Superhero Times: a service of Action Online
Doom! Men tremble at his very name! At least partially because it is, coincidentally, the English word for “grim fate or destiny; death; ruin”! Doom! A nation bows to his indomitable will – and soon, so, too, shall the entire world! Doom! His genius has conquered time and space – has stolen the powers of Galactus the world-devourer and the omnipotent Beyonder! Doom! Nobody’s done a really good action figure of him for years!
All right, well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. The Marvel Select one was pretty all right. It got the eyeholes of his mask wrong, though, depicting them as rounded. Fools! The eyeholes of the Monarch of Latveria are rectangular! Richards and his accursed family shall suffer for this indignity! Okay, okay, enough of that. Anyway, the Marvel Legends Doom made this same eyehole mistake, and took it several degrees further, turning the entire mask into a mass of curves and wires and unnecessary flourishes, which did a remarkable job of robbing Doom of his austere menace. And the Superhero Showdown Doom could have used a forehead, and a nice, long cape, instead of the flaring opera cape that it sported.
So now it’s Hasbro’s turn. The Doctor Doom from their 12-inch Marvel Legends Icons Series has recently hit the stores. Will they do better than their predecessors? The eyes of Doom are watching…
PACKAGING
It seems that Hasbro is attempting to tie their 12” line as closely as they can to the Marvel Legends line, in hopes that some of the goodwill toward that line will spill over, no doubt. Not only is the 12” line called the “Marvel Legends Icons Series,” but also the packaging of the series is very similar to that of Hasbro’s Legends – same ‘Marvel Legends’ logo, same brown-gold-and-whitish color scheme, same weird, off-white pattern resembling spider webs or lightning. It’s bigger than the legends packaging, of course, and also simpler – basically just a rectangular solid with one edge replaced by a curve. There’s just the one picture of Doom, looking triumphant, as is his wont; it’s repeated twice. It’s perfectly decent packaging, not especially attractive, but neither is it too plain, or garish.
On the back of the box, there’s a remarkably lousy picture of the figure. Pull the hood down, photographer! And what happened to the big gold clasps? Making up for this, though, is a very well written and entertaining bio of Latveria’s despot. Here, he is referred to as, among other things, a “maestro of robotic weapons.” Which is what your humble reviewer always wanted to be when he grew up. But do you have any idea how hard it is to find a decent graduate program for that?
SCULPTING
So here we go: Is this Doctor Doom figure wearing a comic-accurate mask? No. No, it is not. The eyeholes are rounded once again, and there’s a little bit of extra machinery in the cheeks. And it has more curving lines than Doom’s classic visage. So it’s technically wrong. However, that said, it actually still looks pretty good, capturing the spirit of the mask of Doom, if not the exact particulars. The best part is that the mask seems to be a separate piece from the head, which latter contains Doom’s eyes, and so the eyes are deeply recessed in the mask, creating a realistic and effective image. The mask is not removable, mind you, though it kind of looks like it is. A plot to make you tear apart your Doom figure, forcing you to buy two? Well, no. Probably not.
Below the head, the sculpt is pretty simple, as it should be. There’s some tiny little riveting on the limbs, which is nice. The tunic is plastic, which is at variance with the cloth cape, and there are those who prefer consistency in these things. But to the rest of us, it really looks just fine. One nice touch is that Doom’s rocket-jets are visible on the back, under the cape. You’ll virtually never see these, while the figure is in any reasonable pose, but you’ll know that they’re there, and that will be satisfying.
PAINT APPLICATION
The paint job is totally fine, and it frankly had better be. Green, metal-grey, a bit of gold and brown – there’s nothing here to screw up unless they really rolled up their sleeves and gave it their best shot. There’s no bleed, and no real shading, and nothing particularly wonderful. The metal of the armor is shiny, but not too shiny, so that’s good. And the skin around the eyes is a horrible scar-tissue red, which enhances their effect even further. Altogether, it is an agreeable Doctor Doom paint job experience.
ARTICULATION
Articulation is the main thing about this figure that could use some improvement. There are 26 points here, which is okay, but a figure this size could really do a whole lot better. Especially since 12 of those are in the legs, two apiece under the tunic – which renders those points largely useless – and two at each knee. Why such knee articulation? Is Doom meant to kneel? Doom kneels for no man!
Mainly, it’s the arms that could use a few more joints. There’s room for plenty of finger articulation beyond the mid-hand joint that we get, which would of course allow Doom to speak sign language, as well as hold things better. A swivel on the upper arm would be nice, so that Doom could fold his arms in an intimidating manner. He likes doing that. Still and all, one can pose the arms in a variety of triumphant and/or threatening positions, so it would be very wrong to call this a total loss.
ACCESSORIES
In a holster on his right side, Doom carries a gun. A gun! His armor is packed with super-scientific weaponry, and even without it he may freely blast you with bolts of eldritch energy, but then also the man is packin’ heat! Hey – has Doom ever used his gun on someone as if to imply that he or she were too lowly to waste his superweapons or magical arts upon? ‘Cause that’d be cool. And it’d give him a reason to carry the damn thing around. Anyway, it’s a perfectly nice gun.
This Doom figure wears a cape of real cloth, and is the first such to do so for a while. Cloth can be a risky thing to put on an action figure; it often winds up looking pretty bad. Here, though, it’s actually quite great. The cape hangs nicely, even achieving a bit of flow. And the way it’s bunched and folded around the shoulders and neck is one of the best-looking cloth effects your humble reviewer has ever seen on an action figure. The cape’s not removable, but why would you want to remove it, really? The only real problem is that the hood tends to ride a little high, granting the viewer a look at the top of Doom’s head that isn’t really appropriate. It takes a bit of care and effort to flatten it down, but it’s worth it. Otherwise, Doom looks like he’s surprised all the time. Silly!
COST & OVERALL IMPRESSION
This is a $20 item on the shelves, which is pretty standard for the scale. If Hasbro’s first wave of regular Marvel Legends was any indication, this figure shouldn’t be too hard to find. Their distribution system seems a bit more robust than was Toybiz’.
This is a very good-looking figure. It would be nice if, one day, they made a Doom figure with his regular, angular mask, without redesigning it; why do they always do this? Is it felt that the angular mask doesn’t look good in three dimensions? Who knows? But for a mask redesign, this is quite a good one. Throw a few more joints in the arms, find some way to get the hood to hang lower, and this figure would be just about perfect. As it is, it’s simply excellent, an impressive piece, entirely ready to strike fear in the heart of any action figure that dares stand before it.
Review and photographs by Matt Kessen
