I had the Marvel Legends All-New X-Men boxset on preorder with Toys R Us but happened to run across it today and decided to go ahead and pick it up. I knew what I was getting when I stared at it for a long time in the toy aisle, flip flopping on the decision, but decided to get it anyway. Does it stack up? Is it worth nearly $100 after tax/shipping? Let’s find out.
Before I start just let me say…most of you know me. I am easy to please. I look for more ups than downs. I usually say “I can fix that, no biggie.” I love Marvel Legends. So keep that in mind as you read through this. I really am a positive kind of guy. Usually. Whoa, hey, don’t go anywhere, I haven’t even started yet! You know where this is going though, don’t you?
I’m going to run through the figures and then give overall thoughts at the end.
I didn’t take a package shot because the box is big and we’ve all seen the promo pictures. It looked like this:
Just imagine the brown behind the figures to be red. You have the idea.
First up, Cyclops. Or Marvel’s Cyclops, rather.
I’m not going to spend too much time here. The head and left hand is from the Wolverine Legends Cyclops, the body is USAgent. You know the sculpt, you know the articulation. You don’t know the paint.
Yeah, it came out of the box with missing, scuffy paint on the ribs. Cyclops, Angel, and Beast are all like this. Both sides of the torso. Also, all the yellows are mismatched even though my pictures don’t highlight it very well. A first for me. Usually pictures bring out the color differences. But this is not the fault of the plastic, this is total paint screw-up.
The cuffs, torso, and upper boots were given and orange overspray to simulate shading. It doesn’t look that bad, considering. What’s unfortunate is that the crotch, hips, hands, and feet weren’t given that same overspray. At all. To make it worse, this is only on the front. The back has all the yellows matching up fairly well and looks great. On top of all that, the bluish/blackish/grayish part match PERFECTLY from paint to plastic. Gaaaaaaaah!
Don’t even get me started on the wrong visor. I understand re-use but this doesn’t work for me.
Marvel Girl is up next.
Again, mostly parts we all know. She sports the Elektra body and Emma Frost hands. This may not be a widespread problem but that’s as far as I can get her left leg to move inward. And the hips again are pegged all weird and hard to manipulate. She does have new feet with the ankle peg rocker that most new Legends have, so that’s a plus. Best of all, she has an original head.
The sculpt here is nice, looking just like Jean from the comics. Then it had to be given the ol’ Hasbro eye paint. So close and yet so far away.
Again, the yellows mismatch. I found three sets at Toys R Us and two of them had the orange shading on the upper torso but not the lower, causing a huge eyesore color difference. I picked the one that at least had some on the lower torso. But that doesn’t distract from the difference in color from glove cuff to hand and upper boot to foot.
Iceman. Why didn’t Iceman get the “Marvel’s” in front of it?
I’m starting to sound like a broken record here but the body is just a Klaw/Vision and possesses all the same problems we’ve come to know and hate. And again, we get a new head.
Not too bad. I mean, it’s a bald human head. There’s something off about it when I look at it straight on, like it’s smooshed vertically, but it’s passable as Iceman.
But, I really like the translucent ice look here. Surprising, right? The only paint application is white in the eyes. That’s really all he needs.
That body though, ugghhh. I do really like the left hand though, it’s fitting. Like he’s about to ice slide out of danger.
Marvel’s Angel. As opposed to Whedon’s Angel, Angels in the Outfield, and Touched by an Angel. Enough of that, I’m going to rip this figure a new one.
Angel has the exact same body use as Cyclops but with a new head and a wing attachment. He has all the same paint problems too. Scroll up, read that again, then scroll back down to here.
I hate that I am compelled to type “wing attachment” but I can’t call it anything else. Wing. Singular. Yeah, I know he has wings, but this is just one piece of plastic plugged into the back. Poorly at that.
