REVIEW: Legendary Comic Book Heroes - BODY BAGS 2-Pack

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Alternative comics have always gotten away with a good bit more ‘adult content’ than have Marvel and DC, particularly because they are often not aimed at children. And Marvel Toys’ Legendary Comic Book Heroes line reflects this exciting fact, to some degree. Most of the figures in the line have been from pretty harmless comics, to be sure – “Monkeyman and O’Brien,” “Cyber Force” – but then there’s Marv, from the ultra-violent “Sin City.” And Witchblade, who is, essentially, buck naked, in this most recent figure manifestation. And Jason Pearson’s Body Bags, which has recently seen its main characters released in figure form, in a twin pack, which we’ll discuss here today.

“Body Bags” is the story of Mack “Clownface” Delgado, and his young daughter Panda. They have zany adventures in the city of Terminus, Georgia, where by ‘have zany adventures’ we here mean ‘engage in contract killing.’ It’s a comic loaded with bloodshed, and also has gained some infamy for the fact that Panda, a 14-year-old girl, is depicted with a hyper-voluptuous sexiness that would make Hugh Hefner blush. (Seriously, many have remarked on the superhuman, er, proportions of women in comics, but Panda’s in a ballpark all her own.) “The Amazing Spider-Man” this ain’t. Also, there’s cursing!

PACKAGING: Clownface and Panda come in the standard Legendary Heroes packaging, which is pretty basic and straightforward. The card is blue, and the bubble a simple rectangle. An insert in the front of the card identifies, and depicts, the characters; on either side of the bubble are montages of “Body Bags” comic-covers. On the back, there are overviews of the first two Legendary Heroes waves, as well as a short biography of our characters. The biography – a pretty common feature of action figure packaging – is particularly welcome here. Throughout the Legendary Heroes line, the risk of character obscurity is run, and your humble reviewer must admit that he had absolutely no idea who these two characters were, when first he saw them. So it’s good packaging, it’s nice packaging, but it’s Marvel Toys, and that means articulation; take it out of the packaging.

SCULPTING: Clownface’s sculpt is very accurate to the comic’s design, which is a striking and nicely bizarre one, so that’s good. The recessed eyes are especially nice, as is the texturing on the slacks. Clownface has a chain hanging from his belt, because hired assassins are generally very concerned about their wallets being stolen; here, that chain is a real, metal chain. And that’s awesome. Finally, note that this figure is huge, tall and broad, on a scale reminiscent of Marvel Legends Hulk figures. It is, in fact, the biggest of all the Legendary Heroes figures thus far, not counting the build-a-figures.

Conversely, little Panda is the smallest of all the articulated figures in this line to date. Like papa, she is commendably comic-accurate, colossal bosom, skirt so short it’s essentially a belt, and all. She’s got a look of demented glee on her face; the detailing on the hair is a nice touch. The big, hoop earrings, sticking out from the ears, are good looking as well.

PAINT: In both of these figures’ cases, the color scheme is very simple, mostly just blacks and browns. And this is handled perfectly competently. There’s no significant bleed to be seen. On the other hand, nor is there anything really impressive, in terms of paint – no shading, or the like. Still, the paint job gets the job done, and we’ll give it a pass.

ARTICULATION: Clownface sports 29 points of articulation, which isn’t bad for a beefy figure such as this. Much of this number is arrived at through the miracle of individual finger articulation, and that’s nice to see. The ribcage joint is a standout, as well, being tight enough to allow some lurching poses that look pretty great on a guy like this. This tightness of joint recurs throughout the figure, and is indeed almost overdone at the hips and knees – you’ve really got to yank on those to get them to move. But then, too tight is, of course, better than not tight enough.

Panda commits the twin action figure sins of tininess and femaleness, and the wages of action figure sin are reduced numbers of joints. Panda has only 17 points of articulation. This is very low in Legendary Heroes terms; in small-figure-with-toothpick-thin-limbs terms, though, it’s not too bad. A lot of the joints on this figure are of the ball-and-socket kind, too, which allows a superior range of motion. So you can get a pretty decent range of poses out of Panda. The only really glaring omission is in the lack of elbow joints of any kind whatsoever. Maybe she just never bends her elbows in the comics?

ACCESSORIES: Mr. Delgado comes with a pair of enormous knives. They’re long-handled and evil-looking, though in a realistic sort of way, rather than a heavy-metal sort of way. When he is not slaughtering his fellow human beings with them, he may store them in a pair of sheathes hanging on his belt. They’re good-looking sheathes for good-looking knives, so thumbs up here.

Panda, on the other hand, is not old enough for any accessories of her own. Okay, yes, she has a gun, but it’s sculpted right into her hand. And, while Panda likely does quite a lot of shooting, it would have been nice for her to be able to put down her gun from time to time. To type, say, or eat a bag of popcorn, or to play a sport of some kind.

COST & OVERALL IMPRESSION: Like the Conan and Wrarrl twin pack, this pack has a retail price of 20 dollars, give or take a few. Unlike Conan and pal, this pack seems fairly thin on the ground, at least in your humble reviewer’s town. But the secondary market shall surely avail you.

It was a gutsy move, in a way, for Marvel Toys to release this two-pack. Elsewhere in the Legendary Heroes line, obscure characters are seeing sales based on the presence of a build-a-figure part in their packaging. But no such selling point exists here – and it’s an especially unknown pair of characters. “Body Bags” fans should reward Marvel Toys by running out and buying this pack, post-haste. But even people who’ve never heard of the comic should be able to appreciate these figures; they’re well-sculpted, nicely articulated, and just generally recommended.

CLICK HERE for even more images of this two-pack.

Review and Photos by Matthew Kessen