Strong Guy is the strong guy of X-factor. I figured I should spell that out for anybody out there that gets easily confused.
As a self-professed immediate fan of any and every “strong guy” on a team, it’s pretty impossible for me not to be a fan of Strong Guy. He’s a classic tortured Marvel hero, stoic and comedic on the outside but harboring deep pain on the inside. His unique physical appearance is the result of massive childhood trauma, leaving him in near constant pain.
Oh, and he’s died. Several times. Plus there’s the heart attacks, and that whole losing his soul thing. But it’s ok, he’s back due to mutants now being able to return from the dead easier than Kenny on South Park.
The Legends team has slowly been putting together an All New All Different X-factor team. While we have a Wolfsbane head, we technically still need her in her X-factor uniform in order to fully call this team complete. So that’s a thing that still needs to be done.
Anyway, I am and have been a fan of Guido ever since Peter David’s first X-factor run, and was glad that he was brought back for his second run on the title, where he really gave him the business.
Strong Guy is a completely new sculpt, which is obvious given that he has some of the most bizarre proportions outside of Sugar Man. He’s got a huge torso married to smaller legs that go down to tiny-ass feet. Because of this, it’s difficult to get him to easily balance. Difficult, but not impossible. You just have to know your limitations, those limitations being a torso the size of a zeppelin.
In short, Strong Guy looks great. The head is as Strongian as it gets, with a big cocky grin underneath those round, gravity defying glasses, which themselves are underneath a bizarre sprig of white hair growing out of his head . Guido’s a beautiful mess.
He’s so big that his torso comes in two pieces, but they snap together tightly and don’t come apart even with major futzing. You can stil pry them apart if you need to, but it will go back together perfectly.
The costume is simple, with a yellow half-jacket and metal shoulder protectors over top of spandex pants and some of those very 90s anklebands that the mutants must have got wholesale. Yes, I just said simple despite that fact that all of these elements are very bizarre and yet somehow manage to work together. I’m glad we got this version, even though I would absolutely take an X-Factor investigations version of him later on as well.
The sculptwork is all excellent. Some element, like the zipper, would have benefited from some extra paint applications to make them stand out amidst all that yellow, but overall it looks exactly like the comic appearance.
To facilitate those large metal shoulder coffins, he features the “elbro” type of articulation, which is a swivel hinge that allows him 90 degrees of bend in his arm. He does get a great range in his shoulders due to the large sockets, so despite the design he still moves well.
He has a ball joint in his torso that gives him a nice range of forward, backward, side to side and swivel. Mine is a little tight and makes me nervous when moving him, so I think I’m gong to be dropping a little oil down there. It’s easily accessible once you remove the back of his torso.
The hips, knees and ankles all function like a regular ML figure. The size of his thigh inhibits his ability to bring his legs up some, but otherwise everything works fine, and as I said it’s a little hard to pose him without his entire body toppling from the sheer weight of his mammoth mutie mammaries.
Lately I’ve been taking my time with waves of ML and opening them slowly, but I had to dig out all the Strong Guy pieces as soon as I got the wave to put him together. I haven’t had a Strong Guy figure since the ’90s five inch figure (with that punching action feature) so this has been a highly anticipated figure. It doesn’t disappoint.
