Since I was lucky enough to be awarded an early set of the upcoming Skrull / Brood 2-pack, thanks to a contest on the Fwoosh, it’s only fitting I give everyone a little rundown on these figures and how they stack up.
These figures originated as a concept for pack-ins, in the Marvel Legends Series 13 "Bring on the Bad Guys." Due to cost they and the various other "cannon fodder" type henchmen characters were dropped in favor of an Onslaught BAF. Now that Toy Biz has had to hand over the Marvel license to Hasbro, the henchmen were thought lost as part of the group of figures that would never see the light of day.
Thanks to Diamond Select we are going to get a taste of the henchmen we missed in Marvel Legends in the form of two pack sets. The first released is this Skrull / Brood set. They seem to be direct ports of the original ML designed pack-ins, featuring less articulation and a slim size to make getting two for the price of one MS figure a better deal.
These two are factory samples, and are a rough estimate of what we will see in the production run. Though they have some flaws such as unpainted areas in the deep sections of the joints or hard discs, and loose joints, I would expect these things to be worked out between DST and the factory, as that’s what samples are for to get an idea of how the figures will turn out and tweak whats necessary.
The Skrull stacks up at about an even 6" tall. This height seems perfectly reasonable and he stands up well with other ML, though it should be assumed due to his somewhat crouched sculpted pose that he’s a little taller than most 6" figs. His articulation is pretty limited even for MS standards, only featuring the following:
- Ball Neck
- Ball Shoulders
- Swivel Biceps
- Swivel Wrists
- Ball Hips
- Swivel Thighs
- Hinge Ankles
The articulation doesn’t allow for much in the way of action posing. Mostly just allowing him to stand relaxed or with gun aiming at whatever he may choose to shoot. The gun is also sculpted into his hand and is not removable. The overall sculpt is very nice, great detail especially in the head. The paint also compliments these details greatly by bringing them all out. Washes / drybrushes on the body and face make him pop nicely. It should be assumed that what he lacks in articulation is made up for in sculpt and paint. The plasma ball or whatever it may be that is part of the gun is a little meh, I would prefer a gun that is not "firing" anything as to allow the posing of vanilla stance without him looking like he’s shooting his foot off but its a minor nitpick. A removable gun or swappable hand would have been a nice addition, but he’s still a nice overall figure.
The Brood, the other Alien of this set features an equally detailed sculpt with nicely done paint, and some decent articulation. The overall body from head to tail tip is about 6" long. The front tentacles are not bendy which is mildly disappointing. The articulation is pretty straight forward, it features ball joints with swivels on both sides, on each of the limbs. It also has a ball jointed neck (very limited) and swivel tail points, the two back sections of the tail are separate pieces that can be rotated to have the rear spikes pointing outward or inward however you prefer.
Scale to ML seems reasonable, and he looks good fighting with the likes of Wolverine if your a fan of the Brood stories and the creatures in general. This figure will also be a nice addition to the upcoming Brood Queen BAF in HML series 3.
Overall, these figures are exactly what you see, somewhat basic Henchmen type characters – the soldier types your heroes can plow through in battle. They aren’t big names or popular villains, just cannon fodder in the end. If you don’t have a lot of interest in that type of character these probably aren’t for you, but if you’re the army builder type or just like to have some helpers to aid your big gun villains, these are definitely for you.
Pictures: http://www.thefwoosh.com/picsold/thumbnails.php?album=828
Ask DST: http://www.thefwoosh.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=37175