It’s not the War in Iraq, or global warming, or even the current status of Britney Spears’ panties, but when Toybiz lost the iicense to produce Marvel action figures last year to Hasbro, it was big news. It was if you were a action figure collector anyway, especially if you were into Marvel Legends.
Marvel Legends was a flagship line for Toybiz, and will most likely go down in history as their finest hour. They did good work elsewhere, no doubt, but with ML they not only produced great figures, they broke ground. And they did it all over 15 waves, several boxed sets, and countless variants.
Hasbro announced that the line would continue – and fans had mixed emotions. Sort of like when your mother-in-law drives your new Lexus off a cliff. They wanted their ML’s…but would they be the same?
The first wave is hitting shelves now, and includes Banshee, Hercules, Emma Frost, Planet Hulk, X-men 3 movie Beast, and Ultimate Iron Man. I have yet to find dear Emma, but tonight I’m covering three of the six – Banshee, Hercules and Beast. If you pick up the full set of six, you also get another Build A Figure (BAF) in the form of Annihulus. I’ll cover the other three over at MROTW once I manage to hunt down the old frosty chick.
Marvel Legends wave 1 – Rise of the Hasbro
The entire wave is sort of an oddball assortment. You have the X-men 3 Beast, designed to fit in with the other older movie figures, and not really with any other ML’s; you have Banshee, a second rate character we’ve probably gotten enough figures of already; and you’ve got Hercules, a goody design in the comics that looks more Gold Key than Marvel. But you can only fault Hasbro so much for the character selection – after 15 waves, they just might be running out of truly interesting characters to make.
By the way, there’s a running change on Annihilus. As you can see above, in the first version he has pink on the arms, torso and upper legs. In the newer version, he has purple instead of pink. Keep an eye out for the two different colors, so you don’t get stuck with a half and half Annihilus!
Packaging – ***1/2
Toybiz had always used clamshells for the line, so the first thing you’ll notice on the peg is the switch back to a bubble/cardback type packaging. Of course, this isn’t as sturdy as the clamshells, but you won’t lose a finger opening it up.
The artwork on the package is terrific, with some nice small comic artwork shots along the right side, and details about the BAF on the left outer edge of the bubble. Each of the cardbacks is personalized front and back to the character, with a short bio and further artwork on the reverse. These aren’t going to be particularly easy for the MOCers to store, but they are extremely attractive, especially for mass market packaging. Score one for Hasbro.
Sculpting – Hercules, Beast ***1/2; Banshee ***
One of the things that set the old ML’s apart was USUALLY better sculpts than other mass market lines. Now, note that I say ‘usually’, as there are some atrocious examples of Toybiz Marvel Legends, especially when it came to female characters. But in general, the sculpts were top notch, if not quite specialty market level.
Thankfully, I think Hasbro is trying to keep up with the game. Of these three, Hercules is actually my favorite, although I think the quality of the work is most evident with Beast. The expression on Hercules is a little more goofy than I remember from the old Champions comic book series, but the level of detail in the face sculpt is quite impressive. The body is a little less detailed, but the costume is quite accurate, and small details like the flow of the ‘skirt’ and the rivets on the leggings are very good. He’s a good size too, standing at about 7 1/4 inches tall and fitting in well with past ML’s.
The Beast face sculpt is really the best of the bunch, and is perhaps the BEST movie character sculpt from any of the X-men lines. It’s tough to tell in photos, since the overall dark blue tends to make seeing detail difficult, but there’s a ton in this sculpt, right down to the fur texturing. His one big issue is scale, and he’s much smaller than other ML figures, standing only 6 inches tall. The issue is a catch 22 for Hasbro. The X-men movie lines WERE smaller than Marvel Legends, so to make this figure fit in properly with the older lines, they had to shrink him down. However, they’re selling him in the ML wave, with an Annihilus BAF piece, so that there will be many folks who buy him that don’t have the older X-men series. Had they made him big enough to fit in with the ML’s, collectors of the X-men lines would have been mad. Making him small will piss off some of the ML collectors. Like I said, a catch 22.
Banshee is my least favorite, not due to quality of the sculpt, but choice of expression. Yea, I know, that’s his gig, what with the yelling and all, but it still ends up looking dopey. The amount of detail in the hair, eyebrows and mouth is great, even with the sub par paint apps. He stands about 6 inches tall, making him fit in fairly well with the rest of the ML world.
He has an odd issue with a seam at the side of his neck that’s worth noting as well. It’s actually the seam that runs all the way up his torso, and it’s more noticable in close ups than in person. His angled, long neck doesn’t help the general appearance either, and the hand sculpts just exaggerate the weird overall appearance.
In general, seams seem to be a bigger issue for Hasbro than they were for Toybiz. There’s visible seams on all the figures, and even a long ‘burr’ down the front of Beast’s thigh. It was easy enough to remove, but does indicate that the manufacturing QC on these needs to be improved slightly. However, Toybiz had their fair share of manufacturing issues over the life of the ML line, and considering this is Hasbro’s first shot, you have to give them a little leeway. I’m calling this category a draw.
Paint – Beast ***; Banshee **1/2; Hercules **
Ah, but you know there had to be at least one category where Hasbro was not quite there yet. And if you’re looking for that category, then paint is it.
Most of the pieces are cast in the actual color, rather than painted. This is most evident on Banshee, where the majority of the green and yellow is simplly cast, or the predominate blue and black colors of the Beast. It does give the figure a slightly cheaper appearance than being painted. On the plus side, there’s no issues with joints wearing off the paint over time.
What paint ops are here are less complex. There’s some bleed, but in general the masking is good, and small details are clean and consistent. The paint work that is here is pretty much on par with solid mass market quality.
Well, most of them anyway. They did try to do this weird wash on Hercules body, but I didn’t see any of them that it was actually consistent on. It ended up looking like he tried to use a really cheap fake sun tan lotion, and missed large sections of his torso and arms.
The Beast also has an added dark wash on some areas of his fur, especially the front of his arms and the lower half of his torso. It’s not quite as disconcerting as Hercules funky orange torso, but it is further proof that Hasbro has a ways to go before they are getting the paint ops down. This one goes to Toybiz.
Articulation – ****
Many folks were concerned about the articulation once Hasbro took over. My concerns are completely gone. They’ve kept the majority of the original articulation, and improved it.
They’ve gone with the pin neck joints, similar to the ones Toybiz used. I would have like ball joints of course, but I can live with this style.
All of the figures have ball jointed shoulders and hips, double jointed knees and elbows, pin wrists, pin and rocker ankles, cut waist and pin chest joints. The only major joint that’s missing is the finger articulation, which I can do without for most 6″ scale figures. Beast also has the half foot pin joint, but it’s missing on Banshee and Hercules. That’s another one of those joints that I can probably do without, although once you get good, tight hips and knees, it becomes much more useful.
Banshee also has cut forearms at the top of the gloves, and cut calves at the top of the boots, showing that Hasbro is willing to add even more articulation when it works with the sculpt. Another nice touch in combining sculpt and articulation is the design of the short rubber coat on the Beast. Obviously, this coat could easily completely restrict the ball joints, but Hasbro went out of their way to design it in such a way that there is almost no restriction at all. The material is soft enough to move with the arm, and there are slits in the jacket at the arm pits to allow the ball joint to move through it’s full range of movement.
All of these joints have an excellent range of movement, and all are very tight and sturdy. They’ve used clicky joints throughout almost the entire figure, which I didn’t see in the recent Hasbro Ghost Rider figures. Unlike many of the Toybiz joints, especially knees and hips, none of these joints are floppy or loose, and I have absolutely no trouble getting the figures to hold great poses for long periods. The quality of the pins they’ve used is also quite good, and the figures have a much more solid, sturdy feel to them.
This improved joint quality is also very noticable in the chest articulation. This is a joint that has been largely useless in the past, since it wouldn’t stay in any position other than dead center most of the time. All three of these figures can hold poses tilted well back or well foreward, and I have a new appreciation for the handiness of this particular point of articulation.
Only time will tell if the joints can manage to stay tight, but the improvements in the range of movement and quality are a blessing. Even without the finger joints, I’m giving this one to Hasbro.
Accessories – Hercules ***; Banshee, Beast **1/2
The accessory count has dropped, if for no other reason than the lack of a comic with each figure. Unfortunately, there’s generally fewer additional accessories as well.
Each figure does come with one or two pieces of the BAF, Annihilus. Once I find Emma and actually get him all together – she has his right arm and leg – I’ll have some photos, but he stands slightly larger than any of the rest of the wave at about ??? inches tall. Of the entire series, he has the best sculpt, and is the most interesting character. I suspect we’ll see quite a few Emmas, Beasts and Banshees sold just to complete the cool BAF.
