REVIEW: Legendary Comic Book Heroes - JUDGE DEATH

For a great selection of superhero toys and collectibles, visit Diamond Select Toys, Attakus, ToyRocket.com, HobbyLinkJapan.com, BigBadToyStore.com, ToyWiz.com, StatueToys.com, CornerStoreComics.com, and WhiteWizardToys.com.

Want a chance to win the first series of Legendary Comic Book Heroes? Enter our Legendary Comic Book Heroes Giveaway today!

The first wave of Legendary Comic Book Heroes, while already, well, legendary, did have one glaring omission: There was nobody for all these heroes to fight. Oh, sure, they could have fought each other, during inevitable and ubiquitous misunderstandings. Or maybe they could’ve all ganged up on Wrarrl, from the Conan two-pack. But excellent figure though this growly-named Hyborian Age villain may have been, one bad guy in a wave of eleven (including both twin packs and Pitt) just wasn’t enough.

Let us be thankful, then, that this trend is reversing, if just a bit, in the second, “Monkeyman” wave of Legendary Heroes. For this wave includes one of the nastiest alt-comics villains of them all: Judge Death.

Judge Death, for the uninitiated, is a major villain from 2000 AD’s “Judge Dredd” series. And in the dystopian future of Judge Dredd, where even the hero has serious fascist overtones, the villains have to be very bad news indeed. Take our man Death, here; he and his brothers decided to go ahead and kill every living person on their parallel Earth, figuring that crimes are only committed by the living. His motto is “The crime is life – the sentence is death!” Compelling reasoning. Or no – not really; but certainly the sort of reasoning that denotes a man, or dimension-hopping undead horror, best avoided.

PACKAGING: The packaging for the second wave of Legendary Heroes is, of course, much the same as that of the first wave. It’s blue, it’s angular, it’s simple, it works. The figure is plainly visible from the front and from the package’s right side. On the left, it’s obscured by a montage of comic-book covers relevant to the wave; on the bottom, by the Monkeyman-assembly instructions (Monkeyman being the build-a-figure of this wave).

The back of the package shows the rest of the series, and the card is in fact completely generic. It’s an insert in front that gives you the name, origin, and comic book image of the character found in the plastic. On the whole, it’s a nice looking package, suitable for display – though note that the bottom is not flat, and it won’t stand up on its own.

Note that the packaging pictured here comes from the frozen, boreal lands of Canada. Hence the French. It’s a unique learning opportunity! “Legendary Comic Book Heroes” translates to “Heros Legendaires de Bandes Dessinees,” for example!

SCULPTING: Judge Death looks absolutely hideous; you can practically smell the charnel-house stench coming off of him. Which is, of course, perfect. Really, the level of detail and attention lavished on this figure’s sculpt is nothing short of startling; from the rictus grin, to the gaunt limbs with the ridiculously huge pads, to the suggestion of the rib cage under the wrinkled coat. Judge Death is every inch the twisted mirror of Judge Dredd that he should be. The winged-skull belt buckle, the bone-covered left shoulder pad, and the hell-pterosaur right shoulder pad deserve special mention, for their fine detail, and for making Judge Death look like he just stepped off of one of the really good early-heavy-metal album covers.

Let us also note that this figure stands up really pretty well, in spite of having legs thinner than strands of copper wire. It’s that well balanced! No no, it’s too much, we can’t accept this.

PAINT: But we’ll have to accept this and more besides, because the paint job is easily the match of the sculpt. The colors are all nicely dark, and there’s not a drop of bleed to be seen, not even on the teeth and gums, or on the lettering of the badge. This figure is crowded with shading, on the hundreds of wrinkles of clothing and flesh alike, and it all works fabulously. The bronze of the shoulder pads is also fantastic. Let’s have a round of applause for the paint job!

This figure also has a variant, which is told from the main figure by color, and so we’ll discuss it here. This is the "stealth mode" variant, and it is made from clear plastic. There’s a bit of smoky black coloring in the chest, shoulder pads and upper arms, as well. It’s a nice looking variant, and certainly attractive to collectors, though it’s really almost a shame to miss out on the paint job of the regular figure.

ARTICULATION: There are 31 points of articulation on this figure, and that is just a whole lot of points. The mid-foot and mid-hand joints, which fans so miss on Hasbro’s Marvel Legends, are in full effect here. In fact, the hand joints are improved; the pointer finger is articulated separately from the rest of the fingers, which are a single piece. Judge Death’s arms can be crossed, his legs can be bent almost flat against themselves, and on and on. All of the joints are nice and tight, but not too much so. And so this figure scores big once again. But will it hold it together in the Accessories category?

ACCESSORIES: Judge Death has no accessories! “Nooooooo!” scream the figure’s fans, hoping for a clean sweep of all categories! But they shouldn’t be so upset. Judge Death kills people by reaching into their bodies and squeezing their hearts; a guy like that has no use for tools.

This figure does, however, come packaged with the left leg of Axwell Tiberius, or “Monkeyman.” And that build-a-figure will be reviewed here in the very near future. But just to whet your appetite, let’s just say this: The left leg of Monkeyman has, while attached to nothing at all, fully twelve points of articulation.

COST & OVERALL IMPRESSION: The Legendary Comic Book Heroes are retailing for about $12, give or take. The variant of this one will, of course, go for a good deal more. Judge Death hit the market early, ahead of the other figures in the Monkeyman wave, but may still be somewhat difficult to find; many, even most, retailers still aren’t carrying anything from the second series.

The anticipation surrounding the return of Toybiz as Marvel Toys, with a Marvel Legends-esque comic character line, was so thick you could cut it with a knife. The standards they’d set for themselves were vertiginously high. But a figure like this meets those standards, and exceeds them. Everything about this toy is utterly exemplary. Let’s hope they keep this up. Let’s also hope that “Legendary Heroes” isn’t always so literal; there are still plenty of villains in alternative comics that beg for this royal treatment.

CLICK HERE for even more images of Judge Death.

Review and photos by Matthew Kessen