Marvel’s SDCC set this year focused on villains more than heroes, which essentially made it a “Bring on the Bad Guys” box set. With a trio of never-before-Legendized villains, a pair of redoes, and a lone hero to fight them all, it’s another in a fairly strong run of sets only slightly let down by a few minor quibbles.
The theme of this year’s set revolved around The Raft, which is essentially Alcatraz for super-powered villains in the Marvel Universe. The story presented on the back of the box is that a breakout is orchestrated by the Purple Man, leading the unleashing of a varied group of bad guys. The box itself has been made to look like a row of unlocked prison doors, with freshly released convicts being released to cause their usual brand of mayhem. Illustrations that accompany the figure show off figures that are recent entries into waves.
The back of the box offers a very brief description of each of the villains, including real names and power sets. All in all it’s a very well done and display-worthy box if you’re the type that keeps them in package. I’m not, so as pretty as it is, let’s dig into the figures themselves.
We’ll start off with … well, I don’t want to say my least favorite figure, but maybe the least successful figure, and that’s more because of what isn’t there than what is. It’s been a long time since Sandman’s figure was released in the ToyBiz Spider-Man Classics line. That was an exceptionally strong figure with a great grainy sculpt and a swappable attachment gimmick that in no way hindered the play value of the figure itself. A new figure would have to go a long way to better that figure.
Here we have a full reuse of the BAF Absorbing Man body. Now, my knee-jerk reaction to the use of that figure for Sandman is “too tall,” but this figure does something that makes it acceptable, which is it depicts him in a full sandy coloring, as if he’s just turned completely into sand. The problem with this is twofold. The first issue is that if he’s supposed to be sandy, then he’s just too smooth. A fully sanded-out form should have the general texture of the SMC Sandman figure, so technically he’d need a brand new sculpt that would depict him as fully sanded-out. But if you can get past that — and I can — then you’re left with essentially just a big sand dude. That’s fine, but as there’s no accessories or anything, that leaves him as just being … a big brown guy. A giant sand fist or some other type of character-specific attachments would have gone a long way in making a giant brown Sandman into a killer figure, even without a textured body.
Otherwise, as the Absorbing Man was, it’s a good figure that poses well and looks appropriately sized if he’s going all sandstorm on Spidey’s ass. I’m frankly a little worried that Hasbro will just repaint this body in regular colors for a future Spider-Man wave, and if Sandman is just a normal-looking guy, this body is much too tall for how I’d like him depicted in a neutral state. But since they have the head and all, I know that’s what they will do.
Next up let’s take a look at another update of an older figure: the Abomination. The Abomination uses a bit of the Rhino BAF with new parts. The Abomination will make another appearance as the BAF of the upcoming Captain America wave with a bit more lime green paint on him, so this figure may or may not be redundant depending on your aesthetic desires. I do like the extra paint on the BAF, but this figure looks great also. It poses well, despite his torso being super-floppy. It doesn’t really want to strongly click into place at any one point, so you’re just going to have to learn to live with him being a bit loose. I assume the BAF will be the same way.
Overall the extra parts are well-sculpted. I like his face; it’s very nicely detailed with a ton of nubbly bits on the uppermost part of his head. His expression is great, appropriately ugly and angry. The biggest problem with him is that he doesn’t come with fists. This goes against rule #1 of the Official Toy Industry Standards (hereby called OTIS). The OTIS rule states that any gamma-irradiated figure must come with either a pair of fists as standard or come with optional swappable fists.
As it is, the Abomination can gesture menacingly and can definitely grab any combatant and hold him securely, but he cannot pound the bejeebus out of them with his titanic might using large green fists. I assumed that we were moving past the point of angry behemoths not coming with standard fists, but I can see we still have issues in that department.
Next up we have a trio of brand new entries into the Marvel Legends toy line. Let’s start with the Purple Man, who has had a recent breakout success as the bad guy of the Jessica Jones Netflix show.
The grape bastard here utilizes the new Coulson/Chameleon suited body and looks damned snazzy. There’s not much new to him other than a brand new and very well-done head sculpt that kind of looked like William Shatner in pictures but doesn’t so much in hand. As it is, it’s a nice-looking head that captures a certain undefined creepiness and determination.
This suited body still seems to have arms that are a bit too thin, but it’s miles better than the over-articulated Professor X suited body, so it’s welcome.
Enchantress set off a small flurry of fury, being a long-desired character that remained in Fwoosh’s top ten lists for what seemed like decades. It will be weird seeing a top ten that doesn’t have a slot reserved for Enchantress. Putting a much-needed figure in a box set seems like cruelty, but it’s possible that she will be making it out in a Thor wave. I mean, it’s kind of possible. More than likely. Maybe. Okay, who the hell knows. There are no guarantees in toys, so if you have the chance to get her, I wouldn’t wait.
Enchantress turned out almost exactly as you’d expect. I know that seems like faint praise, but the worst thing that could have been done with her is putting her in something other than her iconic outfit. They didn’t. Her skirt is a single piece that is floating, so you’ll have to glue it down if you want it to stay put. She comes with a pair of those magic-effects that loop onto her wrists. It’s a nice effect.
She’s got a good face. The paint job isn’t perfect, but she’s got a cocky smirky-thing going on. She looks like she knows she’s a hottie with a body and can make men do anything she wants. So essentially it’s a quasi-obnoxious smirk, but those types of women are obnoxious, so it fits perfectly.
The one thing many were unsure about is if they would go a bit large with her to put her in a more “Asgardian” scale or keep her more reasonable. They went with reasonable as she is on the Scarlet With body, even if her heels still make her statuesque.
Speaking of heels, I know they’re accurate to a lot of her appearances, but, boy, do I want to stab them in their brain. I don’t care if you’re a tenth-level posing wizard, these heels are weird and make standing the figure suck.
The last villain of the set is the most exciting one to me. Dreadknight is one of those great, classic villains that Hasbro has had a pretty good track record in finally bringing us. Dreadknight features the brand new Hobgoblin body parts. As soon as those parts showed up, you knew they be using them for nights and Goblins and anything with parts remotely resembling scales. This body is just a sidestep away from being Black Knight-ready, so I hope we see him sooner rather than later.
Dreadknight is the one figure here that deserved accessorizing, and luckily he got it, with both a sword and a lance. It would have been criminal to get this criminal without his lance.
The smartest thing they did here was give him a wrist that pivots up and down instead of side to side, which means that he can hold his lance and/or sword in offensive positioning. That’s just super nifty and gives him an extra layer of character-authenticity that really ratchets him up to the top of the list. It’s a case of expecting just the usual wrists and being surprised by the right wrists.
He’s got a strong-enough ratchet in his shoulder that he can hold his lance outward without the weight dragging it down. His head sculpt is appropriately menacing, as a metal skull with wings should be. The dude looks like he leapt off the cover of a power metal album.
He’s got a pearlescent quality to his blue scales, which make it look very metallic.
Dreadknight is by far my favorite figure from the set even with the other figures being fun on their own. He just looks great standing there, and then when you start making him do stuff, he looks even cooler. His loincloth is flexible enough so that his posing isn’t inhibited, and even his cape is better than some of the capes that Hasbro has been slapping on their figures lately.
Last up is Spider-Man with a bit of a darker color scheme. Overall this is the same Spider-Man as the recent Pizza Spidey figure and comes with the same weird and unnecessary shortcomings in the lateral movement in the hips. So if you like the Pizza Spidey, then you’ll like this, but if you don’t, then you won’t. He misses out on the extra hands this time around, coming with a right thwipp hand and a left fist. One fist is more than the Abomination had, so there you go.
This set goes up at some point on Hasbrotoyshop on August 9, so prepare for agony, disappointment, and a lot of refreshing if you want to grab a set for yourself. I dig it, faults and all.