The Beast and Banshee don’t have any other accessories other than the BAF pieces. Beast comes with the left arm and leg, and Banshee has the large right wing. Hercules has the other wing, and these are quite big and made from a soft, rubbery material.
Hercules does get a little extra score for having his sceptre, and you can remove his sash if you’d like. Banshee has removable ‘wings’, made from a very nice, high quality material, that have small pegs to attach to the arms, torso and legs. While these are technically an accessory I suppose, I think he’s a rather plain and uninteresting character without them. And since he will have that screaming expression for all of eternity on your shelf, he really needs them to make the expression work.
Generally speaking, Toybiz gave us more accessories than this, so here’s a category for them.
Fun Factor – Hercules, Beast ****; Banshee ***
Kids are going to enjoy the sturdy articulation and good sculpting, while being less effected by the paint ops than you or I. Still, Banshee is likely to leave them a little cold with his exaggerated expression.
Value – ***
Hasbro has raised the price on these to ten bucks a pop, up from around $8 each from Toybiz. They dropped the comics, but kept the BAF. These are still an above average value on the current mass market, largely due to the cost of all that articulation, but they’ve dropped in value from the Toybiz days. Score one for Toybiz.
Things to Watch Out For –
Ah, it’s the same old same old – paint. Even though there’s not a lot here, you’ll still want to pick out the best examples on the peg, especially when it comes to Hercules. Find one with less orange wash, and you’ll be happier.
Overall – Hercules, Beast ***; Banshee **1/2
If you’re keeping score, that’s Paint, Accessories and Value going to Toybiz, with Packaging, Articulation going to Hasbro, and Sculpting and Fun Factor currently a wash. If I were to compare this wave against the very best of the Toybix ML’s, then Toybiz would win. Compare to the very worst, and Hasbro wins. In reality, this wave comes off just as good as an average Toybiz wave, which tends to tell me that Hasbro is certainly doing just as well and that any fears that these would be a huge drop off from past waves are now unfounded.
For me, the most important note is around the sculpting and articulation. Of this entire wave, the only real dog in sculpt is Emma, and to be completely fair, the majority of Toybiz females were pretty damn ugly too. The sculpting looks solid, and will hopefully only improve over time, along with the quality of the paint. More importantly, the articulation is excellent, and I’m really happy to see the improvements in this area. Now they just need to improve the hand sculpt moving forward, if they are going to skip the finger articulation.
I’ll be covering Planet Hulk and Ultimate Iron Man (both of which you see in some of the comparison photos above) as soon as I manage to find Emma, but until then, let me say that both are at the top of the wave, and Planet Hulk might just pull ***1/2 stars. Hercules would have, if not for the funky failed tanning experiment.
Where to Buy –
Mass market retailers should get these in, but without any important variants, going online might be your fastest route:
– CornerStoreComics has them in stock, with the exception of Emma, for individual sale at $12 each. They do have Emma if you buy the set of six for $70.
– Killer Toys has the singles for around $12 each, or the full set for $59, but I’m not sure if they have them in stock yet.
– Amazing Toyz has the full set of 6 in stock for $70.
– and if you’re in the U.K., Forbidden Planet has them for about 10 pounds each.
Related Links:
I’ve had plenty of Marvel Legends reviews:
– in the 12″ Icons line, there’s Spider-man and Beast, Wolverine and Venom.
– The Face Offs series 1 (with Hulk/Leader in one review and the other two sets in another) and series 2 both had guest reviews.
– there’s the guest review of the Fearsome Foes of Spider-man boxed set, Urban Legends box set, X-men Legends boxed set, and the Fantastic Four boxed set, along with my review of the Monsters boxed set.
– The previous Sentinel BAF was guest reviewed.
– then there’s the various series reviews, including the Wal-mart series, series 13, series 12, series 9 (including Galactus), series 8 Captain Marvel and Doc Ock, series 7 Vision, series 6 Juggernaut, Wolverine and Deadpool, series 5 Blade, Nick Fury, Sabertooth and Colossus, along with series 5 Red Skull, Silver Surfer and Mr. Fantastic, series 4 Goliath, Punisher, Beast, Gambit, and Elektra, series 3 Daredevil and then the rest of the series, series 2 Thing and Namor, and finally, from three and a half years ago, the series 1 review.
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