Last year I posted an archive on the Marvel Legends Fin Fang Foom Build A Figure wave from Hasbro. And there were a lot of great figures in the wave and at some point this year I’ll be certain to cover all the figures as they all deserve an individual entry. And I’ll kick it off this year with Foom.
Fin Fang Foom is really the last of the large sized Build A Figures, most of them these days are seven to eight inch figures if that. We’ve seen a number of six inch BAF’s and that is perfectly acceptable as it is a great way to get an extra character into already full waves. But when the BAF’s were reserved for these really large characters like Galactus, Apocalypse, Sentinels, there was magic in the air. Real magic, not forced or fake, but real magic. Collecting each figure to complete a giant oversized figure that you have absolutely no space on shelves for is magic. And then to have characters like Foom in that category?
This mystical mythical Marvel Comics dragon that first appeared in the pages of Strange Tales in 1961. He’s an alien dragon that crash lands on the Earth and causes a ton of havoc, and he’s had a rich history ever since. He’s had a quite a few run in’s with the Marvel Heroes, Iron Man and Thor being notables and Foom’s alien tech has been borrowed by the villainous Mandarin. He’s a great character with a rich history in the Marvel Universe and a collector favorite.
And the figure lives up to the reputation. This monster figure was so big that I can to change my background paper and photo setup to accommodate him, truly a beastly piece of plastic. The sculpt is brilliant, I don’t know which artist it channels the most but I like thinking this is a pure Kirby classic. Sometimes I see Art Adams in the design, even Walt Simonsen, but for me this is all the creator’s Kirby! I love the large goofy squarish hands, and the head sculpt is pure magic! I mean it is perfection personified! It’s my favorite part of the sculpt.
The articulation isn’t the best. While there are all the great joints and points of articulation it doesn’t always move around like I want it to. Foom is set in a sitting/squatting position, and while you can move the knees and hips and feet, you can’t really get a great pose out of them. The knees and the limited range of motions are the real culprits, I’m wondering why Hasbro didn’t go with a ball and socket knee to improve the range of motion more. The other sore spot is the neck that has no range of motion. It is fixed in the sculpted arc and only swivels at the neck. This is one of those rare times that I think a bendy neck would have been worth the effort. And if you make the neck bendy then you have make the tail bendy. But those are areas of improvement not needed changes.
- Hinged ankles
Swivel ankles
Hinged knees
Ball hips
Ball abs
Ball shoulders
Swivel biceps
Double hinged elbows
Swivel wrist
Hinged wrist
Swivel neck
Ball head
Hinged jaw
All in all I love this figure. I mentioned the head sculpt earlier and I love the paint on the eyes. There is so much life in them. Just beautiful. As mentioned before you can still pick this figure up on:
