Okay fellas, this review only covers the Guardians of the Galaxy movie team. This is what I was most excited for when this series was announced, and while Nova came out fantastic, it made sense to focus on the main film characters and do the comic characters in a separate review. Those will be coming shortly.
Having said that… I love comic book movies. Give me a flick with connections to a comic I love and I’m going to eat it up. Yes, even Daredevil. So when Guardians of the Galaxy was announced, I had a fit. I love the comic, I love the characters, and I love what Marvel Studios has been doing with their properties. And really, this taps into my first toy and movie obsession: Star Wars. A Marvel film in space? Give. Me. So it was a given that I’d buy the toys sight unseen. In fact, it’s the first series in a long time that I preordered. Were they worth the excitement? Let’s see.
First I’m going to throw all of the carded shots at you to get those out of the way.
While I don’t have a lot of use for packaging, I really do like the boxes the Infinite Series has introduced. You see what you’re getting in a nice box, the side art is usually awesome, and while the back is very minimal, it gets the point across. Good job, Hasbro. Then it goes in the trash.
Gamora
I figured I would like this figure the least out of the set, but that’s only half right. She’s my second least favorite. But that’s not saying I don’t like her. She strikes me as a good female form, she stands naturally, and for some reason that does it for me. I say “stand” in the nicest way because she is a pain to keep upright. This is because of a couple of things. First, the joints in the knees and elbows are very rubbery. And second, her feet don’t use the new awesome ankle-tilt-rocker-peg assemblies. They are the old hinge with a swivel straight up into the leg.
But she gets an amazing amount of knee bend.
That’s to make up for the feet and the ab swivel that only turns. It doesn’t crunch forward at all and can move back only slightly. And then there’s the hips.
That’s about as far apart as you can get the legs. Forward and back is great. Outward to the sides, not so much. The way the hips themselves are sculpted causes them to move out this far and bump against the waist piece. But in turn, you get a much nicer silhouette with no drastic break in sculpt at that point. 
What surprised me most is how much I don’t hate the face. I think the sculpt is there and it’s the hair throwing it off. The hair is completely wrong even though it’s painted with a nice transition from black to a shiny red. The hair should have more body, cover more of her face, and be longer — the restrictions of toy manufacturing. Another thing I didn’t notice until I had the figure in hand was how her top is reminiscent of her comic costume, at least in the strips that form a semi-V shape from waist to neck.
Okay, it’s not exact, and it’s toned waaaaay down, but it’s there.
And I apologize for this shot. I was trying to show more of the knee movement and she ended up this way.
Rocket Raccoon
I love Rocket Raccoon. Just such an off-the-wall concept that you can’t help liking him. And from what I’ve seen, I’m going to like him on-screen. That’s why this figure comes in as my least liked of the series. I don’t hate him, but yeah — you get what I’m saying.
First of all, he has no articulation below the waist. While the waist is a ball, it doesn’t get a lot of movement. Same with the ball neck. The tail has a little more movement on a ball but you have to use it to keep him standing. From there it’s hinge/swivel shoulders and elbows. Aaaand that’s it. I can understand why, given the shape and size, but the knees are in the pants and bigger than the elbows. I don’t know. Frustrating.
It took me a minute to figure out that his gun works much better slung over his shoulder. It has padding in the loop like it’s supposed to sit there, so I figured why not? Much easier than trying to get him to hold it with just the handle peg or with both hands. The gun is nicely sculpted and has a bit of weathering. I dig it.
While I’m glad to have the movie version to go with the team, I still have more love for the comic Rocket. Even though it has the same limitations and articulation scheme, he doesn’t look quite so much like an Earth-bound raccoon (as he should), and he’s in my favorite GOTG uniform ever. I’m going to have to get that SDCC Marvel Legends set…
Star-Lord
Look closely at my Star-Lord’s left elbow. The plastic is so rubbery that’s it’s stuck in a twisted position, causing the forearm to turn outward. Same with the other elbow, but at least it’s fairly straight. Oddly enough, the knees aren’t rubbery. Crazy factory plastic.
Star-Lord comes with two heads. One with a bad-ass mask, one with a bad ass-face. Okay, that’s harsh, but I couldn’t pass it up. I want to chalk up the bad Pratt likeness to paint, but I can’t prove that until I see it repainted, either by me or any number of more talented people. Until then my Star-Lord wears a mask.
He also comes with a Walkman, headphones, a backpack, and the mystery Happy Fun Ball that everyone wants.
I prefer him without the backpack. It’s a cool backpack and looks great, but the straps over and under the shoulder just don’t lay right. The strap easily unpegs and then the whole thing slides, which you have to do to get this to work…
This mega chest blaster comes with Rocket, probably to avoid the feeling of buying a half empty package when you pick up Rocket. I’ve seen this gun in one of the trailers, so it’s nice to have, but I’ll never display him with it. The back of the gun conforms to Quill’s chest and the sides slide under the coat for a very secure fit. He doesn’t even have to hold it up; it stay by itself, which is good because I forgot to mention his hands are rubbery too, which is okay because he can still hold his double pistols.
He has individually sculpted fingers on his rubbery hands so it’s easy to get his index into the trigger guards. Not the tightest fit, but I didn’t have the guns fall out at all while posing. They kind of remind me of a laser tag game I had when I was a kid. And that’s okay, I loved those guns then, love them now.
The sculpt is fantastic all around, and the paint on the jacket gives a nice dirty leather feel. They even sculpted his ankle thrusters.
Groot
Groot is the Build-A-Figure of the wave, which is awesome. Almost like the team was planned around a toy line. He’s packed with details, from random green spots to twigs and branches sticking out, to the solemn look on his face.
What shocked me was the rocker-peg ankles were integrated into Groot’s funky feet design. It’s crazy. On the flip side, the hips peg upward, so it’s a bit difficult to get forward-and-back movement in the legs.
While the whole team when separate feels to be in scale with each other, it’s when you try to perch Rocket up on Groot that something looks off. Not terrible, just off.
But that’s okay. Rocket doesn’t stay up there very well anyway.
Drax
When I was editing the pics I realized how far I had the abs pushed back, making the neck look odd, so I took this pic in a more natural-looking position.
I’m put off by how much I like Drax. The tattoos are a huge departure from the comic, but I still like him. He just may be my favorite of the team. He doesn’t have the rubbery joints like Star-Lord and Gamora do. He strikes some excellent, natural poses. He looks intimidating.
Out of the five figures, I keep picking up Drax. The details, the paint, the knives that I have no idea whether I have facing the right way or not. And the knives sheathe in his boots, I didn’t know that! Total package, I love this figure.
All in all, I’m happy with these figures for the most part. The expressions are a little neutral, almost like they are bored, but I really think they are based on that first pic we saw way back when. Drax’s eyes are even looking in the same direction.
Sure, I can nitpick on the toys, and rightfully so, but at the end of the day, the series has a couple of huge things going for it in my eyes. First, this is my most anticipated movie coming from Marvel at the moment. Yes, I want to see this more than Avengers: Age of Ultron. And B, how often can we knock out a whole team in one swoop? I like the figures, I really do, and to be done with them in one box delivery makes me wish every team ever only had five members. Plus, they look great together.
