The first couple of waves of the Marvel Retro Collection weren’t really for me for the most part. I didn’t have the nostalgic connection to those retro Toybiz cards and many of the figure variants weren’t all that exciting to me. That changed with this recent wave which features some crucial variants for my collection and a brand new character that I’ve wanted for a long time. Let’s take a look at Silver Samurai and Wolverine from the Marvel Legends Retro Collection!
Even though I have no nostalgia for Toybiz Marvel figures from the ’90s, I can’t deny that these look pretty flashy on card. Something about the bubble on card looks extra good to me. These also have some solid illustrations and bold colors that pop on the peg.
The Silver Samurai Comes with two swords of slightly different lengths and Wolverine comes with a couple of sword holding hands and the black Muramasa blade from the first story arc of the Wolverine series. The swords are pretty typical fare from Hasbro. The tips are a little more rounded than I’d like for safety reasons and the silver on SS’s swords is pretty dull.
The Wolverine is based on that nice short Wolverine base body that I really like and has a great screaming portrait. He’s wearing his Madripoor disguise from the first Wolverine book so he has the stocking mask across his eyes.
It’s a weird look and I don’t think I ever really understood what was going on there, but I grew up with it and it was a huge part of that book, so I really like having a figure with it.
The sword holding hands swap easily with the claw hands and Wolverine’s articulation is well suited to sword holding poses due to the butterfly shoulder joints. Wolverine has typical Marvel Legends articulation with:
- Swivel/hinge neck, shoulders, wrists, hips, and ankles
- Double hinged knees and elbows
- Swivel biceps, thighs, and waist
- Mid-torso hinge
The articulation has good range, the only slight critique I would have is that the head doesn’t look up as high as I would have liked for crouched down low poses. It’s pretty good though. He doesn’t have boot swivels, but I didn’t find myself missing those for him.
Paint is one flaw on this figure. I do have a bit of a paint smudge on Wolvie’s forehead and the hair line around his face is a little sloppy.
Another thing I don’t love is he has the smaller claws that are a bit fiddly and don’t always stick out straight. I was really liking the bigger claws from the Wendigo wave and fortunately you can swap the X-Force hands out for these easily.
Silver Samurai looks to be a new sculpt and he was a wonderfully classic feel to him. He looks like he leapt from the page of his entry in The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. I also really like that they included loops for SS to wear the swords. Scabbards would have been better, but this looks really good too.
The figure has a few different kinds of silver from painted silver on the helmet and upper armor, to differing shades of silver plastic on the arms, legs, and lower armor. While I would normally prefer the all silver paint, the variations work for me here to break up the uniformity a bit.
My figure has a slightly flawed helmet. His mask and crest look slightly askew to me and there is some mold flashing around the left eye hole that obscures the eye slightly. It’s fine at a distance, but doesn’t hold up to close scrutiny.
For a big, thick figure, SS moves pretty well. He has:
- Swivel/hinge neck, shoulders, wrists, hips, and ankles
- Double hinged knees and elbows
- Swivel thighs, biceps, boots, and waist
- Ball and socket mid-torso
I think some butterfly joints would have been helpful to get him into more two hand holding sword poses, but the articulation is mostly useful here. The skirt has some flexibility, so he can get into wider stances.
I also like how the wrists hinge up/down, so he can point his sword at enemies. Silver Samurai turned out pretty great. He’s about seven inches tall, so that may seem slightly small for some tastes as he’s sometimes depicted as a monster, but I dig it.
Overall, I like these two figures quite a bit. I’m fully prepared to buy every darn Wolverine variation they can pump out because I just find this base figure so satisfying. Silver Samurai is a great take on a classic villain that’s been long overdue.
The above photos feature Wolverine with the claws from the Wendigo wave Wolverine. The below photos have the hands included with the figure.
