One of the newest Marvel Universe waves brings us five roughly
new characters. Overall, it’s a fairly solid wave, but whether or not you’d
want to pick up all of these figure, well, that might be debatable.
To me, Darkhawk is the standout of this wave. The sculpt is
well done, he’s articulated, his wings fit well and they look good (when he’s
posed properly). Darkhawk was one of the first comics that I collected from
issue #1. I won’t say I stayed with it too terribly long, but I thought he was
a cool character, and I’m happy to see the plastic version do him justice.
Namor, the Sub-Mariner. We’ve gotten him before a couple of
times, but not quite this version. This is more or less (or possibly exactly,
I’m not sure) the same version that was offered up as a part of the 2009 SDCC
exclusive four-pack. That was a great version. This version, if nothing else,
has a different staff. He’s back in his underwear, so if you got the vest/pants
version, you might want to pick this one up. He’s comic-accurate and he looks
good. If you have the SDCC version, and actually opened it, then you may want
to pass on this one.
Steve Rogers, aka Captain America
Ultron would have to be the weakest in the wave. He’s not a
poorly done figure, we’ve just seen him already with a different colored mouth
in the Secret Wars 2-packs. If you have that version, then you know what he’s
all about, and this one is likely to be a pass for you. The card art looks
great, but he is essentially the same. His sculpt is good, and he looks evil.
On my particular figure, the upper torso is pretty loose, but he still manages
to stand upright with a little effort. His sculpt is good, he’s taller than
other figures. He’s good, but he was already good the first time I got him.
X-23 gives you another chance to pick up a female MU figure,
which so far there haven’t been a whole lot of. I realize that traditional toy
company wisdom says that putting female characters in a boy’s line is a bad
move, but I like to see some of the diversity of the Marvel Universe of
characters reflected in my toy line. For all you X-fans out there, you’ll want
to grab this one. Not perfect, but more than passable. The body sculpt is ok,
the claws and gloves look good and the head sculpt is good, although the paint
on the face is a little dark. But Hasbro, at some point, you’re going to need
to work on some well done female bucks for your figures, especially when you
like to re-use parts so heavily.
Five figures at roughly $8 a pop can start to add up, so
there may be a couple of these you won’t be too excited about. As with all the
Marvel Universe figures as of late, if you have the option of picking from
multiple figures, be sure to look at what you’re buying. I have seen some
pretty poor paint applications on Marvel figures. Hasbro has been slipping on
the quality control in this line.
-Brett X
