Review: Hasbro's Marvel Legends Annihilus build-a-figure

FULL REVIEW: Hasbro’s Marvel Legends series one: Annihilus build-a-figure, and series overview

The toy companies have a wide variety of clever stratagems to exploit the instincts of the hardcore collector. Take, for example, the variant figure: a phenomenon that leads the hapless collector to think his collection unfinished until he has three versions of the Wasp, each with a different paint job and hairstyle. Or then there’s the boxed set, where three or four old figures are packaged with an entirely new one. Here, the collector, driven by his demons, driven like a chariot-horse by its driver’s whip, winds up laying down 30, 40 dollars for, essentially, one figure. But one cunning marketing ploy is aimed not at collectors at all, but at the rest of us, taking as its goal the turning of us into collectors. We speak, of course, of the build-a-figure (“BAF,” in hip collector shorthand. We haven’t got time to type all those letters). In this situation, one is given a prize (to cast things in a positive sort of light) for ‘collecting them all.’ And that’s what we call incentive.

Or rather, it is, if the BAF is good enough. Toybiz’ Marvel Legends started this thing off with a bang, with the coolest possible character: Galactus. The devourer of worlds! He doesn’t want power, or money, or global domination; he wants to eat the earth because he’s hungry. Awesome! Starting the BAFs off with Galactus was a brilliant move, because any possible consideration of BAF-as-marketing was drowned out – drowned out in collectors’ own minds – by “Galactus! Wow! Galactus!”

With one exception – the “Legendary Riders” series, in which every character got their own Goblin Glider – every wave of Legends since Galactus has had a BAF. The fans have come to expect it. And these BAFs have normally offered more bang for your buck by being very large, or at least bulky; too large to come in standard packaging, normally.

Hasbro has elected to continue Marvel Legends’ BAF tradition; they’d be fools not to. Their first offering is Annihilus: Fantastic Four villain, despot of the Negative Zone, and attempted ruiner of the birth of Franklin Richards. As a first BAF character goes, he’s no Galactus, but then, who is? As usual, though, it is not the character we are here to discuss, but rather, the figure.

SCULPTING

This is really a great-looking figure. Simultaneously true to the original Jack Kirby design and very modern-looking, with jagged, sweeping lines, this may be one of the most badass, demonic-looking depictions of Annihilus ever produced. There’s an excellent texturing, and the level of fine detail, both in the design of the armor and the lines of the musculature, is beyond reproach. Chamberlain! Put this sculptor in our finest suite – tomorrow we feast in his (or her) honor!

The closest thing to a real flaw in the sculpt is the fact that the left wing sort of curls forward, whereas the right wing does not. This is the sort of thing that might be a fluke of the review copy. But your humble reviewer, love you though he may, isn’t going to build another Annihilus to find out. Other than this, the wings are actually pretty great. They’re made of a soft but sturdy plastic, allowing you to flap them, so that Annihilus may fly around your home, menacing your other figures.

The figure assembles well, with a bit of effort, but nothing too unreasonable. Once constructed, it fits together as tightly as you might hope. However, unlike previous BAFs, this figure may also be disassembled, if you so choose. In case, say, Reed Richards goes totally ballistic on Annihilus and dismembers him.

Now, Toybiz’ BAFs had an unfortunate tendency to get smaller and smaller over time. Onslaught (the BAF from series 13), for example, could have appropriately towered over other characters, like Galactus or the Sentinel did, but instead was scarcely any bigger than a Hulk figure. We are told that this was due to the rising cost of oil, and hence, of plastic. And perhaps this is so. But it’s a pity all the same. The Annihilus figure carries on this trend; though its wingspan is very broad, it is overall not much larger than your average Marvel Legend, and could in fact fit in the regular packaging, with the wings detached. To be fair, however, the Annihilus of the comics is not a towering giant. In terms of accuracy to the source, this figure is just about right.

