With Hasbro’s Walgreen’s exclusive Invisible Woman hitting at the time of this article, I thought it appropriate to take a look at an older figure of the Thing.
Why? Because we know that the Human Torch is on the way, soon, and that Mr. Fantastic and the Thing are not too far off. And because of that, it is critical that we raise the flag to Hasbro to avoid past mistakes.
I know many people like this Thing. he’s very close in look to what people are expecting in the future Hasbro Thing: flat rocks forming to the musculature of the body with a nice array of cracks. However, there are some minor issues that must be avoided in the upcoming Thing.
Articulation must be done right. The House of M Thing is limited in its articulation. While there are some joints with a decent range of movement, other critical joints barely move. The elbows are criminal in their ability to not reach a 90-degree bend; they barely come below 180 degrees. For a bruiser character, this is just not acceptable.
The other critical joint that needs a good fixing is the ab joint. I know the House of M figure is doing its best to replicate the hunched-over comic look, but c’mon. The Thing needs a decent ab joint. He hasn’t had a decent one since Series 2 and it is time we have a beautifully sculpted functioning ab joint on the Thing.
Finally, the neck joint needs some serious improvement. This guy has a weird hinged neck, and getting any head decent head poses is challenging.
Those three critiques aside, this figure has some amazing articulation: the shoulders and hips and knees and ankles are solid and allow for some decent posing. This figure even has some of the best articulated fingers I’ve seen on an action figure.
This is a decent figure, but it is very comic specific. It does represent a specific look for Thing at a specific time. It’s got some decent articulation and an okay sculpt. But it’s a skipper. There is no need to invest in this figure unless you want this specific look. However we should use this figure as an example of what Hasbro needs to do right (sculpt) and what to avoid (articulation).
You can still pick this figure up here:
