Magneto got his start as a Marvel Legend in Toy Biz’s Series 3 along side Thor, Wolverine, Ghost Rider and movie Daredevil. It was another grand wave of action figures from Toy Biz, Thor is always a collector favorite, Wolverine is the most popular mutant ever, Ghost Rider is visually cool and Magneto is the baddest of the bad. It was another stellar entry into the Marvel Legends universe.
Magneto is a great great character and he’s seen quite a few entries into the Marvel Legends and X-Men Classics over the years, but there always seems to be something off about his sculpts. The character, Erik Lehnsherr, had his first appearance in Marvel Comics The X-Men way back in 1963; 10 years before I was born. He’s great old character that’s been villain, hero, and something inbetween. These days he’s part of Cyclops anger management group and seems to be balancing his lust of life with revenge ok. I grew up knowing him as the father of the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, and for the next few years we’ll know him as nobody’s dad. I guess. Who knows, the Marvel Universe just got plunged into another state of chaos where soft rebooting will occur over the next year.
His sculpt is based on the Series 1 Iron Man and it somewhat of a contention point amongst collectors. Many believe that he should have launched on the Series 1 Captain America base while others think that was too big. Collectors for the most part agreed the Iron Man base was a bit on the large side. And even current releases draw criticism. What we can say is that Toy Biz erred on the better side of large and they sculpted one of the best head/helmet heads ever!
The head sculpts from the early days really had all this great character in them and Magneto is no different. It is Magneto, there is no question about that, and whether you want to portray him as villian, hero, or gray matter he’s got the perfect face for it. And the helmet just fits on this figure, there are not issues with the size, shape or looseness. It’s perfection.
The articulation is the same as Series 1 Iron Man, bit for bit. There was no improvement or change made to the figure, which is fine as the articulation works for the most part. The ab-joint needs more range of motion but otherwise there is very little to criticize. Here is the breakdown:
Rocker ankles
Hinged ankles
Swivel calves
Double hinged knees
Thigh swivels
Ball hips
Ball waist
Ball chest
Rocker shoulders
Ball shoulders
Swivel biceps
Double hinged elbows
Swivel forearms
Hinged wrists
Hinged fingers
Ball neck
Ball head
During these early series of figures we were treated to some amazing bases. Magneto comes with the ruins of a Sentinel and it is beautifully sculpted. It’s clearly not a full size Sentinel but it was big enough to give collectors hope of a large Sentinel at some point in the future. The base was wall mountable, a very important feature for many collectors of Marvel Legends.
The figure still stands as the best Magneto figure made, from sculpt, size, helmet, and base this is a great figure. You can pick him today at:
