Hasbro: Marvel Legends Jubilee Series Wolverine (Utopia)

I always love it when I find a figure that we haven’t reviewed before that has a tie-in to a current series of action figures. In this case, the Marvel Legends Warlock Series is dropping and includes Old Man Logan, for those of you that aren’t in the loop, that is an unmasked, plain-clothes, old Wolverine.

That review will come another time. For now you will have to settle for a previously released unmasked version of Wolverine, from the much-hated Jubilee Series. Many of you will remember this hated wave as it was steeped in “hard to find, order cancellation, and a bunch of other crap” controversy. X-Men weren’t really being promoted by Marvel. With Fox and Marvel at each others’ throats, collectors no longer believed their X-Men would ever see Legends status again, and on and on. Yet TRU managed to talk Hasbro into producing an exclusive X-wave for them. That caused the Internet to explode, for that day.

Most of the figures were repaints. Storm and Stryfe were new. The rest either had some new parts or new heads and slightly new paint decos. Wolverine was based on the SDCC X-Force box set Wolvie that saw Utopia colors in the Puck Series (review of Wolvie). In the Jubilee series we got the same figure with am unmasked head, an add-on cowl, and some pretty signifcant changes in paint.

Real quick, let’s talk about the head and cowl. We’ve seen a head and cowl before in ToyBiz’s Astonishing Wolverine, so a maskless Wolvie isn’t something new. And many people still think that’s the Wolverine head sculpt to end all, but there was a ton of unmasked Wolverines back during ToyBiz days, so take your pick. Hasbro’s attempt, is okay. I think the sculpt is there, but as with most Hasbro offerings, the paint kills it. It could really use some love from customizers.

Since the rest of the sculpt and articulation is the same as the previously reviewed figure, let’s move on to the paint. The first thing everyone noticed was the yellows on the two Wolverines did not match — a strange hiccup since you would expect that the character is wearing the same exact costume. Even the blues don’t match. The paint, plastic, all of it. Again, strange. Why make this change? The gloves and boots are missing the black painted straps. Finally, the Jubilee Series Wolverine has the “X” logo painted on the chest and belt. I actually like this change quite a bit, and it was one of the cool aspects to the Utopia costumes.

Paint changes aside, this is the SDCC X-Force/Puck Series Wolverine with a new head. I wish by this point Hasbro had implemented the ball on the neck joint that allows for swapping heads. One could have swapped Wolverine heads around like crazy. Bringing this back to the recent Wolverines in the Juggernaut Series and Warlock Series, this is a taller Wolverine, and I can’t help but wonder if some of the parts couldn’t fit on the Juggernaut Series Wolverine, and then putting Warlock Series Wolverine on Juggernaut Series?

You don’t need this figure in your collection. As mentioned, you’ve already got a couple of Wolverines and unless you HAVE to have the Utopia costumes, this is an easy skipper. But if you want him, pick him here:

Amazon.com

eBay.com