have the mold.

Review – Marvel Legends – Abomination Wave – Scarlet Witch

Jan 23rd, 2017

by Ramen Junkie.

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As much as I like that Hasbro keeps putting out these C and D tier characters in their line ups, sometimes it feels like they go a little overboard and overlook some of the more obvious and popular characters, especially when it comes to their MCU line up. I am sure the die hard comic fans hate to accept it sometimes, but the movies really feel like they are driving Marvel these days.

Thankfully, they didn’t wait too long to fill in the Scarlet Witch hole in the current Avengers line up. Not like they did for, you know, Falcon, who has been around for a while now. Somewhat unfortunately, she was stuck in an otherwise pretty throw away wave for an Abomination BAF. It kind of feels like she should have been a part of the Giant-Man wave with the Abomination Wave being pushed elsewhere. I’m not making these choices, so it’s all anecdotal at this point, I just worry about Marvel Legends getting a little too saturated, a lot of these figures tend to sit on the pegs for a while, if they show up at all.

At least we got a figure for her. I doubt we ever see a Quicksilver to go with her, that’s a character that is definitely aught up in the rights holder hell tornado of Marvel, Disney, Fox, and X-men.

But enough commentary, what about Wanda here? She’s a pretty nice figure. It’s not an amazing likeness of Elizabeth Olsen, though it’s not a super ugly likeness either. I imagine Scarlet Witch has ended up in the same boat as Captain America in the MCU as far as likeness, none of the Cap figures look particularly like Chris Evans either, maybe the actors wanted too much money to use their likenesses for these toys. That’s understandable a bit in the case of Scarlet Witch, who knows if we’ll ever get another figure, but there’s an Evans based Cap in every other wave these days, I can’t imagine they wouldn’t have gotten their moneys worth.

This version is Wanda from Civil War. While similar to how she looked in her Age of Ultron debute, she wears a slightly different jacket, pants instead of a skirt, and is a bit less… gothy, in her design. She includes a pair of fireball effects which slip over her hands. They work well and look decent, though it’s not a real great representation of how Scarlet Witch’s powers work. Her hands are also sculpted with her fingers all crazy though, which is accurate to how her powers work on screen in the MCU. It’s a nice touch.

The sculpt as a whole is well done which is helped by having a good solid paint job. Articulation is standard fare for the line with no major limiting factors. It’s a good representation of the character and a good figure overall. She is a welcome addition of the MCU Avengers line up.