Hasbro Marvel Legends Infinite Vulture/Flight Pack Series review
|
It's summer blockbuster season. And the latest addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe is none other than Spider-Man Homecoming. And of course
Hasbro is ready with another series of Marvel Legends Infinite figures. This series includes Spider-Man in his new movie costume of course. It also
gives us Spider-man in his first, homemade costume from the film. It also includes the film's villain, the Vulture. And then to round out the
series, it also includes four additional comic based characters: Tombstone, Beetle, Moon Knight and Spider-Man in is Cosmic Spider-Man outfit. They
also did something new and interesting for the series' Build A Figure. It isn't a figure this time around. Instead, each figure in the series comes
with one portion of the Vulture's jet pack from the movie. It's an interesting idea. But I'm concerned that the jet pack will feel like a poor
consolation in place of a full-fledged figure.
Packaging - Tombstone & Beetle 4/10, others 6/10The packaging for the Vulture series is the same design as Hasbro has been using for the line for the last few years. I've given my thoughts about the design numerous times, so I won't rehash them again in detail. But in short, the design is attractive and collector friendly. But they lack any substantial character information. And with more obscure characters like Tombstone and Cosmic Spider-Man, that information would be very useful.
Sculpting - Vuture 6/10, Hoodie Spider-Man & Beetle 8/10, Others 7/10My initial reaction upon seeing the figures in this series is that Hasbro wanted to be able to go all out on the sculpting for the Homecoming movie figures and likely padded out the series with figures that required minimal effort for sculpting. And I guess that is true for Cosmic Spider-Man. But even that figure was given two extra heads which they didn't need to include. Beetle looked like he used a generic body. But upon closer inspection at least the top portion of the torso and the top of the arms are new with slightly thicker and angular shapes. It gives a nice suggestion of body armor being built into the suit which would make sense. And overall the figure looks sharp. The same holds true for Tombstone. I was expecting a repaint of Power Man with a new head. But if the sculpt is reused, I can not find its original use. The main thing holding this figure back is that as with the Cyclops figure from the Warlock series, the cuffs for his gloves and boots are not secured in place in any way. Moon Knight is base on a newer design than I'm familiar with. It looks a lot like it is based on the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon. It's a good likeness from what I can tell. But the design is too simple for my tastes, especially when lined up with all of the other comic and movie based figures. Moving on to the Homecoming movie figures we'll start with Spidey's homemade suit. This appears to be a completely new figure and it has a lot of detail. But it has a few small details which I find annoying. The arms and legs have way more wrinkles and folds sculpted in than those materials should have. The googles over his eyes don't protrude the way they should and do in the movie. They also included a hood-down, crumpled hood, but it doesn't actually attach to the figure so unless you reposition it constantly, it often looks silly. It's still an impressive looking figure. But there are a few tweaks that could have helped it quite a bit. The regular Homecoming Spider-Man is the same figure as was included in the Civil War three pack with Captain America and Iron Man last year, but with a new head. The design of the suit seems to be quite accurate. But it seems like they got the texture wrong. The Spidey suit he wears in Civil War and Homecoming appeared relatively smooth. The figure looks more like the Amazing Spider-Man movie designs where the suit had a lot of texture detail. Finally we come to Vulture who I can best describe a half of two really cool figures mashed together. Vulture spends most of the movie without his flight pack or helmet. So a figure depicting that would have been great. Of course, since the BAF for the series is the flight pack, it would also make sense to just complete that look. But instead we got a figure that doesn't come with the complete flight pack, but has the mechanical legs/feet of the flight pack permanently sculpted to its feet. And he is sculpted with his bomber jacket zipped up with little of the fur collar exposed, but it doesn't include the harness that should be across his chest when he has the flight pack attached. So if you buy the figure and don't intend to get the entire series to complete the flight pack, he looks fairly silly.
Paint - Homecoming Spider-Man 5/10, Moon Knight 7/10, Vulture 10/10, others 8/10While I might not have been overly impressed with the sculpting for Vulture, the paint work is another matter entirely. It's beautiful. His outfit has a ton of small detail and much of it is painted and painted well. Tombstone, Cosmic Spider-Man, Beetle and homemade costume Spider-Man all have decent paint applications as well. But their paint applications are not nearly as ambitious as the Vutlure's. Moon Knight doesn't have much paint work at all which only further reinforces the animated look of the figure. I'm assuming that is intentional, so I can't complain about it too much. But I definitely prefer the more detailed look of the other figures. The regular Homecoming Spider-Man figure is the one real disappointment for paint work in this series. This version far better than the Civil War three pack version which was much too dark. That version's blue portions were nearly navy blue. This version is a much lighter shade of blue, but still too dark. They painted on the black lines on the legs, but the blue is so dark that they are barely visible. It's disappointing that this is the second time I've bought this figure and the paint work is a big let down on both.
Articulation - 9/10Hasbro has really dialed in the articulation for these figures. Each figure has over thirty points of articulation which affords them a tremendous range of motion. And most importantly the quality control is spot on for all of the figures. There are no loose or stuck joints on any of my figures. There have been more articulated entries in the Marvel Legends line in the past. But I'm alright with scaling back on some of the articulation if it means that all the articulation will remain usable.
Accessories - Cosmic Spider-Man 7/10, Hoodie Spider-Man 5/10, Moon Knight & Homecoming Spidey 4/10, others 0/10Only four of the seven figures come with any accessories. Cosmic Spider-Man has two alternate heads, one with an exposed mouth and a fully unmasked head. Both look great and are a nice bonus since it would have been very easy for this figure to have no accessories. Homecoming Spider-Man with homemade costume comes with an alternative set of hands and an alternative hood. The extra hands give you a match set of fists and web shooting hands when matched to the default hands. The extra hood is cool as well. But you do have to remove his head to switch the hoods which is annoying and seems unnecessary. The regular Homecoming Spider-Man also comes with a second set of hands, a spare head and removeable webbing that can plug in under his arms. The extra head just has the eyes narrowed which doesn't seem all that exciting to me. But the more annoying issue is that the pegs for the webbing are very small. So one of mine will fall out very easily. And once they fall out, they are going to be lost quickly. Moon Knight comes with a second set of hands with fully closed fists, a battle staff and an assortment of crescent moon throwing blades. The staff is recycled from various previously released Daredevil figures. It's a decent arsenal. But he can't really hold the throwing blades or store any of the weapons which is disappointing. Neither Beetle nor Tombstone have any accessories, unless you count Beetle's wings. But since they are not something that you are generally going to be removing from the figure, I'm not counting them as accessories. Finally you come to Vulture. He comes with part of the flight pack and a stand to support the completed flight pack. But as the flight pack is the Build A Figure for the series, I wouldn't call them accessories. And there are definitely accessories that the figure should have. First and foremost, he could use an unmasked head with a decent likeness of Micheal Keaton. He spent most of the movie without the helmet on. So it would have been nice to have an unmasked head. And more importantly, they could have made the claws for the flight pack removeable. But this figure has neither of those things.
Build A Figure - Flight PackHasbro tried something different with this series in that the Build a Figure is not a figure. Instead, each figure comes with one section of the Vulture's large wings/flight pack from the Homecoming movie. You do need to purchase all seven figures to complete the flight pack. Once you have all seven parts assembled, it creates a flight pack with an impressive twenty two inch wingspan and a dozen points of articulation. That all sounds impressive. But when assembled, the final product doesn't live up to its promise. The wings are large. But they are quite flat and the articulation doesn't really do that much. So in the end, the flight pack is a neccessary addition, but a poor substitute for a full Build A Figure.
Value - Homecoming Spider-Man 6/10, Vulture (without flight pack) 4/10, Vulture (with flight pack) & others 8/10As usual, the retail price for a Marvel Legends Infinite figure ranges from around $19 to $23 depending upon where you buy them. For me, a long term Marvel Legends collector who loves to expand the roster of my Marvel plastic Universe, these are some great additions to my line up. The only two figures I have an issue with are Homecoming Spider-Man and Vulture. This is the second time I have bought this Spider-Man figure and I'm still not satisfied with either. So if they come up with another repaint, I know I will feel the need to buy a third. Without his flight pack, the Vulture figure is simply incomplete and rather awkward looking with those long, claw legs. Fortunately I would have ended up buying all seven figures from this series regardless of the inclusion of the wings as a BAF. With the wings, he is no longer incomplete. He's actually a pretty cool looking figure. But to get him to that point, you have to sacrafice the Build A Figure that fans have come to expect with this line. And that's not an insubstantial loss.
Happy Hunting:The Vulture/Flight Pack series of Marvel Legends figures have just begun showing up in stores within the last couple of weeks which conviniently coinsides with the release of Spider-Man Homecoming in theaters. I purchased a case of the figures from Big Bad Toy Store, mostly as they were one of the first online stores to have them available. (BTW, a case of eight figures includes a full set of all seven figures plus a spare Homecoming Spider-Man.) I haven't seen regular shipments of the figures to traditional retailers in my area yet. But both Target and Walmart stores have been recieving promotional displays that have a variety of Homecoming toys including a few of the Marvel Legends Infinite figures. So some of them are making it out to local stores even if they still have a healthy supply of previous series figures on the pegs. But eventually we should see more stock hitting store shelves.
|
|
