REVIEW: Legendary Comic Book Heroes - MARV

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One noteworthy thing about Marvel Toys’ Legendary Comic Book Heroes line is that a number of the characters in it already have action figures, often released within the last ten years or so. Of course, this is not actually a problem. There had been no deficit of Wolverine or Spider-Man figures prior to Marvel Legends, and yet we certainly clamored for Legends versions. And rightly so; Marvel Legends redefined our expectations of comic book action figures, and its successor, Legendary Heroes, continues in its tradition.

Take the figure we’ll be discussing here: Marv, the first great tough guy – the first great impossibly tough guy – from Frank Miller’s “Sin City.” Now, McFarlane Toys did a pair of comic based Marv figures a number of years ago; one was free-standing, and the other was in an electric chair, that would make real buzzing sounds, with Marv saying “That the best you can do?” and so forth. The electric-chair figure actually saw coverage in the mainstream press. Apparently, people got offended. Ah well. But notorious though it became, did it, or the other McFarlane Marv, have individual finger articulation? No they did not. And that’s where Marvel Toys steps in.

PACKAGING: Marv comes, of course, in the standard Legendary Heroes package, which is blue and rectangular and fairly basic. Marv is identified, and pictured, in a cardboard insert in the front of the packaging; the back shows the rest of the line, and is totally identical throughout this wave. (It is also, in the review figure’s case, Canadian, like William Shatner. This explains the French.) Marv is plainly visible from the package’s front and right. He’s pretty big, though, and so his boots are obscured. It’s all quite nice, as packaging goes. One might say that it’s awfully bright and colorful for the grim, craggy, black-and-white figure it contains, but so it goes; consistency in the line’s packaging is probably a virtue.

SCULPTING: Now, here is where this figure has the stiffest competition, in its predecessor; McFarlane was always famous for its sculpts. But Marvel Toys rises to the challenge. This figure is the spitting image of the Marv of the comics. There’s the nose, flush with the forehead in profile; there’s the pointy hair; there’s the cross pendant, the giant boots for stompin’. The face has the infinity of lines seen on the most luridly detailed pictures of Marv, and the coat has the sea of folds and wrinkles. It’s a figure that looks like it could beat you up. And you’re hundreds of times its size!

This comic-accuracy showcases one remarkable aspect of the Legendary Heroes line. Marvel Legends only rarely went out of its way to emulate the style of one particular artist or another. Legendary Heroes, though, can’t help but do so in many cases; if Marv doesn’t look like a Frank Miller drawing, he doesn’t look like Marv. And so we get artist emulation by default, which is a nice side benefit.

PAINT: Marv, like everyone in Sin City except for a weirdo or two (and a couple of womens’ lips or hair or eyes), is entirely colorless, a man in greyscale. Which is of course not to say that this figure is unpainted; it is, and with quite a high level of detail, too. The lines of his face and his tank top are done very meticulously. Which makes it all the weirder that his belt-buckle has loads of bleed. The skin of Marv is awfully dark; he always seemed paler in the comics. But that may have been just to offset him against his almost uniformly pitch-black backgrounds, yes?

Your humble reviewer must admit, he’s always found black-and-white action figures to be a little odd. In the comics, or movies, or whatever, we know that we’re looking at the world through a lens; we can’t seriously believe that Sin City would be without pigment, were it real. But with an action figure, or other three-dimensional representation, this lens is gone, and so shouldn’t the figure look like the person actually would? But then, wouldn’t a full-color Marv look really weird anyway? It would. The moral: Your humble reviewer is overthinking this.

ARTICULATION: Marv sports a hearty 32 points of articulation, including the aforementioned – and delightful – individual finger joints. They’re good, tight joints throughout, too; indeed, some could reasonably be described as too tight, especially at the elbows. But too tight is, of course, better than its opposite. Now, Marv is one of those big, beefy figures, not quite a Hulk figure, but in that league. And as is usual for such things, this does limit the movement a touch; the hands will never touch each other, for instance. Unless you were to, say, rip them off. Which would not be worth it.

Another little limitation here is the coat, which, stretching quite rightly below the knees, renders a number of joints within fairly moot. It’s a flexible coat, so you can actually move the hidden joints, and set Marv to kicking and jumping and so forth; you just won’t want to pose the figure permanently in such ways. Lest the coat be bent out of shape, you understand. Marv likes his coat, and you should like not pissing Marv off.

ACCESSORIES Now, here we have a little problem: Marv comes with no accessories. No gas can, no razor wire, no Kevin’s head, and above all, no Gladys. Marv needs Gladys! Does Marv even go out without Gladys? It is not right to separate Marv from Gladys. Sure, with the finger articulation, he can hold his hand in pretend-Gladys-shape, but it’s just not the same. (NOTE: Gladys is Marv’s gun).

What Marv does come with is the left arm of Monkeyman, because Monkeyman is the build-a-figure of this wave. And there’s something both appropriate and wildly inappropriate about Marv coming with a piece of a giant ape. He’s a big ape himself, is Marv; on the other hand, an actual giant ape like Monkeyman is way too gonzo for Sin City. But then, this kind of variety is an asset of alt-comics, taken as a whole. In any case, the giant ape in question will be reviewed here soon.

COST & OVERALL IMPRESSION: The individual figures in the Legendary Heroes line run from 10 to 15 dollars, and Marv is no exception. As of this writing, many retailers have yet to begin carrying Marv’s wave of Legendary Heroes, which isr the line’s second. But this, of course, will change, and for those who cannot wait, several online retailers have started vending the Monkeyman wave.

This is not the first Marv figure; but it really is the best. Between its top-notch sculpt, detailed and grim paint job, and superior articulation, it handily takes the prize. It is only a pity that more Sin City characters do not seem to be in the offing for the Legendary Heroes line; Marv could really use someone on whom to beat. Or to not hurt at all, in the case of the girls. Either way, though, if they maintain the standard set by this figure, they’d be some fine, fine figures of some bad, bad people.

CLICK HERE for even more images of Marv.

Review and Photos by Matthew Kessen