The Marvel Studios: The First Ten Years line has been interesting to me because they have released some long overdue villains for our MCU Legends figures to fight. This Avengers: Infinity War set is a little different in that it doesn’t introduce any new characters, but releases updated versions of Iron Man, Thanos, and Dr. Strange. Let’s take a look!
I already had Dr. Strange from his Marvel Legends line and the BAF Thanos from the first Infinity War wave, so I initially didn’t think I’d pick this set up. But then I saw it on the shelf with the updated head for Dr. Strange, the extra head for Thanos, and Iron Man’s LED light up feature and I had to have it.
Then I got denied at the Target register for a street date violation. Hey, Hasbro, could you stop Street Dating stuff? It’s really annoying. Anyway, I did eventually score the 3 Pack and I do like it quite a bit, though there is that mixed feeling I get when buying an improved version of a figure I already own. On one hand, I like the improvements. I requested some of these changes, and the changes are good. On the other hand, man I already paid for all of this stuff!
The set consists of Iron Man, Thanos, Dr. Strange, some blast effects for Iron Man, extra fists for Iron Man, an extra head for Thanos, an extra grip hand for Strange, and a protection spell effect. Iron Man looks like mostly a re-use of the Iron Man from Infinity War wave 1 (which I didn’t buy), but his torso is a solid piece with the added LED.
One of the front ab plates serves as the on/off switch and there is a switch at the back of the neck that changes the duration of the light from 5 seconds to 15 seconds.
Removing that ab joint does make this figure pretty stiff, but the light effect is a pretty fun trade off. I also don’t really like the way the arms attach to the torso, they stick out a little wide from the body.
The paint is solid and I like how the red is almost hot-rod red and the gold is painted shiny. It would have been great to get some additional accessory pieces like the extra booster rockets or mega-foot, but I do like that his repulsor beam hands actually face the right way. They aren’t hinged, but I prefer this to articulated hands that can’t get in the right position.
Thanos looks like a repaint of the BAF from the first Marvel Legends Infinity War wave and I think it matches the film skin color a bit better, though it’s slightly light.
He has a new hand sculpt on the gauntlet too which is swappable with the other Thanos figure.
I also like the grimace and neutral (maybe a little sad?) expression far more than his little grin from the first release.
They also added a neat little detail print on the chest armor to add some detail that was missing from the regular release.
In general, I think a wash on the skin and armor would have helped this figure pop a bit more in the paint department, but I think it’s far and away superior to the original released dark and shiny plastic.
You can swap the smiling head from the original release, but it doesn’t match well. I was thinking of trying to repaint it to match just for variety’s sake.
The face printing does a decent job for the heads, though the teeth seem like they were hit with an overly thick white paint.
The articulation is the same as the previous release and keeping with the standard Marvel Legends articulation. He’s a big guy, but has decent range of motion in the elbows and knees.
Finally, Dr. Strange looks to be a re-use of the Dr. Strange from his Marvel Legends wave with a brand new head, cape, and a new forearm and hand with the time travel spell effect. That green effect is part of his arm and cannot be removed.
I think the original Strange head sculpt was based on concept art for the movie, so it is nice to have a more film accurate head sculpt for this character.
His face seems a little overly thin, but it still has a great actor likeness. You can easily swap the heads with the other Dr. Strange figure if you want him without the effect.
His protection spell looks like the same one that came with the original figure and he basically can hold it like a shield.
Paint is pretty minimal, but the face printing works pretty well. Articulation is also Marvel Legends standard, only slightly impeded by the cape and skirt.
I think I would have liked an additional hand sculpt that showed a more traditional Dr. Strange spell casting move.
The cape is also new and plugs into a hole in the back of the figure. It’s a lighter and softer piece of plastic than the original. It also has a deeper texture for the cape lining.
Overall, the set offers up some interesting updates on previously released figures that ended up being worth it to me. Thanos and Dr. Strange are far better figures for me now.
I think I will eventually repaint the first release Thanos head sculpt so I can swap it in with this one. I was also thinking it would be fun to customize a battle damaged Thanos from my extra figure. It would go nicely with the Infinity War Thor.
