Marvel Legends Grey Gargoyle
Grey Gargoyle is one of those great lower-tier villains that Hasbro has been pulling out and sticking into random lineups. He has a specific power set, a unique look, and makes for a fun figure.
While I love a good A-lister, it’s the characters like Grey Gargoyle that really get me excited. You toss someone like him, or a Batroc or some random Serpent Society at me and I’m as giggly as a schoolgirl on a washing machine. These are the guys that fill up the self-contained stories here and there before people like Kang or Doom show up. In short, they’re necessary, both in the comics and in the collection.
Grey Gargoyle is a guy that touches himself and turns to stone, and can touch other people and turn them into statues. That’s what he does. He’s also quite strong and very durable. Simple, effective, enough to give the Avengers a difficult afternoon before he gets taken out and shipped back to the Vault, the Raft, or whatever other villain prison is out there.
A Captain Marvel-themed wave is an odd place for Grey Gargoyle to show up, so his placement here feels very much like the right dart hit the right target on the wall o’randomness. I’m not terribly bothered how or why or what wave characters show up in, as long as they show up somewhere. It’s all Marvel. Any port in a toystorm.
It’s easy to see why Grey gargoyle was made; he’s a low tooling figure. He’s mainly the Reaper body with some extra bits and a new head and cape. There is an argument to be made that he could have benefited from a harder edged, stonier base body, but at this point I think we know what’s going to happen and what isn’t, and GG has been drawn plenty of times sleeker.
GG was given an interesting effect in that he has speckles sprinkled (say that five times fast) throughout his body to simulate rock. In the end I think the effect is interesting enough that I like it, and my own brain shores up the space between “toy with speckles” and “dude that is living rock” enough so that I can buy it as a rocky effect. 9 times out of 10 our brains are the most important part of the toy buying experience.
The new head sculpt is appropriately smarmy and villainy. He’s got a big wide grin like he enjoys turning heroes into statues. I love a lower tier villain that doesn’t know he’s small time and really enjoys his work. Last week Iron Man kicked his ass, this week Hulk kicked his ass, next week Wonder Man is probably going to smack him around on his way to the laundromat, but dammit, he’s still got a sloppy grin on his face, because he can outdo Alicia Masters and makes statues anytime he wants.
The Reaper body is divisive. I’ve never had much of an issue with it outside of the shoulders which lack a certain comfortable level of clearance when you raise the arms. Besides the shoulders, the rest of the body moves well and looks good in both neutral and action poses. Size-wise, it feel appropriate for Grey Gargoyle, who should have a decent thickness to him. Even though the physique itself doesn’t look like stone, it still looks good in this color and with the sprinkled speckles.
I’m going through a thing where I’m getting more and more annoyed about plastic capes for various reasons, and have started seriously considering replacing a lot of capes for the more athletic characters with fabric versions, either that I can make myself or whenever someone like Scottacus Customs offers one that is outside of my skill level. This cape is okay, though, mainly because it attaches with those two straps over the shoulders, and it’s a smaller cape, so it doesn’t feel like a semi-flexible coffin. Add in the ribbing and the speckles and it’s just too much trouble to try to come up with a suitable replacement.
Grey Gargoyle was a surprise, but a welcome one. It’s another bad guy checked off the list, and it’s hard to argue with that.
