The Incredible Hulk is the latest action figure from Bandai’s S.H. Figuarts Avengers: Age of Ultron line, and he is awesome! I know that I’ll get some abuse over this, but this is my favorite Hulk action figure to date. He is not without flaws, but he is just about pure perfection.
The Avengers: Age of Ultron is still a movie that I have trouble swallowing, having seen it in the theaters with a very bad 3D experience, and then falling asleep to it on an Air France flight with a teeny tiny monitor, my impression of the film is less than good. I’m waiting for the Blu-ray release to see if the controlled home experience fares better. But I love the characterization of Hulk in both Avengers movies and feel they’ve really hit it out of the ballpark. Hot Toys did an amazing job with their Hulk, Figma’s Hulk looks to be spot-on, so anyone stepping into this field is gonna have to really step it up.
Enter Bandai’s S.H. Figuarts Hulk. When this Hulk was first advertised, I had reservations about the scale, as most S.H. Figuarts fall into a 5.5-inch to true 6-inch scale. This means that they are significantly smaller than Marvel Legends, but that picture of Hulk and the listing size gave me hope that he would be huge and suitable for Marvel Legends. I’ve been let down before by Figma (their scale is all over the place) and S.H. Figuarts (undersized Darth Vader), so I was skeptical with the listings.
And Bandai did it! Not necessarily with the exact movie likeness, but they made an awesome Hulk. This is by far my favorite sculpt of a Hulk figure yet. The body sculpt is perfect for what I consider modern superhero Hulk to look like. He’s not beast-like the movie Hulk (Figma seems to capture that look), but he’s spot-on for a comic or cartoon version of the Hulk. I’ve read a number of complaints that the sculpt is too cartoonish for a movie Hulk, and I will agree with that. Since I was hoping for something more comic/cartoon-related, this is the perfect Hulk for me. He looks great standing next to Marvel Legends Black Panther and the other modern Marvel Legends I have on the shelf. There are complaints about the integration of the articulation, sculpt, and that Hulk looks too “mechanical,” and I see the argument, but I think the integration is pretty sharp. The big glaring issue for me is the space on the upper arm above the lower arm, this gap could be cleaned up. I’m not certain if it was intentionally sculpted this way or if it was a result of the articulation assembly, but it is noticeable.
The head sculpt is getting some grief from a number of collectors, and I do agree with them that head is the weakest part of the sculpt. Both of them. While I like the head as an anime version, it doesn’t fit with my need for a comic Hulk head. It’s also small. Even for S.H. Figuarts scale, the head is really small. I like to think Hulk’s head grew a little in the transition from Banner to the green goliath. I’d love to have Phil Ramierz or Gentle Giant put out a new head on Shapeways that I could buy as a replacement.
I need to round out the sculpt talk by saying that this Hulk has the perfect balance of bulk, from the side and from back to front. This is a big, giant piece of plastic that doesn’t suffer from being too narrow shoulder to shoulder (Avengers: Age of Ultron Hulk) or not thick enough front to back (The Avengers Hulk). He’s a big, bulky piece of plastic that screams “Hulk.”
The articulation is almost perfect. There are two areas of improvement in an otherwise perfect scheme. The hips are limited. This Hulk will never sit in a chair; his upper thighs and waist don’t have enough space to achieve this. But he can get into decent crouches, so we can argue about how critical this is. The other area of improvement is the neck. Hulk has some trouble looking up. I know as a jade giant he spends most of his time looking down at people, but when Thor’s barreling down on him from the heavens, it might do some good. Plus, it would be cool to be able to pose him in action sequences where he has to look up.
Other than that, the articulation is damn perfect. I mean spot-on. He’s got all the movement you could hope for in a figure, so much cool posing potential, and he plays well. The shoulder joint is a ball hinge on a ball stick that gives a great range of motion. I was concerned about it at first since it was a ball sitting on the top of the shoulder, but it really works well. And it doesn’t look terrible. The ball ab-joint also works really well and it’s a pleasure to be able to get some fantastic posing from this joint.
The color of Hulk is odd. I mean, he’s green, but he’s almost fluorescent or glow-in-the-dark green. I prefer a darker green, but Hulk has been lighter on a few occasions. The problem is the green looks soft — just look at the pics with Hasbro’s and ToyBiz’s Hulk. Bandai did nail the shading, though. The airbrush work really makes this Hulk pop.
Should you get this Hulk? I think so. He’s a great scale and fit for Marvel Legends, he looks great with other S.H. Figuarts, and he is hand candy. He comes with two sets of hands, fists and grabby; and two heads, normal and screamy. This isn’t a lot of accessories when compared to other S.H. Figuarts, but the overall size of Hulk makes that easy to ignore.
I’d try to point you to a retailer but he’s pretty much sold out everywhere. Try amazon.com or eBay.
