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Review – Marvel Legends – Abomination Wave – Scarlet Witch

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.

Review – Marvel Legends – Juggernaut Wave – Rogue

I’ve always really liked Rogue as a character.  She’s generally fun, she has an interesting power with interesting positives and negatives, her overall design is nice as well.  It probably helps that in the old cartoon series she was always paired with Gambit, whom I also really like as far as X-men go.  The point is, I am kind of biased towards Rogue, especially this particular design, which in general is one of her more popular designs.

Unfortunately, there has only been one other figure of this design in this size, back in the Toybiz line, and it is god awful.  Ok, the basic figure isn’t that bad, the face sculpt is god awful.  She looks like a 90 year old woman pretending to be Rogue or something.  She has been much overdue for an update.

This update certainly does a good job.  I kind of miss the cloth goods jacked of the old figure but the face sculpt this time around is a lot better to be sure.

She even has appropriate accessories to replicate her power, she comes with an ungloved hand.  In case you’re not familiar, Rogue absorbs other character’s powers through physical contact, so having an ungloved hand allow her be able to touch other figures, so to speak.  Her design even allows for the wrist bit of the glove to be removed, which is a nice touch.

My only real complaint is the usual hit or miss derpy eye look that is a problem across the board on Hasbro’s female figures.  I don’t even understand why this tends to lean towards females vs males.  Otherwise it’s a welcome update to a popular design for a popular character.

 

 

 

Review – MCU – Iron Man (2008)

05.02.2008

Way back in 2008, you kind of have to wonder just how much was really planned for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or MCU.  It seems like there was at least a general idea for Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and Hulk to get movies, then team up for The Avengers.  How much farther did it go?  Did they have plans for Ant-Man or Guardians of the Galaxy or Jessica Jones?  Did they know they would want Paul Bettany to become an onscreen character eventually in Vision when they cast him as Jarvis?

Regardless of the ultimate plan, Iron Man marks the official start of what would eventually become known as the MCU, as well as a new start to how Super Hero movies would be conducted.  Super hero movies aren’t anything new, but they tended to embrace their comic book origin whole hog and go for the super fantastical designs and effects.  The MCU, especially at the begging started off with at least some level of explanation behind everything, even if it was just a made up explanation, it would be one that worked in universe as explained.

There was also so much that just worked with Iron Man as well.  Robert Downey Junior very much fits the style and look for genius playboy Tony Stark.  The special effects are exceptionally well done, with care taken to lighting and little extra bits like shrapnel and general background visuals.  Even right out of the gate we get some hint at what’s to come and how these movies will be #ItsAllConnected with SHIELD showing up briefly trying to recruit Tony.  Iron Man is also one of the highlights of the MCU, and it holds up well with time.  It’s a basic origin story of course but it doesn’t linger and drag with the origin part which is a trap many comic movies fall into.  The best part is that the Origin itself ties in with the over arching plot across this movie and even across the entire Iron Man trilogy to some extent.

Anyway, going forward is the Spoiler filled synopsis section, so if you’re behind on your viewing, feel free to stop here.

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Review – Marvel Legends – Juggernaut Wave – Cable

It’s not every day we get a mother/son combo in a wave of Marvel Legends but here we are with Cable and Jean Grey.  Ok, technically Cable’s mother is a clone of Jean Grey but that’s just the way the kooky storylines of the X-men work.  I mean Cable really looks like he’s probably older than jean anyway, which he probably is since he comes from the future.  The reality is, Cable likely exists in this wave to accompany Deadpool, since Cable and Deadpool are partners from time to time.

It’s kind of a shame he’s not a better Cable, especially with how few X-men waves we get, he’s unlikely to get a better release anytime soon.  I mean he’s not awful, but he could be better.  For starters, his weird robot vest thing.  It’s not really his most iconic look for starters.  This wouldn’t be as much of an issue except that it also looks ridiculous, especially in the shoulders.  I imagine the idea is to make him look bulked out, but it makes his shoulders just look weird and disproportionate.

His weapons also leave a bit to be desired.  Cable was originally created by comic artist Rob Liefeld, who is mostly known for belts and pouches, and making everything very XTREEM huge.  Being from the future, Cable uses some funky huge guns, but both of his weapons are a bit finicky and don’t really look very natural when being held.  Part of this may be due to the funky armor shoulder effect mentioned above.

Otherwise the sculpt is solid though.  The head and armored arm both work well and look nice.  Cable is also sufficiently large compared to a lot of Marvel Legends figures, as he should be.    His upper torso weight and bulk make him a bit tricky to pose however, which also is part of the issue with his guns.

Like I said, Cable isn’t a bad figure, he just could be better.  Particularly in his weird torso area.

Review – MCU – Doctor Strange (2016)

Marvel’s latest blockbuster is Doctor Strange, the story of a brilliant surgeon turned mystical world bending sorcerer. Unlike a lot of Marvel’s recent outings, I had almost no idea who Doctor strange was or exactly what he did before seeing this movie. My knowledge essentially amounted to something something magic, something something founded the Defenders, he seems to have a regular bad guy who is a flaming head demon guy. Also, why is he called Doctor Strange?

Turns out that wasn’t super off, he’s a Doctor because he is literally a Medical Doctor, and his big villain is the flaming skull guy, though the villain doesn’t really take that form in this outing. Short spoiler free verdict, it’s a crazy special effects fest to be sure, even better, the story is nice and straight forward, no complicated conspiracies or convoluted twists, it’s just what it is. Benedict Cumberbatch is much better as Strange than I expected coming into this, I’m not really a fan of his, though that seems to be opposite of the norm.

Basically, Marvel has another nice hit on their hands and a fine entry in the MCU.

Now on to the spoilers and detailed thoughts!

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