Hasbro’s announcement of the upcoming Marvel Legends females in various assortments at SDCC this year had me going through my boxes of new and old Marvel Legends to see how the female has developed over the years. From the first female, Elektra in Series 4, to the latest, Medusa in the Thanos Imperative box set, the Marvel Legends female sure has changed a lot. And for the better.
To go back and slam previous figures is a difficult thing to do. At the time, Elektra was the pinnacle of action figure collecting. Yes, I was harsh on the hippy hinges on the figure, but I liked the overall aesthetic of the female. Spawn Toys produced beautifully unarticulated female statues that were beautiful, gorgeous figures. Clay Moore was also doing some incredible work with limited articulated figures. Elektra was an attempt to marry beautiful sculpting with articulation.
Eventually the Elektra buck was updated, but not before we had to live with some… variations. Black Cat and Rogue shared the Elektra base. Rogue, well, she had some other issues besides the hippy hinge. Shortly after ToyBiz started to make adjustments to the Elektra buck, one with a hinged hip that gave a better range of motion while preserving the sculpt — it was an improvement! Invisible Woman and Black Widow were the recipients of this upgrade. Evenutally a traditional ball hip was used on figures like Ms Marvel, Phoenix, and Dark Phoenix.
But none of these improvements fixed the one major flaw of the original Elektra figure: the marionette look. While articulation and sculpt were starting to meet and make a female action figure, there were still some issues. The female figure was tall, like ’90s supermodel tall, but she never captured that 5’8″ catchall female height. Then there was the marionette problem. For whatever reason, no matter how hard they tried, the Marvel Legends women looked like marionettes and not miniature representation of women.
And don’t think for one second that I think I could have done better. Lord knows I tried to customize a better female, even sculpted a couple from scratch. But always failing.
After Elektra, Toy Biz rolled up their sleeves and started working on the problem. While they were still working on their Elektra issues, they also started work on other body types, Series 8 Storm is a great example of huge improvements. The X-Men Classics Rogue’s were another great example of forward progress, although they had some hip issues.
But there were some continued bombs. Series 10 and Series 11 gave us Scarlet Witch and Mystique. And while we praised the prototype of Scarlet Witch, we villified the actual figure. Even to this day, the figure is hated by collectors. Just when we were seeing great strides forward, both sculpt and articulation took a horrible turn for the worse. One thing that both figures got right? The scale — that magic five foot eight inches was spot-on!
We would see some advancement of sculpt, articulation, and scale with the Walmart-exclusive Giant-Man Series Kitty Pryde. There were some production issues but the reuse of the Jessica Alba body was a good one. And by Series 14 we saw some excellent work on the Psylocke figure. To be honest, this is my favorite ToyBiz-era figure, and it would have been so easy to redo every single Marvel Legends female with sculpt, making changes to the upper chest as needed. They had hit the mark with making a female figure look like a female and incorporating sculpt into the articulation! It was phenomenal.
Which makes the Series 15 Wasps and Spider-Women debacle so damn confusing. All steps forward, horribly reversed. Why not just stick with the Psylocke base? Ya’ll nailed it.
And thus ended the ToyBiz era of Marvel Legends.
Hasbro took a while to get it right as well. Their lead off figure of Emma Frost in the Annihilus Series was as much of a catastrophe as Scarlet Witch. I mean, I think the Internet crashed with hate, watching the few apologists out there make pitiful arguments for this female sculpt was good entertainment. Their second attempt in the Blob Series consisted of Movie Phoenix and She-Hulk, both of which came out well, and She-Hulk is one of my favorite figures.
What should have been the best female figure ever made was Invisible Woman. We wanted a single-carded version during the ToyBiz era, but we were force-fed box set versions. But Hasbro heard us. The released the Ronan Series, a series of all Fantastic Four action figures. A series with a single carded Invisible Woman. A series with a mixed result. On one hand it looked OK. It lacked the super articulation of figures past, and yet it was very… normal. It looked like a plain-jane female. Collectors weren’t certain what to make of the figure. It lacked athleticism, and yet it looked like a woman. Just an average woman. It was odd. The buck was later used in the Hasbro 2-packs, and, well… I like it. The hips joints are a bit off, but I like it. Hasbro was onto something.
And then, they, too, abandoned success. Granted, Hasbro’s Brood Series Rachel Grey was a great figure for teenage girls, way better than ToyBiz’s Apocalypse Series 12 X-23. It was a great teen buck.
It seemed that Hasbro was finally figuring out the female buck. We were starting to see great strides with Invisible Woman, Rachel Grey, and all they needed was that athletic “superhero” build. And they gave it to us in the SDCC Shanna The She-Devil and Ka-Zar exclusive and Foom Series She-Hulk. A fantastic build and one that they should have continued to build on! But they didn’t. The buck and all potential was abandoned.
The Red Hulk Series saw a character-specific sculpt in Spiral, and the Ares Series lacked a female. Another female sculpt popped onto our radars, a fantastic one! The Nemesis Series saw the release of Tigra! For a female sculpt, this was another excellent attempt by Hasbro, but while it lacked super-posability, it seemed that Hasbro was finally building a good staple of bucks that could be reused. Except none of them were. Ever. Invisible Woman, Shanna, Rachel Grey, Tigra — all had great potential and then disappeared.
Hasbro decided to reboot the female sculpt with the release of the 2-pack Shield agents and Elektra and Skrull Elektra — a new female buck that was almost super-poseable and awesome appeared on the scene and would eventually be used in every series starting with Terrax and continuing through the Puck Series. While the buck has received some criticism (she’s too tall, looks like a supermodel, needs to eat a burger, etc.), she has been a huge staple of our modern Marvel Legends collections. And, let’s face it, it is a good buck.
Never being satisfied with the female form seems to be a theme. And in 2013, Hasbro introduced a new female buck in the SDCC Exclusive Thunderbolts box set. And to much collector rejoice, she was accepted. Looking like something straight out of a Frank Cho comic, Moonstone and Satana were instant hits. We even saw her release on an Updated Black Cat! And thankfully, the buck continues to be hit as we will see it used on Ms. Marvel, Captain Marvel, and Spider-Woman.
Hasbro even released another version of this buck, with updated hips and breasts! A sleeker, slimmer, more streamlined version in the SDCC Thanos Imperative Medusa and Jubilee Series Storm. It’s a beautiful sculpt and reminds me of the female swimmers I used to watch back in the old college days.
Finally, Hasbro recognizes the need for a tween buck and gave us one. First appearing in Spider-Man Marvel Legends Infinites, Spider-Girl completed a fantastic journey of female figures. This new tween buck would be released again as Jubilee and I hope to see more figures using this buck in the near future.
Going back and looking at this evolution has been a treat. It’s great to see the different sculpts and interpretations throughout the years. Each attempt either at stuffing as much articulation as possible or trying to get the female form correct has been enjoyable to watch. In the end, I’m impressed with the current Hasbro attempts and I look forward to the continued evolution.
