Our favorite Marvel fivehead gets a brand new figure. Let’s take a look!
It’s been quite a while since those old Face-off two packs that featured Hulk and Leader. I don’t want to do the math but it feels like it’s been about 200 years or so.
I liked those old packs, and the Hulk and Leader were good for their time but here we are 200 or 300 years later and Marvel Legends are better than ever, so it makes since that after we just got the best Hulk ever in the 80th Anniversary Hulk we get an updated Leader to go with him. Only regret? No alternate testicle head for him. That could have doubled sales, because I and probably a lot of people would have bought two to have one for each head. Unless people only buy one and swap the heads instead of just leaving one head on permanently.
I want to take a little second here to say that this is a bright-ass, boisterously, unapologetically colorful figure. That orange, that yellow and that green practically jump off the figure and anoint your eyeballs with their exuberance. I am a man that likes a colorful comic book character so this figure is punching all of those buttons pretty hard. The Leader is not going to be hiding in the shadows wearing these colors.
Leader, like the previously reviewed Mar-vell, is a simple figure. He doesn’t get any accessories, just a belt, a chestpiece and that oversized melon. He comes with a trigger hand, but there’s no gun to be found. I think I’m going to dig up something appropriately ridiculously oversized and science-fictiony for him to use. Some kind of Hulk-blaster 5000 or something.
This is the Reed Richards body that features the less muscley and more cloth-detailed torso, and it works well for the usually slim Leader. Bulging chesticles would seem wrong for him, so this was a good body decision. I didn’t think about it until after I was through taking pictures, but as I was writing this I checked and just like for Reed the arms pop out of this body. That might be useful for customizing, if anybody want to head in that direction.
This body is very well articulated with deep knees and elbows and a nice range in the hips. He can’t do the splits, but he has no trouble getting his legs to kick forward. There’s plenty of crunch in his torso, so it is overall satisfying.
The paintwork is minimal but overall clean except for a small smudge I had to get off his leg.
The Leader has had many head depictions over the years. There have been plenty of artistic variations of both his single-domed cranium and his testicle head. This is a dude that can’t blend in at wal-Mart, so the best bet is to go fully swollen with his noggin, and this Leader does not disappoint. I have a soft spot for the old Face-Off head because it was very evocative, and I won’t say this is “better” as much as a great variation on the theme. This head definitely fits with the aesthetic their going with here, just like the old Face-Off head was perfectly suited to the coloring and aesthetic of the time.
There’s a big-headed arrogance in his expression that evokes calm calculating intelligence. He’s a mostly normal looking guy with a giant green head and I love that concept so much. As I said, including a second head would have been ideal, but maybe down the road.
A new Hulk needed a new version of one of his main bad guys, and Leader doesn’t disappoint. The lack of accessories or a second head makes him feel a bit underpacked, but the figure itself is an excellent representation and is definitely the most colorful figure of the wave.
