Grim Reaper. Classic Marvel villain. Brother to Wonder Man. Dead. Not dead. Terrible handshake. Excellent action figure — after a huge fix, at least on mine.
Grim Reaper was my huge want of the Marvel Legends Ultron Prime series. A brand spankin’ new body in the Marvel Legends line that would bridge the gap between the smallish Bucky body and the powerful Sentry body? Gimme gimme. I had feared that it wasn’t going to be as big as Hasbro had announced back at Toy Fair, but I was hopeful. Upon opening, I was filled with utter glee, then horror when I realized something was wrong, but then giddy again when I learned it wasn’t as bad as I had thought. Easy fix, but I’ll get to that.
First up, the packaging.
The box with insert has become the new Hasbro standard, it seems. And I’m good with that. Easy to free the precious cargo. For some reason I missed the old clam shell this time around, though, and I can’t exactly explain why. The newness of the body, perhaps? I absolutely love how they display the other figures in the wave, though. It’s enough to make me want them without showing the whole figure. Tease!
Out of the package is where it’s at, though. The new body is excellent and… wait… what the hell…
I don’t mean to go all Joel Schumacher on you, but I wanted to get close-ups of the major defect I had with my Reaper. I didn’t even notice it until halfway though the photo shoot, but the hips were backwards out of the package. The smooth sides to the front, the sculpted thigh detail to the back. I first noticed it when I realized there were rough gaps between the thigh and hip at the swivel. After realizing the legs were right and it was the right hip on the left side and vice-versa, I started dreading how much of a pain it would be to fix. Split the crotch? Split the hips? ARRRRRGH. Luckily it was waaaay easier than all that, as I demonstrate in my video/fix review…
I’m not saying all the Reapers are this way. In the few pics I’ve seen it doesn’t look to be the case. But since I haven’t had a lot of time to customize Marvel Legends in a while (and haven’t really had the urge to since Hasbro has been doing a great job on character selection), I was pleased to find the hips simply pop off with some heat and wanted to document it.
After the fix, much better. My audible sigh of relief was heard two counties over.
While I’m doing the back shots, I thought I’d talk about the cape. I’ve heard a lot of complaints that it’s not as dynamic as most capes we’ve seen in the past, and that it’s starting to become a trend. Sentry was the same way. Just a cape kind of laying there. And while I can agree with that, I’m okay with the cape in this case. Sure, it’s not touching the shoulders at all, it looks a bit thin behind his back, and it doesn’t add a lot to the figure. I also like that it looks at rest. Kind of like I don’t care for hair that looks like it’s wind blown, I feel the same way about capes. Sure, it looks like it just clips to the neck in an awkward fashion, but when you find the sweet spot, it lays nicely. And it even has some shading to offset the minimal paint apps on the figure itself.
The lack of highlights on the body is a departure from the overly highlighted Black Panther, but it also doesn’t take much away from the figure. The costume paint has a nice sheen that picks up natural lighting, and I’m good with that. Otherwise, the only paint apps are the skull and crossbones, the silver of the scythe and left arm rings, and the face. That face. Scary face that is sculpted into a crazy insane killer smile with the paint apps to match.
My other big nit is the right elbow. It’s as if Gentle Giant sculpted a great new base body and then Hasbro added the new lower right arm as an afterthought to make the figure into Grim Reaper. I say that because the left arm is great. No gaps, no pin issues. But the right forearm, what there is of it before it attaches to the “metal” coupling of the scythe, doesn’t quite fit with the elbow assembly. It doesn’t reach all the way up to the sculpted elbow and creates a gap. But the top half of the elbow looks gappy too, so who knows what’s going on. All the pins are secure, so I’m not quite sure how to fix this.
I have confidence in future releases of this body, though, like Kraven. If the right forearm was an add-on piece just for Grim Reaper, hopefully the originally sculpted arm will be used later.
And oh, the possibilities laid before us with this new body…
Bigger than Black Panther, smaller than Sentry. Sweet spot! And the body itself doesn’t have the amount of muscle striations as either previous body, so someone is listening. Just a clean mid-size form to get us all those powerful-yet-agile characters we’ve been dreaming of that didn’t quite fit before. As many Captain Americas as we’ve getten over the past few years, I find myself wanting a Classic Cap on this body. Behind classic Punisher, of course. Condom-head Cyclops. Original Thunderbird. Redone Blackbolt. Captain Marvel. Namor. The list is endless. A customizer’s dream when this body is released without sculpted add-ons. Dare I say Batman?
As for Grim Reaper himself, get him. He’s a super nice rendition of the classic villain on a body that you’ll want to give a test drive. I feel like this choice was totally out of left field, and while I can’t tell you what to do, I’m going to throw support at those lesser-known characters who may not be everyone’s cup of tea but hit me right in the nostalgia area. Sure, I had a couple of problems, but he just looks so choice on my toy shelf.
