The latest Marvel Legends wave is Black Panther themed and includes four figures from the upcoming Black Panther film: Nakia, Black Panther, Killmonger, and the Build-A-Figure is Okoye. Hasbro has been making great strides of late toward perfecting likenesses in the film based figures, so I was looking forward to these. Let’s take a look!
Black Panther comes with fists, claw hands and an unmasked head sculpt.
I think the likeness is pretty good here, though not quite as nice as some of the other figures in this wave.
The masked head has a ton of really nice detail etched in there, but some of the silver marks are a little sloppy.
I love the option of the fists, and they pop on easily enough and stay fairly secure.
The body has all of the requisite techno details carved into the costume, and his frame is appropriately lithe. I really like it, but there is some slight awkwardness around where the shoulders attach to the pectoral hinges. It feels like there is a little too much space between the arms and the biceps.
The articulation is Marvel Legends standard with the addition of the pectoral hinges:
- Ball-and-socket neck
- Swivel/hinge neck, shoulders, hips, wrists and ankles
- Double-hinged elbows and knees
- Bicep and thigh swivels
- Single-hinged pectoral muscles
The paint is pretty simple and mostly consists of silver highlights on the body, some done better than others.
At first glance, Killmonger is basically Black Panther with gold highlights, so he reminds me a little of the costume from the Priest run on the character. Looking closer, there are so many costume details; it’s actually really cool.
The costume has a lot of tiny dots that echoes the ritual scarification the character has all over his body. It looks especially cool on the mask.
Killmonger comes with a sword and a knife. Both are cast in a slightly soft plastic that came out bent from the packaging.
He also has an extra set of hands to hold the weapons.
The paint has some drybrushing to try and bring out the dots on the body and there is also a neat, subtle black leopard print on the body.
The articulation is the same as Black Panther and works well. I think I prefer the overall profile of Killmonger to Black Panther.
Nakia is one of the most stunning likenesses on any figure I own. I’m so impressed with how much the figure resembles Lupita Nyong’o, and the printing process doesn’t look as pixelated as most figures using this tech.
Nakia comes with a couple of rings that I assume to be a weapon of some kind. The weapons have some nice sculptural detail to them.
The costume sculpt has an amazing amount of detail to it and Hasbro made an effort to match the paint details of the outfit through a variety of techniques. The overall effect gets pretty close to the film costume.
The articulation matches the Marvel Legends standard for female figures, but the torso ball joint has an exceptionally good range of motion. Nakia has the following articulation points:
- Ball-and-socket head and upper torso
- Swivel/hinge shoulders, elbows, hips, wrists, and ankles
- Double-hinged knees
- Swivel hips
The BAF Okoye has a spear and what appears to be the head of another spear. It looks a little like the spear head should plug into something, but I couldn’t figure out what.
Both weapons seem fairly sturdy and weren’t bent up in the packaging.
The outfit at first glance looks like a reuse of Nakia, but there are quite a few different parts. The head sculpt is again fantastic, and the facial printing assists with the likeness and delivers a full head of tattoos flawlessly.
My figure does have a bit of plastic flash on the nose that mars an otherwise perfect head.
The articulation is the same as Nakia’s and the paint is similar in that they try to capture the detail with some washes and drybrushing.
I can’t wait to see Black Panther in February because these figures have made me fall in love with the characters already.
