M.O.D.O.K. was one of the Toy Biz Marvel Legends I sold, but really regretted it later, so I was very happy when Hasbro announced they were going to revisit the character. I had already accumulated a pretty decent A.I.M. army, but they were missing their leader. Thankfully, this M.O.D.O.K. is a great realization of this classic comic book character. Let’s take a look at M.O.D.O.K.!
M.O.D.O.K. comes packaged in a closed box and I find it interesting that it looks like they used the digital render of the sculpted figure for the box art on the front and back. I’m so used to seeing photographed prototypes on boxes, but we’ve seen a lot of digital renders in promo material lately, so I wonder if companies will continue in this direction. Even the lovely illustration on the side of the box looks extremely close to the final figure, so I wonder if they gave the illustrator the model to work from.
Out of the box, M.O.D.O.K. needs assembly and feels very much like a build-a-figure, just one that we got in one shot rather than spread out over a wave. It does make me wonder if they intended to put him in a wave originally. M.O.D.O.K. comes with a blast effect stand, two face plates and four hands (right and left open, right fist, and left grip).
The blast effect stand comes in two pieces and attaches with a ball and socket into the bottom of M.O.D.O.K.’s chair. the ball joint allows for a little bit of wobble movement, but not too much and it adds just the right amount of height to figure so he hovers menacingly over a regular figure.
The alternate open hands are a nice option, though I think I might have preferred a pointing hand for ordering his troops.
The alternate face plates are perfection and capture the moods of M.O.D.O.K. (irate and quietly judgemental) really well and have a nice Kirby feel. I’d love to see what the stop-motion guys get up to with this thing.
A nice feature is you can store the extra parts in M.O.D.O.K.’s mostly hollow, over-sized noggin. Speaking as a guy who just organized his collection of alternate limbs, blast effects, and heads from my Marvel Legends collection, I really appreciate the cleanliness of that.
The sculpting is just fantastic. I can’t point to a specific M.O.D.O.K. illustration they based this figure on, but it captures that Kirby spirit perfectly. It’s got a similar vibe to the Toybiz version, but I like the proportions here a little better.
The paint is pretty great. They use that swirly metallic gold plastic that I normally don’t like for a lot of M.O.D.O.K., but there is a darker gold paint that adds a nice bit of polish to the overall feel. The faces have some nice subtle shading and clean color separation with the teeth, lips, eyes and mouth. The articulation is good too with:
- Swivel/hinge shoulders, elbows, wrists, and ankles
- Ball and socket hips, chair controller, and base
- Swivel thighs and chair
- Double hinged knees
Some of the motion is limited due to the unusual character design, but you get the movement you really need for M.O.D.O.K., though I do wish his chair got a little more movement on the base.
Overall, I’d say this is a fantastic effort from Hasbro and exactly what I wanted from a M.O.D.O.K. figure. I highly recommend this one.