The peg doesn’t lock in at all and just kinda hangs in the hole. It swivels around easily. And it blows the figure’s balance all to hell. Notice the stand in the turnaround shots? Yeah, he can’t stand without it. Grrr. If the wing feathers had been half an inch longer in order to touch the ground and prop the figure up in a standing position I wouldn’t be so annoyed.
But he’s got a new head right?
What in the name of all that’s holy??
I want to like the sculpt, I really do. I can even see Warren with the cocky smile. But once again the eyes completely ruin what could be a great head. Don’t get me wrong, I can repaint eyes. I’ve been repainting eyes on most of the new figures. But that doesn’t mean everyone wants to do that. And I have to admit, it’s getting old. A company can’t keep force feeding this kind of sloppiness upon the general public, much less toy collectors. It’s shoddy presentation and for some can be a dealbreaker. Especially those who like to keep their figures factory or don’t want to constantly fix this problem.
Needless to say, dough-eyed, happy to see ya Angel isn’t high on my list. I would love love love to see this head repainted but I won’t be doing it, as you’ll read at the end.
Finally, Marvel’s Beast.
Out of the five figures in this set, Beast gets the most new parts. The base is Hyperion with a new head, forearms/hands, and feet. The feet are excellent, both in sculpt and creating a solid base for added posability.
I like this figure…for the most part. The orange shading is present on the torso but not the crotch, but here it isn’t as apparent as on the others because he doesn’t have the gloves or boots, so less yellow in general. He still has the missing paint on the ribs. But the deal breaker here is the lack of wrists or forearm swivel. The hands themselves are nicely sculpted. And had he been given articulation below the elbow there would have been even more poses he could achieve. But he can’t.
Oddly enough, Beast’s eyes aren’t half bad, comparing to some of the train wrecks we’ve seen.
Like I said, I like the figure, but I truly wish I liked it more. He’s the size I prefer, his hands are feet are large like classic human Beast. If this figure was sold by itself I would probably buy it, take the time to fix it, and keep it on the shelf somewhere while passing on the rest of the “wave” if it consisted of the rest of the figures in this set.
But he doesn’t come by himself, and he alone doesn’t make this set worth the price.
So, in short:
Positives:
- New sculpts are better than none
- Boxsets are possibly on the table again?
- The belts are nice, even though Beast and Jean’s looks different (and better) than the others
- The concept is welcome, even though the execution is severely lacking
Negatives:
- Paint is terrible
- Wrong bodies, should have used bodies more fitting of teens like Superior Spidey and Spider-Girl
- Iceman using the Vision body is a sin against plastic humanity
- Angel’s wings
- Beast from the elbow down
- Cyclops has the wrong visor and the visor activation fingers, but the glove cuffs prevent him from doing it for the most part
- Jean’s hips
- Paint is terrible. Yeah, that’s twice.
- Price tag for what you get
I’ve decided I’m going to return it to TRU as soon as possible. I have never returned a toy, ever. This set isn’t even worth it to me as fodder.
But as I sit here looking at the set, with their wrong bases for teenage X-men, I can’t help but realize that there is one version of the original five with these bodies that would have made me keep the set and fix the existing problems.
Yeah, Jean would need a different head. As would Angel in his red and white X costume. But I always loved human Beast in that brown and yellow for some reason.
Hell, I would have bought it twice if there was a variant set with green/yellow Jean, yellow/blue Cyclops with no glove/boot cuffs, Iceman with the power dampening belt, Archangel with the little metal wing (when he wasn’t using his wings), and (eep) furry Beast. If that’s too much sculpt, then Beast in red/blue.
Like I said in the beginning, I’m easy to please. I wanted to like this set. I gave it a lot of passes through the reveal and following pictures. But when I got them out of the package I was let down. Hard. And I can’t in good conscience tell you that I like it enough to keep it. I really do apologize for being so negative. Just feels odd to me.
But, if you still feel the need to get this set, you can preorder it from Toys R Us, or look for it in their stores as the set is a TRU exclusive. And if you are Canadian you can preorder it here.
