Hulk made his debut in Marvel Legends back in 2002 in Toy Biz’s Series 1, featuring Captain America, Iron Man, and Toad. This was the series that changed toy collecting for many, many, many young persons with disposable incomes. And it was a series that reeled in a strong fan base.
Hulk is still an amazing figure. It is far from perfect, but at the time the figure sported one of the best sculpts out there. Phil Ramirez did an amazing job capturing Hulk’s comic look and turning it into a plastic art piece. While there have been some really good Hulks over the decades in Marvel Legends, this one continues to be a standout. The amount of detail and the exaggeration of the musculature are simply perfect. The sculpt screams power and anger, as though it’s almost ready to jump of your shelf and beat you silly. The head sculpt is beautiful; if Ramirez can be credited with anything, it is the amazing head sculpts that he produced throughout his early tour in Marvel Legends. He really did a great job capturing the essence of the character, bringing them to life, while owning them in his own style.
While the sculpting is amazing, there were some small problems. Proportions really killed this figure; it’s a huge, top-heavy figure with a lower body, legs and feet, that don’t seem to match the bulk of the upper body. The sculpting on the lower half of Hulk is just as top-notch as the upper body, but just a tad on the short side. The figure would benefit from a little longer leg and an overall thicker lower body build.
The articulation needed to be improved in a couple of areas. The hips are standard t-crotches, a holdover from the 5-inch figure days. This was more than likely engineered this way to ensure stability of the legs, but it would be great to see this figure with ball-jointed hips to go with the thigh swivels. And the thigh swivels are really well done. Often with mid-thigh swivels, one can get the sense of the thigh being cut in half, but this isn’t the case with Hulk. And Hulk has rocker ankles! With rocker ankles, tight knee joints, and thigh swivels, the figure demands ball hips.
The upper body has some articulation needs as well. The rocker shoulders are done in the old way with a single hinge moving the shoulders forward. While this is incredibly effective, it leaves a huge gap in the back; not a huge issue unless you are displaying him so you can see his back or taking a picture of him from behind. He’s also lacking bicep swivels! We got them in Cap and Iron Man, but poor Hulk was denied them. And finally, Hulk’s hands. In theory, these were a great idea, but the execution was off; Hulk came with rubber hands. The idea was more than likely to have wires in them allowing for bendy articulation. This wasn’t the case. There was no wire. The hands were useless slappy hands. ToyBiz attempted to remedy this by releasing Hulk with articulated hands that were, well, odd. They were posed for grabbing with a hinge for making a fist, but it just didn’t work.
The paint deserves mention, the factory did a great job of capturing Ed Wires beautifully painted prototype and mass-producing it. Often prototype paint jobs make it through production looking great, but ToyBiz was very consistent in making the transition as smooth as possible. From the overall paint apps to the washes to the details, these are great-looking figures.
Hulk comes with a base that he pose on. The base can be posed on a desktop or it can be hung from a wall. However you want to hang your base, you can hang it. However, it is a well known fact that collectors dump bases into their base storage box where the bases are never heard from again.
For the serious Marvel Legends collector, Hulk is a must have for your collection. There is no beating around the bush, but all of Series 1 needs to be displayed in their own shrine in your collections. You can still find this Hulk on:
