2020 may be a lot of things that are nigh-unprintable on a PG-13 site, but you can’t deny that it is a year that will be very good to the Proudstar family. First up, Warpath gets a vast vast (vast!) improvement over an older figure, and later his brother Thunderbird is getting his first shot at Legends glory.
Warpath’s previous twofold release was a one-two punch in a pair of two-packs that provided two distinct X-Force iterations on a body that is, to out it mildly, pretty damn outdated. With skinny legs, huge feet, awkward proportions and so forth, that old body—also used poorly for the Wrecking Crew, who all need new figures—has not weathered the years well. So up comes the Omega Red body, a far better choice for dudes like Warpath.
You know, much can and has been said about X-Force in the ’90s. But regardless of the gritted teeth Rob Liefeldian extreme nature of the whole thing, you can’t deny there is a kinetic quality to those old comics. Kinetic is usually my go-to descriptor for that particular era, because there was a balls-to-the-wall sensation of creators tossing shit in the air and hoping like hell that the shit took flight, if you’ll pardon my complete metaphorical bastardization. It’s not great literature, but who cares? 30 years later, we’re still talking about things that began in that era, so something must have zeitgeisted all over things.
Warpath is the requisite big strong brawler of the X-Force team (which fits in well being a part of the Strong Guy wave) And the figure finally does him justice. The parts that were Omega red all work very well—even providing a couple of shoulder-holes for his oversized era-specific pads—and the butterfly joints allow him to pull of a nice range of tough guy poses. A lot of people seem to want both Sabretooth or Venom to be on this body, and while I don’t see either of those characters as this gigantic, if they do end up doing so, at least the body will pose well. Even if they’d be too big.
This costume is a slightly different take on the original Thunderbird costume, and I like it. I do hope we’ll see an Uncanny X-Force update soon. But for now, this fills out the team nicely.
I was kind of thinking the shoulderpads would impede his movement a bit, but overall they don’t. They even stay plugged in very well, despite knocking them around as I was moving him around. Fiddly shoulderpads would have been rage inducing. But there was no rage. He feels a little gummier than his wavemates, but he held poses fine.
I especially like the way they handled his boot-fringe. Instead of a separate outer piece that gets all droopy like the Jim Lee Cyclops straps and falls down to his ankles, it is a small, separate fringe piece that’s connected between leg and boot. That means no having to pull his fringe up every five second. Unfortunately, it looks like Thunderbird is going to have droop-fringe, because one of the promo pictures has the fringe down near his ankles. How embarrassing.
I’m now tired of the word “fringe.”
These are some of the best butterfly shoulders Hasbro has made. First of all, neither side on mine was stuck. I think I’ve had at least one stuck butterfly joint on every hasbro figure with that joint, so for both to move out of the box was super. They have a huge back and forth range, so he can get the wide open “about to kick ass” pose along with the forward thrusting “in the process of kicking ass” pose. With a guy named Warpath it’s all about the asses and how much they are kicked. It’s in the contract.
The head is a good stoic head. I do wish the feather had been sculpted facing up instead of hanging limply but there must have been a reason for that. I guess “his feather’s not erect enough” is a valid complaint but I don’t even know anymore.
If you don’t dig the shoulderpads, you can remove tham and he looks fine. A little naked, but fine. You’re left with a pair of holes in his shoulder, but that’s the price you pay for…something. I’m not sure.
He comes with two pairs of hands: fists (yay!) and grip hands. The grip hands would be perfect for a pair of knives like he later uses. He doesn’t in this costume, but that’s just semantics or something. Knives (sold separately) not pictured because I was not digging through all of my crap for that old Warpath figure, but I’d imagine that they work fine with him.
Overall, it’s just a really fun figure. I can’t wait to have a whole “I thought you were dead?” conversation between him and his brother before they team up to take back some of their damn land or something.
