Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 has come and gone from the top of the box office, and I’ve moved on to hunting for that last elusive Spider-Man: Homecoming figure to complete my Vulture, so I kind of forgot that I had ordered this Entertainment Earth exclusive Star-Lord and Ego. Sometimes it’s nice to forget about these things and get a surprise in the mailbox out of the blue. The set includes a re-release of the Marvel Legends Peter Quill (with some slight differences), so I’m really here for the Kurt Russell figure and he doesn’t disappoint. Let’s take a look at Star-Lord and his papa, Ego!
The packaging is actually really nice with a great big window up front showing everything off well, a cool cosmic backdrop behind the figures, and some sweet artwork on the sides. I even like the product photography on the back.
I’ll get my main gripe out of the way up front. I’m not a fan of these two-packs where one figure is a straight up re-release. I understand the business case for these, but as a consumer they kinda bite. That said, this Star-Lord is slightly different from previous releases from Vol. 2. The above pic features the two-pack release on the left, the wave one figure in the center, and the wave two figure on the right. As you can see, the T-Shirt is a slightly different color across all three. It looks to my eyes that the two-pack head is the same as the wave one head, but he has the hair piece from the wave two figure.
They also seem to be experimenting with the face printing they are using. The new figure has face printing more like a S.H. Figuarts figure and the other two seem to use it on the beard only; I’m just guessing based on how it looks. In hand, at a normal viewing distance, I like the overall effect of the newest face print, even though it’s slightly mis-registered on my figure. The eyes look very cloudy in close-ups, though.
Quill comes with his twin blasters, the helmeted head sculpt, and a tape player. It’s still a nice figure, but I don’t feel it’s different enough to warrant a re-buy. I really wish they could have done a different portrait (angry?) or maybe added some some shirt sleeves and one of Rocket’s jet pack harnesses to make this more worthwhile.
Ego comes with two heads and a removable cloak. The heads have very subtly different expressions. One is a slightly bemused grin and the other looks slightly less happy. This face also uses the face printing tech, so the dot-matrix details can be seen in close-ups, but it looks really nice in hand.
One odd thing I noticed is that the eyebrows on my figure can look a little green in certain light. Maybe it’s just my eyes.
The sculpt on the head is nice and I can see Kurt Russell in there, though the beard adds a little more bulk to his face than it looks like on film. The uniform is exquisitely detailed and received a good number of paint hits. The shirt has a subtle wash to give it the right leather feel and the hair and beard are a convincing salt and pepper grey. I especially like the way the paint brings out the detail in the armor bits.
The articulation is pretty standard for a Marvel Legends figure with the following POA:
- Ball/socket head and mid-torso
- Swivel/hinge neck, shoulders, hips, ankles, and wrists
- Double-hinged knees and elbows
- Swivel bicep and thigh
I’m impressed at the range of motion at the mid-torso ball joint.
Overall, Ego has a great sculpt. I think the neck feels a little low when he’s wearing the cloak due to the thickness of plastic, but it’s otherwise nice and reads “Kurt Russell” to me.
I’m very happy to have a figure of the main antagonist from Guardians Vol. 2. I still want a figure of Ronan from the first film, though I doubt that’s ever coming. I also like that Hasbro is experimenting with some new paint techniques. It’s a nice two-pack, I just wish Star-Lord was plussed-up a bit more for this re-release.
Order GOTG Vol. 2 Marvel Legends Star-Lord and Ego Action Figures from Entertainment Earth!
