For the most part, I’m a ’70s and ’80s era fan of the X-Men, especially in terms of art and costume design. I do recall some interesting tales during the Peter David run on the book, but I can’t say these costumes were ever top of my want list. I think it’s a testament to the figure quality that they can convince me to buy toys of costumes I didn’t really like on the page. Let’s take a look at Havok and Polaris!
The packaging is the standard shape, but it stands out among the crowd due to a bright blue color scheme and the inclusion of some Jim Lee inspired trading card style artwork. It certainly caught my eye from across the Gamestop.
Polaris comes with a pair of fists and energy effects. The energy effects are a well-trod accessory and came with the original Polaris, so I can see why it would be re-used again. I don’t really have a mental picture of what a Magnetic energy effect should look like, so this works okay for me but is not terribly exciting.
The fists are a nice inclusion as I like the variety they can introduce into posing. The cuffs can come off, so be careful when you swap them.
The sculpting is very nice on Polaris’ head and hair. The mass of curls is really striking in the electric green. The body does share a lot of parts with the original Polaris, with the upper body and cuffs creating the ’90s X-Man uniform.
The articulation is pretty standard stuff with:
- Swivel/hinges head, shoulders, elbows, hips, wrists, and ankles
- Double hinged knees
- Swivel thighs
- Ball and socket head and mid-torso
The ball and socket mid torso has a fairly impressive side to side movement too.
The paint is decent with blue plastic dominating the body, but the painted yellow is nice and bright and matches well with the yellow plastic used on the cuffs, feet and hands. I do like that they highlighted the fantastic hair sculpting with a green dry brush.
Havok comes with two yellow blast effects. They are fine but not exciting. I think I would have liked an open hand or two for some posing variety.
Havok looks like he’s based on the old Bucky Cap body, so it’s in line with his other Marvel Legends figure from Hasbro and the sculpting fits with Havok’s look in that book.
The jacket overlay on the torso makes this look almost like a completely different figure. I like the puffy shoulders and sleeves, but it’s a little odd where the beefy forearms transition to the hands. There’s just a sharp cutoff and it really could have benefited from some glove cuffs.
Havok does has the same boot/thigh strap scheme as his brother Cyke. If you have that figure, this one has the same issues where they can come loose and fall down here and there.
The articulation is what you expect. We’ve bought this figure a million times already so there shouldn’t be any surprises, but I was shocked at the amount of bend in the thick jacket elbows.
The paint is good on this figure, though I have a little bit of yellow slop here and there around the jacket. I do like the blue dry-brushing on the jacket detailed collar and shoulder pads because it really calls to mind the inking style on Quesada’s art in some of those old colors. I think it could have used a little more of that drybrushing for the whole jacket.
Overall, I dig this set and it’s smart, effective re-use. I think I’ve had enough of those blast effects, but these are otherwise nice. The X-Factor team is really coming together well and I find myself now wanting to complete this crew and re-read that Peter David X-Factor run.
