Superhero Times: a service of Action Online
For anyone who’s counting, this is Hasbro’s second series of Marvel Legends and for long time collectors, the 18th set of Marvel superheroes. Hard to believe that it’s been that many but here it is.
There have been nine previous build-a-figures so far, which makes BLOB, the build-a-figure for this series the tenth. There are eight figures needed to build the X-enemy BLOB.
-Thor
-Xorn
Six regular heroes and two from the films add to the variety making it harder to be picky if you want to build Blob.
Series 1 gave fans their first X3 figure with Beast. This series there’s two: X3 Juggernaut and X3 Jean Grey. Keep an eye out for a Jean Grey variant with a “scary” headsculpt. (scarier than the normal one is up for debate).
Packaging: Hasbro has certainly made the transition into their hands known to the buying public. Gone are the clamshells and comic books, welcome back to the card and bubble. Fortunately for us, the cardstock used is THICK and with individually designed artwork for each character and bios, it’s a change that I’m most certainly okay with.
It is too bad that the comic books are no longer around, as I enjoyed browsing through those the most as if they were some sort of trip down memory lane. Hasbro at least has put some comic book art as part of the packaging as a good not do its origin. I’m still waiting for DC Superheroes to do something similar with their packaging.
Sculpt: Bleeeeehhhhh, is how I feel about Jean Grey’s sculpt. Famke Janssen is a beautiful woman. This sculpt is of a skinny ugly girl. The sculpt for the dress is just as plain and visually boring. They really phoned it in on this one and I feel no need to write any further on it.
Paint: Lack of paint appears to be the motto for Hasbro’s Marvel Legends. Well, perhaps that’s a bit unfair. Painting the bare minimum is more accurate. The dress is all one color with a few painted lines here and there. The back of the dress has laces sculpted in but no paint on them. She even has boots with some straps and laces that go completely ignored.
I suppose a good sculpt allows for good paint and Jean Grey suffers in both departments. Just a boring execution here. Movie figures need an added level of realism to complete the journey from film to plastic. Comic figures have a certain amount of room to leave things unnoticed but I feel that movie figures need that extra level of attention.
Articulation: Jean Grey has approximately 28 points of articulation, many of which aren’t going to be used often because of the stiff dress.
Jean Grey has the swivel elbow joints that I’m not a big fan of, but since she’s clothed, it’s a more forgiving joint because it’s not as obvious where her bicep is.
Accessories: Zilch.
No comic, no base… just Blob’s right arm.
Value: These figures will run you $10-12, about $3-5 more than the Toy Biz versions were sold for. So far I’m really missing Toy Biz.
Overall: When I heard that Hasbro would be releasing figures for X-Men 3: The Last Stand among the regular Marvel Legends, I was beside myself. But after being disappointed with the Beast and now Jean Grey, I’m really hoping they spend some more time on the sculpts. Jean Grey is a very disappointing figure as far as sculpt goes and the dull paint job certainly doesn’t help. But still, if you’re a fan of the films, better add this to the collection as I doubt another one will be released any time soon.
CLICK HERE for more images of Jean Grey. Review and Images Courtesy of David Yeh
