Dr. Strange is hitting movie theatres soon, and a new Marvel Legends wave is now hitting stores in support of the film, featuring a wave of mystically themed Marvel characters. One of the surprises figures of the wave for me was Runaways mainstay Nico Minoru. Let’s take a look!
I was a fan of the original 12-issue run of Marvel’s Runaways book by Adrian Alphono and Brian K. Vaughn. It was a book about a group of teenagers that find out their parents are supervillains, and it was a fresh and fun look at the Marvel Universe. Nico was the daughter of two evil sorcerers and came into her own powers throughout the course of the series.
The figure comes in the standard Marvel Legends packaging and she shares the card back with Enchantress. Nico comes with a couple of different accessories, including the BAF piece, the Staff of One, a smoke effect for the staff, and an alternate arm.
The staff is a little different from the Staff of One design I’m used to, but there has been a lot of developments to Nico’s character and design over the years that I wasn’t privvy to. As you can see in the above pics, it’s a little warped, but it can be fixed with heat. The smoke effect is nice, but it does weigh the staff down a bit and I think it might contribute to the warping. The alternate arm, her magical arm, is translucent and looks pretty keen.
The sculpt matches up pretty well with some of her more recent appearances, if not her look in earlier Runaways titles. This look does match up a little better with the overall Marvel Legends aesthetic than the Alphona artwork.
The skirt is a separate piece and can be knocked out of place by messing with the leg articulation, but it looks good in person.
The paint is pretty good; I especially like the little lace tampos on the arms. There is a little makeup messiness around the lip area that’s visible here in photos, though not as noticeable in person.
The articulation is Marvel Legends female standard and I like how much subtle movement you can get out of the neck hinge/ ball-and-socket joints.
Overall this is a nice representation of a cool character I never really expected to see in Marvel Legends. Of course, now I want some more Runaways. I think Karolina Dean would look great in multi-colored translucent plastic.