PAINT APPLICATION

The paint job is excellent, if very simple; there are exactly four colors to this character, not including the shading. But there’s no bleed, and the shading is very effective, especially around the joints of the carapace. Much of Annihilus is a light purple color, which is as it should be. In some places, however, this purple veers dangerously close to the pink. Okay, sure, they do things differently in the Negative Zone, but pink is never a good color for ruthless overlords.

ARTICULATION

There are 28 points of articulation here, not counting the malleability of the wings. And that’s some pretty decent articulation. A wide variety of poses are possible, and the figure is very well-balanced, considering the wings and all. The collar somewhat limits head movement, and the lower legs and feet could maybe stand another joint or two, but these are not really glaring flaws. What is more noticeable is that the forearms don’t rotate on their axes. That would have been nice.

However, this deficiency is quite made up for by the inclusion of something that your humble reviewer just can’t get enough of: individual finger articulation. Which brings the total number of points up to 36. And which allows the figure to make the “okay” sign! To drink tea with the pinky out! To throw up the heavy metal horns! This is what action figure fun is all about.

COST & OVERALL IMPRESSION

Annihilus either costs $60, or is free, depending on how you want to look at it. It may be a little bit easier to collect than some of Toybiz’ BAFs; none of the figures required is all that hard to come by. Still, if there are figures in this wave that you can’t bear owning for even a fraction of a second, previous BAFs have always been available on the secondary market (check eBay), completely assembled. Which means no mucking about with all that tedious ‘collecting.’ Which is, of course, cheating.

We’ve come to expect BAFs from Marvel Legends, and Hasbro clearly intends to give ‘em to us. And happily, their first effort really hits it out of the park. This is a top-notch action figure, all around. It is, in fact, possibly the best figure in Hasbro’s first series. Hopefully soon, we’ll see what they can do with a really big BAF.

<HASBRO’S MARVEL LEGENDS, SERIES ONE

Dear Hasbro,

So it looks like your first line of Marvel Legends is out, and doing pretty good business. Congratulations! You’ve done some very nice work here. Several of the sculpts are excellent, and the articulation is generally quite good. Most of the figures in the line are very stable, standing up quite nicely. It looks as though you’re using a hardier plastic than this line has seen before, and that’s certainly to be commended. And the disappearance of the twist-ties from the packaging is a very welcome touch indeed. So, overall, nice job!

Still, what you’ve got to understand is that people really, really loved Toybiz’ Marvel Legends. And rightly so; the line has long been the industry’s high water mark of articulation, and the sculpts have often been brilliant as well. And anything you do with this line is going to be compared against this high standard. For instance, you know how above, I said your articulation here is “generally quite good”? Well, compared to the industry at large, it certainly is. But compared to Marvel Legends of old, I’m afraid it’s a step down – a tiny step, but a step nonetheless. And that, to collectors, is going to be far more noticeable than your relative quality in the industry as a whole. Combine all this with the perfectly natural, human fear of change, and you’ve maybe got quite a backlash on your hands. You’ve probably seen some of it in this marvelous Internet thing already.

So if you don’t mind, I’d like to make a few suggestions, to help you win back the doubters with future waves. First and foremost, bring back all of the articulation that Toybiz used to put in. I know a lot of these old joints seem trivial, like the ones in the middles of the hands and feet, but they do tend to glare in their omission. Second of all, aim for a little more subtlety with the choices of paint colors; a couple of these figures are far too garish, ‘loud’ even. Obviously, you want to try to get the best sculptors you possibly can, all across the board. With the scrutiny you’re under, it’ll be worth it. And finally, well, this is a small one, but it’d be really nice if the peg-holes on the bottoms of the feet of the figures returned. I know you’ve taken the time to make sure these stand up well without need for stands, but every little bit helps.

Overall, though, you’re largely on the right track. This first wave hasn’t been entirely and perfectly up to the standards of the last few Toybiz waves, but it is for the most part a very good set of action figures all the same. And it’s a good start.

Thanks very much,
Matt Kessen