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Marvel Legends (Comics)

Review – Marvel Legends – Dormamu Wave – Nico Minoru

Runaways isn’t a Marvel series I ever really expected to get any Marvel Legends from.  I kind of doubt we get too many more from this “team” either, all of them are kids and a lot of them essentially just have plain clothes costumes, which Marvel Legends doesn’t really do too often.  I may be completely wrong though, there is a new TV series coming this fall.  It kind of seems like a fluke that we got Nico Minoru aka Sister Grimm.  She does sort of fit in with the Doctor Strange wave, since the figures are all “Magic themed” for the most part.

Marvel Legends Nico Minoru (Sister Grimm)

So, I like this figure, for it’s uniqueness.  It’s definitely a different looking design for a Marvel Legends, you don’t get too many “goth girls” in this line.  The look does a good job of capturing the idea of the character.  I have to say though that the idea is about all you really could capture here.  Like I mentioned above, most of the Runaways are just kids in street clothes, and they don’t really have regular outfits.  So the look isn’t super specific to Nico Minoru, but it fits who she is.

Marvel Legends Nico Minoru (Sister Grimm)

The bigger gripe I have here is the staff, which doesn’t quite look right for her Staff of One.  For starters, it’s not particularly Staff shaped, it’s about half the length it really should be.  The head also isn’t really proper either, the ball should be part of the staff and outside of the circle.  I believe at some point she got a new staff, but I’m not positive on that, but it’s possible that this design is based more on the design of a second Staff.  Still, It feels like a pretty glaring error since the Staff is essentially the center of her abilities and is part of who her character is to such a degree.  It would be like making Captain America’s Shield a star or something and painting it all red just because.

Marvel Legends Nico Minoru (Sister Grimm)

The staff also is way too heavy for the figure to hold well, especially with the included magic effect attached.  The effect looks cool for sure, but her arm joints just aren’t strong enough and the weight just pulls the wrist downward most of the time.  This is something that could have been alleviated with a longer staff too, since the base could be balanced against a lower surface to keep things upright.

Marvel Legends Nico Minoru (Sister Grimm)

Nico Minoru also includes a swapable purple magic arm, which is pretty cool.  All around this figure seems to have a lot of original tooling as well, chest, the boots, the skirt all seem to be unique, though maybe it’s just very clever use of paint on existing molds.  I believe it’s the same shorter girl body that is used for a lot of Spider Girls otherwise, but if it is, it doesn’t seem prone to the awkward posing that body seems to have normally.  She looks fairly natural in a lot of poses.

All in all, I really like this figure.  I just hope it means maybe getting a few more members of the Runaways team in the future.

Review – Marvel Legends – Absorbing Man Wave – Spider Gwen

In an alternate universe on another Earth, instead of Peter Parker, Spider-man, being bitten by that radioactive spider granting him super human spider powers, Peter’s classmate and sometimes girlfriend Gwen Stacy instead took the hit.  In that world was born, Spider Gwen.  It’s kind of a plot born from a What-If? idea, expanded into it’s own full comic series.  It’s a pretty good comic series too, and an interesting take on the Spider-man concept.  As a popular character, it was inevitable that there would be a Spider Gwen figure released for Marvel Legends.

Marvel Legends Spider Gwen

The basic execution here is decent.  The look and design of the character is captured well here, the swapable head and hood bits are nice.  She’s a decent alright Basic Spider Gwen.  The sculpt and paint are good, including on the Gwen Stacy head.

Marvel Legends Spider Gwen

Most of problems I have with this figure stem from my more common complains with the Marvel Legends line as a whole.  I’ve seen this body used on several other spider girls and figures, the legs always feel off on it no matter how they are positioned and the lack of double jointed elbows hurts.  I also hate the lack of hand options.  She has a fist and a thwip hand, that’s it, some relaxed hands, two fists, you know, all of the things the regular Spider-man mold gets these days, would be great.  In the comic Gwen Stacy is part of a rock band, but it’s not like she is constantly throwing out the horns.  Also, a cellphone accessory would be great.  Spider Gwen is always using her cell phone, and having it as an accessory would be a lot of fun.

Marvel Legends Spider Gwen

She does match the style of other Marvel Legends at least, she is just limited in a lot of funky ways by this mediocre base figure that she’s using, which is a shame.  If you just want a cheap Spider Gwen to go in a Spidery display, she serves that purpose, but personally, I’m considering replacing her with the recently released Revoltech, which is considerably more dynamic of a figure (at a higher price tag).

Review – Marvel Legends – Juggernaut Wave – Wolverine

Wolverine is arguably the most popular Marvel comics character.  Spider-man is pretty up there and Deadpool seems to be doing pretty well, but Wolverine is, or at least was at one point, pretty up there.  It’s a shame he doesn’t’ get more Marvel Legends figures really.  I mean I know I complain about all of the dozens of Captain Americas, but Wolverine is way more popular then Cap.  Maybe we just already hit Wolverine Saturation years ago and don’t need more Wolverines?  Who knows.

While wolverine has had a few looks over the years, and some slight redesigns, mostly in how big his head fins are or how large his shoulder pauldrons get, he has had two basic looks, there is the classic Blue and Yellow design, which appeared in the previous X-men themed wave of Marvel Legends, and there is this Brown and Dirty Yellow design.

