Superhero Times: a service of Action Online
Would you like to build an army of aliens? Of course you would. What sensible person wouldn’t? Regrettably, however, aliens are not verifiably real. Would an army of alien action figures do, then? Yes? Well, then, good news!
Diamond Select Toys has just released the Brood and Skrull two-pack, which contains, of course, two Marvel Universe aliens. Remarkably, these figures were not originally slated to be released in Diamond Select’s Marvel line. Instead, each was to be a pack-in with Toybiz’ 13th wave of Marvel Legends – the “Bring on the Bad Guys” wave. Each of the figures in that wave was originally planned to come with an ‘army builder’ figure; a HYDRA soldier, a Foot ninja, or the like. Regrettably, this idea was nixed, apparently because of the rising cost of oil and hence, plastic. But these figures seem to be slowly finding their way to the light. Hasbro’s third wave will have the HYDRA soldier, and then there are these two guys, from Marvel Select.
Now, Marvel Select is a popular and respected line, but it’s no Marvel Legends, and Diamond is having the good sense to play to the connection; their advertising is referring to this two-pack as “Alien Legends.” Because these are two legendary space aliens? Sure.
The first of these two figures – as listed on the packaging, anyway – is one of the Brood. The Brood are vaguely insectoid aliens, who live in hives ruled by huge, dangerous queens. Their heads are elongated in a backwards fashion, and their faces are dominated by toothy maws. They are scary because they use humans to breed, by implanting something into said humans. Yep! Stop me if you’ve heard this one. (All snark aside, the Brood have a nice-looking design, and have produced some quite good X-Men stories.)
The Skrulls were the very first space aliens in the Marvel Universe, from all the way back in Fantastic Four #2. Back before the FF even had costumes! The Skrulls are Jack Kirby-designed, shapeshifting, evil aliens, and there’s nothing wrong with any part of that. They are also, presumably, idiots. Really, if your humble reviewer had, say, 50 guys with unlimited shapeshifting powers, and a long afternoon in the world government section of a decent library, he would be not an action-figure reviewer, but emperor of the planet. And the Skrulls can’t manage it with a whole species? And interstellar travel? Come on, Skrulls.
PACKAGING: The packaging for the Brood and Skrull pack is the Marvel Select standard; basically a rectangular solid, with the card creeping around the viewer’s left to a label on the front of the package. As is also typical for Marvel Select, the package is sufficiently large to hold a full-scale NASCAR rally inside of it. The cardboard side of the package has pictures of the aliens on it, which is attractive, though the Skrull looks like the Green Goblin here.
The back has descriptions of the characters, representative comic covers, and pictures of other recent Marvel Select figures – Ghost Rider and Mephisto in this case. It’s good-looking packaging; you can see why Diamond has never seen fit to change the basic style. Plus it makes a handy source of shade.
SCULPTING: The sculpt of the Skrull, by Dave Kawano and Philip Ramirez, is excellent. The scowling face is especially striking, and the folds of the clothing are well-executed; these are always a nice touch. They’ve gone with an old-school Skrull, which is a delightful choice, even if it is wearing a multi-pointed collar second only to Toad’s inexplicable flower-collar in terms of purely ludicrous neckwear. The figure does seem just a bit on the big side; it’s fully as tall as any standard Marvel Legend, with a much larger head besides, and your humble reviewer always thought the rank-and-file Skrulls were just a little bit midgety. Maybe not.
The Brood, sculpted by Philip Ramirez, is also quite nice-looking. It seems somehow that a design such as this could use some more fine detail-work, but this is a minor point at best. The long, undulating forelimbs look great, and the texture on the head is also very impressive.
PAINT APPLICATION: The Brood is mostly just brown, with dark carapace-cracks, and this is pulled off just fine for the most part. The different pieces of plastic that compose the body are slightly different shades of brown, and this is an unfortunate and sloppy-looking effect. But it won’t sear out your eyes or anything. On the positive side, the red between the teeth produces a subtly gory effect, and whenever anything is ‘subtly gory,’ something good has been achieved.
The consistency of the colors is much better in the Skrull, though it is a bit more prone to bleed and smudging. On the review copy, there’s actually a bit of silver from the wrist all the way up above the elbow. But as is usual for such things, this bleed and smudge is minor, and really the sort of thing for which you have to be looking in order to notice. And the main reason you’d want to do that is that you’re writing a review of the thing. Other than this, the paint job is very good, especially the slightly-mottled green of the face, and the shininess of the weapon. Action figure companies: Always make things shiny if you can find an excuse.
ARTICULATION: These figures started out as pack-ins, and now they’re Marvel Selects, and none of this bodes well for articulation. And neither of these figures is anywhere near up to Marvel Legends standards, but they aren’t half bad, either. Let’s have a look:
The Skrull has 19 points of articulation, which sounds pretty good, until you hear that fully 12 of those are taken up by the shoulders and hips. The waist doesn’t twist, and the elbows and knees have no joints at all. You can still get a pretty good range of motion out of the Skrull, though, all things considered. And he can always just shapechange into one of your better-articulated figures.
The Brood is articulated according to this same basic pattern: three points each at the shoulders and four hips (or whatever you’d call them, on a creature such as this), and very little else. In fact, almost nothing else – apart from these 18 points, only the head moves. Frankly, they could have traded out some of the leg-articulation, which actually makes it a bit tricky to stand up, for perhaps a few joints on the arms. Still, one mustn’t complain about the articulation one receives. Especially when Marvel Select is involved – they generally follow the NECA/McFarlane ‘sculpt over articulation’ philosophy.
ACCESSORIES: The Brood and Skrull come with no accessories. None! The only reason this whole category hasn’t been deleted from this review, therefore, is that it seemed like a good place to let you know that the Skrull’s weapon does not come out of its hand. It’s sculpted right into there. And that is too bad, really. Especially since it has one of those ‘this energy weapon is firing right now’ effects; a bit of yellow-and-orange shooting out of it. Really, guys, we can imagine that part.
COST & OVERALL IMPRESSION: The review copy of this pack was had for $20, which is fairly standard for a Marvel Select. It is “available only in specialty stores,” as its ad says. Does this mean that if you go into, for example, a “Bath and Body Works,” they’ll have it? No it does not. As of this writing, the Brood and Skrull seem fairly plentiful, but reasonable haste is advised nevertheless.
This is an attractive, well-made pair of figures of some very fun Marvel villains. And as such it is recommended. Plus it’s nice to finally have some ‘army-builders’ to go with the Marvel Legends line. Sure, superheroes fight supervillains, but don’t they customarily have to punch their way through a heaving mass of anonymous grunts to earn the privilege? In a way, this is an even better arrangement than having these figures as pack-ins; this way, you can just buy the two-pack over and over again to build your alien armies. Granted, it would cost as much, or even a little more, than just buying the figures they’d have been packed with over and over again. But then you’d have been stuck with a whole bunch of loose figures of Pyro or someone, and that enriches nobody’s life.
So how about it, Diamond Select? Can we see some more of this? Maybe an A.I.M. Agent / Doombot two-pack next? Doctor Doom and MODOK are both woefully short of henchmen…
CLICK HERE for a Brood and Skrull image gallery tour.
Review and photos by Matthew Kessen
