Superhero Times: a service of Action Online
The history of the action figures of the X-Men movies has been an ignominious one. The first film was thoroughly covered, toy-wise; every major character was represented, all the way down to Senator Kelly (depicted in ‘melting-away’ form, and packed with Jean Grey). But this was before the golden age of Toybiz, before they made Marvel Legends and the Lord of the Rings movie line, before they walked the earth, restoring the land and resurrecting the dead. No, back then, Toybiz was crap. Not to put too fine a point on it.
Sure, there were tons of characters, but none of the figures had anything to recommend them, in terms of sculpt or articulation or anything; even the packaging was ugly. The X2 figures had the opposite problem. Individually excellent, all we got were Cyclops, Nightcrawler, and a couple of Wolverines. There was eventually a second series, involving Magneto and Iceman (Iceman?!?), but it was, for all intents and purposes, released directly onto eBay. Like Bigfoot, people claimed to have seen it, but nobody could prove it. And then X3 got no toys whatsoever.
Until now. Dr. Henry “Hank” McCoy, as he appears in the third movie, is a part of Hasbro’s first wave of Marvel Legends. Now, this is not the first time that Marvel cinema was represented in the Legends line; the movie versions of Daredevil, the Punisher, and Blade have all been Legendized in the past. This is, however, the first time that a single movie has rated a number of Legends figures. The second wave, you see, is scheduled to feature X3’s Jean Grey and Juggernaut, and it is rumored that the third will feature Colossus. Which is all good news, if you’re a person who liked X3. It is probably fair to tell you at this point that your humble reviewer is really, really, really not such a person. But that won’t get in the way of discussing the qualities of the figure, in and of itself. Let’s get down on it.
PACKAGING
The card for Beast, as for all of Hasbro’s Legends thus far, is white, with a sort of odd patterning on it, resembling spider webs, or maybe lightning. It’s difficult to say. In the viewer’s upper left, there is a promotional photo from the film. More of such are in a kind of sweeping column down the right of the plastic bubble, along with a few movie stills. The bubble is full of cardboard inserts and layers of sculpted plastic, partially hiding Beast himself, though not to too serious a degree. It’s reasonably attractive, if packaging’s your thing.
The back of the card gives a short bio and set of stats for “Hank,” and shows you the rest of this series. Oddly, each figure in the series is given a number, from one to six – Beast is number five. It’s difficult to imagine what purpose this serves. Hasbro used to number its Star Wars figures, but there were dozens and dozens of those, which somehow made the practice seem more sensible. And they are scheduling fully eight figures for series two; maybe there’ll be hundreds in series three or four. Maybe it’ll be everyone who’s ever been in a comic with Spider-Man. They’d better not mess up NFL Superpro!
SCULPTING
Being an action figure reviewer can get pretty weird, because you wind up having to say things like “The resemblance to Frasier’s Kelsey Grammer is uncanny, and that’s fantastic!” But it’s true. It really is an excellent resemblance. The body’s very good too, especially the hair. There’s an upraised ridge of it in the middle of the chest, which conveys the relevant concept of ‘shagginess’ particularly well.
The only real problem with the sculpt has to do with the head. Its placement on the neck, along with the long hair in back, makes it impossible to make Henry’s head look up, though it is apparently articulated to do so. Indeed, the figure can only just barely look straight forward. It is most comfortably situated in a downcast sort of way. Aww, cheer up, “Hank.”
PAINT APPLICATION
Beast is, of course, blue, the blue that mutants always seem to be when they come in funny colors. It’s nicely done here, and given a very effective grey shading. His outfit is mostly a plain black, though there’s ribbing on the sides of his thighs that is shiny, and this is a nice touch. And finally, there is a yellow X on his left breast, which stands for pirate treasure, and yellow stripes on his shoulders, which indicate that he’s maybe wearing one of Wolverine’s jackets by mistake. These stripes could be painted a little more evenly, but this is a very minor mark against a generally excellent paint job.
ARTICULATION
This figure has what seems to be the standard articulation for the Legends line, now that the points in the hands and feet seem to have been dropped. Let’s just go over those, real quick-like: two at the head, bending diaphragm, twisting waist, three points per shoulder and hip, two per knee and elbow, and one at each foot and hand, plus hands that rotate with respect to the forearms. That’s thirty points, and that’s not bad. Furthermore, the feet rotate, in this case. The joints for this rotation are found at the ankles, rather than halfway up the shins, as they were on old Legends. And this is actually rather a good effect, even an improvement. The rotation of the hands works similarly – that is to say, at the wrist, instead of up the arm – and is similarly good. And this figure re-introduces a concept that we’ve not seen in this line until now: a joint in the middle of the feet. The middle of the feet! Go wild with joy in the streets! Try not to loot, though!
Unfortunately, the articulation at the shoulders is hampered somewhat by the jacket. This is a single piece, independent of the body sculpt, but fitting too tightly to be casually removed. And it’s got short sleeves that point downward, and therefore, so too must the arms, for the most part. There’s a good deal more give here than there is in the Emma Frost figure, but still, some articulation has been sacrificed for sculpt. The action figure community is bitterly divided over whether such sacrifice in general is acceptable, unacceptable, or, in fact, blasphemous.
ACCESSORIES
X3 Beast comes with no accessories, and doesn’t really call out for any. Being a leapin’-around sort of guy, they could perhaps have done what Toybiz did with some Legends: pack the figure with a tall, bendable, transparent stand, the summit of which to be inserted into a hole provided in the figure’s back, so that you could display the figure as though it were soaring through the air. The last few series of Toybiz’ Legends actually had this hole in the middle of all of the figures’ backs, in case you had any extra stands lying around (presumably because you worked at the factory that made them; hard to say why else), and you really felt as though Baron Zemo ought to be displayed in mid-air. Suffice it to say, Hasbro has discontinued this practice.
The left arm and leg of the Fantastic Four villain Annihilus, the build-a-figure of this wave, are packed with this figure. One wonders how many Beasts have been sold to people whose only motive was to get their hands on these green-and-purple limbs.
COST & OVERALL IMPRESSION
Hasbro Marvel Legends go for a default price of ten bucks, an increase from the price of Toybiz Marvel Legends. There are some indications that this particular figure is the slow seller of this series. Science fact: Though poorly-selling action figures are commonly referred to as “peg-warmers,” most action figure packaging actually gives off insufficient heat to appreciably raise the temperature of the pegs on which they hang!
This is actually a very, very good figure. It’ll win you over with its sculpt and poseability, and also with its demure and charming personality, and the excellent table it sets. Seriously, it’s really quite good, and wholly recommended to fans of the movie in question.
But that won’t necessarily sway the people who hated X3. And there are at least three more X3 Legends to come, it seems. Maybe this is a naïve thing to say, but if Hasbro wants to put out so many X3 figures, couldn’t they give them their own line, instead of mucking up the Legends line with ‘em?
Review and Images by Matt Kessen