I’m kind of mixed on this figure.  It’s a good figure.  It’s got a good sculpt and paint.  He is appropriately short as Wolverine should be.  He even has swappable hands for claws in and claws out.  I really wish Marvel Legends would do swappable hands more often.  I’ve been spoiled lately by import figures.

What he really needs though is a swappable head.  Wolverine can make some nice poses, but his head is just so….  Boring.  A raging grimacing or open mouthed head would be a welcome addition to make him seem more dynamic.  I like having the neutral head, I just wish eh also had an angry head.  Wolverine is pretty known for being a raging animal after all.

The claws are also interesting.  They aren’t the often used rubbery plastic that deforms and looks ugly.  They are nice and crisp and solid.  They tend to wobble a bit in their pegs though, making them hard to keep in alignment.  I also worry about breaking them off a bit, since this sort of hard plastic tends to snap more than give under pressure.

Aside from the bland facial expression, this is a really nice Wolverine figure.  Here’s hoping that the new Logan film will give us some slightly more action oriented Wolverine designs but given the track record of the X-men films getting ignored for toys, I doubt it will happen.

Review – Marvel Legends – Juggernaut Wave – Deadpool

I’m a little torn on Deadpool here.  He’s a pretty great figure.  Not the perfect Deadpool necessarily due to a few minor design issue but he’s solid.  He also comes with a ton of accessories and no Build-a-Figure piece for Juggernaut.  Which is why I’m torn.  What Deadpool represents is essentially what I wish we got from Marvel Legends as a line.  Dump the dumb BAF aspects, load up more accessories, alternate heads, weapons, effect parts, alternate hands.

Yeah, it’s a dumb reason to dislike a figure, it’s more that I dislike the concept he is presenting, because it’s what I want from every figure.  How much cooler would Havok be with a screaming head and an energy blast that strapped to his chest somehow.  How much better would that boring Phoenix be with a flaming base and fire ball parts to strap on to for dynamic attack poses?  How about a nice Ice base for Iceman to thrown down on?  Is Deadpool representative of what we could have without BAF bits?

Enough talk about non Deadpool things though, that’s sort of tangential to the main topic here, and not totally some weirdly meta thing for a Deadpool related review.  Also, referencing that it’s a review within a review isn’t meta and 4th-wall-ish either.

Deadpool has one really great thing going for him, his accessories.  He has so many accessories that a few of them seem really pointless and dumb and out of place next to the others.  The swords, the pistols, the knife, all have nice built in storage on Deadpool, which is great.  The rocket Launcher could even peg onto his back.  The alternative head makes sense, Deadpool with and without mask.  The Taco’s fun.  Then there are the two screw silver guns, they look ugly, they don’t really fit too well with the theme of everything else, personally, and they just don’t even need to be there.

Which just exacerbates my previous frustration, not only does he get a mess of accessories, he has extra mostly useless crappy accessories!

Honestly Deadpool only really has two real flaws.  One, he has this goofy pinky finger sticking out hand.  This problem could have easily have been fixed with a spare, normal hand, maybe in place of one of his useless extra guns.  But it didn’t happen, it’s kind of really weird.

Then there is the part where he’s crazy hard to find, because, well, Deadpool.  He had a super popular movie, he doesn’t have the saddle of a BAF piece and he’s a really good figure all around.

Review – Marvel Legends – Walgreen’s Punisher

Walgreen’s has quickly become a pretty hot spot for toy collecting.  They have continually been getting some really good exclusives for Star Wars and Marvel Legends and more recently Transformers.  These often, though not always, aren’t just mild repaints or useless variants of other characters from a mass release, especially on the Marvel Legends side.   They also have started having a good track record of getting waves earlier than other retail outlets such as Wal-Mart and Target.  The Punisher here is one of those exclusive figures.

This Punisher is such a mixed bag of hit and miss.  He’s mostly good, the skill and belt bits work well, Punisher often has the same problem of Venom, where his large chest logo overlaps a waist cut and gets ugly when the waist is turned.  He has a decent assortment of accessories, with his two guns and rocket launcher.  He even gets two heads.

The heads though could be a little better.  He’s The Punisher, he really could use one good grimacing head.  Both of these heads seem a bit too… heroic, and almost friendly.

The worse offender though, which pretty much makes this figure a pass unless you are a huge Punisher fan, is the hands.  Let me reiterate, in case I have not done so enough yet, this is The Punisher.  His “super power” is pretty much 100% “Bad Ass Mother Fucker with Guns”.  His hands DO NOT HAVE TRIGGER FINGERS.  Of all of the figures who get trigger fingers who don’t use guns or need them (Daredevil), the Punisher absolutely needs trigger finger hands.

You can sort of fake it but cutting the index finger free with a razor blade, but the tension and sculpt just isn’t quite there and it just doesn’t work.  It’s such a travesty that a mostly decent figure is pretty much rendered complete garbage by a simple oversight.

So yeah, he’s nice, if you’re clever you can cut the finger or maybe even swap hands with another figure (Maybe Nick Fury who shares a mold I believe), but out of the box, he’s ruined by his inability to properly use is included accessories.