Yay! We are finally getting an MCU Vision in our Marvel Legends collection! Boo! This is likely the very last Toys R Us exclusive set I will ever get to bring home.
EDIT: THIS SET IS NOW AVAILABLE FROM OUR FRIENDS AT ENTERTAINMENT EARTH! GO HERE NOW!
I am really torn here, and I should not be because this feature should be mostly hearts and flowers due to how nice the actual figures in this set turned out to be, but the black cloud of the demise of TRU does hang over this set, so forgive me if I get a bit melancholy at times. I am pleased as punch to finally have Vision in my collection, but boy, I am glad I nabbed this when I did. I am not sure if all online orders will be filled via the TRU site (mine was) or what will happen to all of the stock meant to hit the actual store shelves (will it still? no clue), but this set definitely deserves to be out there. As I said, this is currently the only way to add an MCU Vision to your collection, and the Scarlet Witch figure is pretty amazing, too. I know I was a bit hard on the MCU figures during my Thanos Build-a-Figure series features, but this set checks all of the right boxes.
UPDATE: Entertainment Earth now has the set up for pre-order!
VISION
Even though he has only really been on screen since Avengers: Age of Ultron, Vision has really been a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe since (almost) the beginning. When Paul Bettany was enlisted to voice “Jarvis” way back when, you just knew bigger and better things were meant for that concept. I am glad that was a fairly pure, but workable adaptation for Vision in the cinematic universe, and Bettany portrays him with a very careful turn of humanity. Now, I hope Vision doesn’t meet his end in Infinity War just as we are getting this figure, being as the Stone needed to make him what he is is needed in that fancy Gauntlet, I am more than a little scared.
Now, the visual adaptation from page to screen is pretty good in essence, but the MCU costume is a LOT busier, both in texture and color, than the comic counterpart. The clear cut yellow, green, and red is still there mostly, but with more pink than red, but silver has been added as well, and the color patterns are lot more complex. You can say that is true for most, if not all, of the Marvel movie costumes, but even Vision’s cape has swaths of pink lining the translucent yellow. Honestly, all of this should be a recipe for disaster from a design and toy standpoint, but somehow, it all actually works here. Yes, I know it is easy to say that this is just copying the screen design so we have seen it before, but things often end up being much more pronounced on a physical object, and while that is still true here, it does not cross the line in terms of being too much.
Like most movie figures, Vision enjoys a lot of new sculpting, and to be honest, I am not sure anything employed here has been used before. The body has a lot of texturing to it, and so does the cape, something I was not even aware was there as a design note until now. Hasbro has done a REALLY nice job with the likeness here, almost to the point of it kind of being unsettling. I mean, I think it is a little unsettling how much you can see of Bettany on screen too, but that adds to Vision’s humanity, so I get it. You can tell that the photo-real technology was used here, even if it is just in the eyes, but it is certainly effective. Granted, the sculpting has a lot to do with that accuracy as well, but the eyes are always the key to a good likeness.
Vision is a long time coming for our ML MCU lineups, so I hope that everyone gets a chance to get the set, even in the face of the TRU challenges. This figure enjoys a lot of new sculpting, the likeness is great, and you even get some interchangeable fists for good measure, so for a retail exclusive two-pack, Vision has been treated pretty well. I hope he is treated well in the new movie, too, he needs more time to develop and hopefully he will be a leader as we move into the next phase of cinematic Marvel. We will know for sure on April 27th.
SCARLET WITCH
From a production standpoint, Wanda is on the opposite end of the Earth from Vision, but she turned out just as nice overall. While Vision is pretty much 100 percent new with no reused parts that I can account for, Scarlet Witch is almost 100 percent reused from … the previous Scarlet Witch figure. But — BUT — you really cannot consider this a repacked figure because this version is 100 percent better than the one we got before, and I actually really like that figure. See, Wanda got some really nice paint apps on the previous figure, with a lot more detail and definition than a typical ML figure at that time. However, this figure uses that same photo-real printing technology used on Vision (and most MCU ML figures now) and it makes the likeness to Elizabeth Olsen pretty striking.
Sure, the figure is the same, and that is okay since it looks like Wanda’s costume is not changing much from the last time we saw her until now, but the change in hair color and face printing is all you need to make this new figure totally worth it. Plus, these cost-effective changes likely helped us get such a unique and detailed Vision, so that is a good thing. Really though, this figure IS Elizabeth Olsen. The Marvel team has been using this new application process for a while now, but this is definitely one of the best offerings they have given us to date. The Black Panther Okoye and Nakia are some other recent examples of this technique’s success, so I wish the A:IW Cap I just looked at was this good. I am really impressed here.
Past that, the costume still works and is very detailed, and Wanda does get new Hex magic effects for this release. Vision and Scarlet Witch are such an interesting dichotomy with their magic and tech powers, so this set works so well on so many levels. Wanda and Vision have not had much time thus far to establish and explore their unique relationship in the films, so hopefully that will progress in this new one, and have the chance to continue moving forward.
This set is really enjoyable, and I REALLY do hope that everyone who wants one will get a chance to get it, and the doom of Toys R Us will not hinder that too much. Both of these figures are great takes on their on-screen counterparts, and Vision needed to be all new, but Wanda has been redone pretty flawlessly, so it is win-win. I know I have been Marvel-focused lately, but I promise I will have something completely different for later this week.
