A lot of people don’t care for movie figures in their Marvel Legends, but I personally like them. Gimme more movies, gimme more characters, and gimme more plastic representations of those characters. That also goes for Doctor Strange and Karl Mordo, my most anticipated figures from the Dormammu wave. Well, behind Iron Fist and Nico. A guy has to remember his roots too …
I have to admit I try not to dig too deep into movies before I see them. I’ve seen the trailer for Doctor Strange but beyond that I know nothing. I just know I liked what I saw and it’s got Benedict Cumberbatch. Good enough for me. Seriously. I’m that guy.
The packaging for Strange and Mordo is your now standard Marvel Legends window box with tray. I like the orange coloring here and the side pictures are spiffy.
Out of the package The Operative … I mean Mordo has some nice sculpt work. The colors are a bit plain, but I like the asymmetrical look here.
Even the likeness is good and best of all the eyes are painted straight and proportionate.
Doctor Strange is more of the same but ramped up. He is the star of the movie after all. The sculpting here is turned up to eleven and a lot of the colors have a slight wash to them to make all the details pop even more.
The cape is a little bland because of the lack of extra paints, but the sculpt is nice. And it’s easily removable, revealing even more detail on the torso and back of the figure.
And look, it’s Cumberbatch! A pretty good likeness, really. I’m not saying it’s perfect as-is, but I’m sure some skilled painters out there are going to make this baby shine.
For accessories, Mordo comes with a staff. A plain, no-frills pole. A stick, really. It has a little wood detailing to spruce it up, but it’s basically a broom handle. Hopefully in the movie it’s a conduit of power or something because if it’s just a walking aid, then consider me disappointed.
But to make up for it Hasbro included a pair of blue and green skull-shaped Jolly Ranchers!* These look awesome; the colors just make the skull pop. And sure, they aren’t exactly accessories for Mordo, but if the character does turn out a bad guy in the movie, maybe these can be used as a spell or something. Either way they are still pretty sweet.
And because they are the same sculpt as Hasbro’s first Ghost Rider head, you can even use it there.
I have no idea why I still have that figure, and in an easy-to-find place to boot.
Doctor Strange makes out a little better in the accessory department. He has two sets of hands, one being a set of gripping-type hands:
The other being a set of spell casting/magic gesturing/eagle claw/heart removing hands.
I guess I can count the removable cape and the necklace that I’m assuming is the Eye of Agamotto as accessories since they are separate pieces. But the best accessory is Doctor Strange’s Spell of Spirographia. You remember Spirograph don’t you?
I like this thing more than I probably should. It’s so simple, so basic, and yet looks so great. Did I say simple? Because you don’t get much more simple than this.
I thought it was going to be some intricate hand-mounting piece, but nope — it’s essentially a shield. Sure, it doesn’t look like one from the front, but like mascots on a smoke break, the magic is gone once you see behind the curtain.
Articulation is what you would expect from Marvel Legends at this point. The skirts hinder hip movement a lot, but you either deal with that, take inaccuracy, or go the cloth route. I’m good with it as is. You can see the range of movement in my video review:
The size of both figures is spot-on. In fact, if for some reason you wanted to add them to your comic shelf, they would fit in there no problem.
But they look more at home on your movie shelves.
I’m not going to say these figures are perfect, but they have certainly scratched my itch for Doctor Strange figures in my display. Paint, quality, sculpt, everything is above par when it comes to a $20 action figure. It’s odd to think that this wave was revealed only two months ago and here we are, finding them at retail while online orders are preparing to ship out. I’m just happy I was able to grab these before the onslaught of Star Wars merchandise later this week.
Both Doctor Strange and Karl Mordo are still available on Amazon with a release date of this Friday. If you’re looking for a complete set, BigBadToyStore has a case of 8 for $160.
*Not responsible for the ingestion of plastic skulls. Jolly Rancher is meant as a descriptive term not a statement that the skulls are actually candy.