Dr. Doom is another figure from Series 2 of Toy Biz’s fantastic run of Marvel Legends action figures.
Like Thing and Namor, Doom is the third figure in the wave to get some Fwoosh love and it is well deserved! He still stands out as a fantastic figure, it’s a great capture of a Kirby-esque Doom capturing the essence of the character.
Doom is one of the Marvel mainstays, the character first appeared in the pages of the Fantastic Four in issue number 5 in 1962 and continues to be a core villain, sometimes hero, in the Marvel Universe. He’s best known for hating Reed Richards, Mr. Fantastic, for being smarter him and disfiguring his face. There’s a ton of theories about the face disfigurment and there’s even been a ton of stories about it, truth is Victor von Doom is a crackpot and no one really knows what the hell is wrong with his face. What we do know is “RIIIICHHHHAAARDDDSSSS!!!!” is being held accountable for it. Let’s be honest, when you are a dictator of your own country you can pretty much hold anyone you want for any transgressions against you. Sadly Doom’s been kinda quiet in the comics lately, yeah some sparse appearances, but he’s hiding like a fox on hunting day.
The figure is one of the best sculpted figures from the Toy Biz era, that’s a lot to say considering the vast number of action figures Toy Biz covered during their reign as masters of Marvel Legends, but it’s true. The figure perfectly captures Doom from his early days, it’s like Kirby sculpted the figure himself. The dress, the belt, the armor, and the helmet and face sculpts. Yeah, the face sculpts. There are 2, Toy Biz did threw us a variant, one human one robot. Yes a Doombot. Oh and he was really hard to find. I know that I have one, I can’t remember if this was an original Series 2 or the rerelease from Series 8, but I have one. And I love him!
If there is one real nitpick that I have with this figure, it’s the scale, and while I’m less of scale freak than I was, I still have this idea of Doom being really tall in his armor. I don’t know how accurate it has to be but I would expect Doom to stand a head, three quarters of head taller than your average Marvel Legend. Something about the armor adding an overall thickness and as such a lotta bit of height at the feet and head. Right now Doom just looks average in his size. This is one of those figures, that if I had the money, I’d try to figure out to scale him up. Yes I love this figure that much, crazy.
The articulation on the figure is pretty good. Certainly we vilified Toy Biz back in the day for omitting the ab-crunch, but in reviewing this figure today I realize that it really wasn’t needed and Doom works fine without it. He has a ton of great articulation and it all works. His hip movement is hindered by his skirt which is too bad as this prevents you from having him sit on his throne room like the bad-ass dictator he is. Here is the breakdown:
Hinged toes
Rocker ankles
Hinged ankles
Hinged knees
Swivel thighs
Ball hips
Swivel waist
Ball shoulders
Swivel biceps
Hinged elbows
Swivel wrists
Hinged fingers
Ball head
Doom comes with a castle base (not pictured), a gun and cape. The gun fits nicely into the holster, but you find that over time the rubbery gun barrel will wilt. Give it some heat and it will bounce back straight as an arrow. The cape is great and really captures that classic Doom look, however it’s tough to do some serious action posing with it. As soft and pliable as it is, I find that it is still difficult to to do dynamic poses with him.
For the serious Marvel Legends collector this is definitely a figure that you want to pick up, he’s worth every penny. You can still get him today at:
