In part two of his Marvel Legends Series 10 reviews, guest reviewer bluesparrow covers Mystique, Black Panther, and Angel. We’re glad he did, because we were too cheap to pony up the "fresh-off-the-boat" prices for our own set. Read on!
Mystique
Toybiz’s Marvel Legends series ten Mystique action figure.
Sculpt
Good. A simply sculpted female figure, not much personality apparant in the sculpt, they seem to be relying on the oddness of her coloring to sell the figure. The sole intricate detail on the figure is her trademark miniskulls belt. Still, it’s done well. Her facial expression is a bit hard to see because of the dark plastic, but you can see enough to see she’s one of Toybiz’s prettier female faces.
Paint
Decent. Not much going on here either, she’s basically three colors, blue, white, and red. The blue is mostly plastic, the red of her hair looks like paint, and the white is a mix of paint and plastic. The hair is the worst paint-wise of the figurem they mixed too much black into it and it gives it a dirty look. Also there is much evidence of Toybiz’s annoying habit of slathering a blue wash on white parts of figure.
Articulation
Very good. Mystique is one of the least articulated MLs for a long, long time, but in her case this is a good thing. Eliminating horrifically ugly swivel cuts across muscles that have plagued all their other female figures to date. The package says 27 POA and I see: neck hinge/swivel, ball shoulders, bicep swivels, double-hinged elbows, wrist hinges, knuckle hinges, boob swivel, ab hinge, ball waist, ball hips, double-hinged knees, hinge ankles. I count 24 but they maybe be counting the ball waist and shoulders as two, which is fair.
Accessories
Good. As with the rest of ML10, she comes with a piece of the Sentinel and a flying stand, which is somewhat unnecessary. Instead of a comic book, she comes with a posterbook.
Overall
Very good. Mystique’s not one of my favorite characters, but with this figure Toybiz has answered every single one of my past complaints about their female figures. Bring on the Scarlet Witch and X23!
Black Panther
Toybiz’s Marvel Legends series ten Black Panther action figure.
Sculpt
Excellent. Along with Mr. Sinister this figure is the star of the wave. The sculpt, based on the armature of ML8 Ultimate Captain America, is extremely finely detailed. He’s got a ripped physique, as he should. He has a nice pebbled texture that make it seem as if his costume is made from an animal hide, an inspired touch. Another dynamic and modern figure that shows just how far Marvel Legends has come in just a few years.
Paint
Okay. Okay, this figure is mostly unpainted and is naked plastic. He does have some costume detailing that’s painted, but that’s fairly standard for any toyline. There’s an unattractive purple wash that’s mainly apparant under a camera flash, but only to the naked eye on his boots. On my figure anyway.
Articulation
Excellent. A real action toy, he poses extremely well, and is a lot of fun. His POA are: neck hinge/swivel, front/back armpit hinges, ball shoulders, bicep swivels, double-hinged elbows, mid-forearm swivel cuts(along gloveline), wrist hinges, individual fingers articulated at the knuckle, ab hinge, waist swivel, ball hips, thigh swivel under the ball joint, double-hinged knees, calf swivels cuts(at the boot line), ankle hinges, toe hinges. I put the count at a whopping 39 bit I could see by some standards it being consided as 43.
Accessories
Good. He comes with a cape that pegs at the front, a flying stand, and a comic book.
Overall
Excellent. Black Panther comes out of this wave clearly one of the best MLs ever made. Why are you still reading this?! Go hunt him down!
Angel
Toybiz’s Marvel Legends series ten Angel action figure.
Sculpt
Good. Angel uses one of ML’s most overused bases, previously seen with Deadpool, Silver Surfer, Vision, etc. You can identify this base by the giant ball shoulders, the lame armpit hinges(I call this up/down type stupid, because they’re terrible). However Angel is one of the best uses of this base. The wings are the defining aspect of this character, and the figure lives and dies by how they’re rendered. Thankfully Toy Biz did a beautiful job. Nicely detailed and BIG they look great on him, and elevate and okay figure to a good one. His face is somewhat bland, and for some reason the sculptor decided to cast Brad Pitt as his version of the character, because the resemblance is more than casual. If anyone ever does a licensed Brad Pitt figure, find out who sculpted this, because it’s more faithful than most laser headscan-based sculpts.
Paint
Very good. One of the reasons this base body never works out well is because it feels a bit cheap unless the plastic is high quality and usually the paint is skimped on in favor of colored plastic. This time however the figure seem to be entirely painted, and be made from a stronger form of plastic to account for the wings. The red tone and it’s black detailing is very nicely done, and even the retarded Toybiz obsession with blue shading on white costumes, which is abundant on this figure, is actually decent-looking in person. The face is well painted, and the detailing on the wings is well rendered as well. This figure had the biggest single paint flaw of series ten, a blob of white paint on the lower right leg(photoshopped out in these pics). However it doesn’t seem fair to give this a lower review for a freak mistake.
Articulation
Excellent. One of the pluses of this body base is that it’s articulated as all hell. Angel even boosts this due to his wings, a hard effect to articulate on a figure. Toybiz managed to come up with a brilliant new joint* to use for it, a ratcheted hinge sculpted onto his back. Here’s how he breaks down: neck hinge/swivel, armpit hinges, ball shoulders, bicep swivels, double-hinged elbows, mid-forearm swivel cuts(at the glove line), wrist hinges, knuckle hinges, wing ratchet hinges, ab hinge, waist swivel, ball hips, thigh swivels under the ball hips, double-hinged knees, mid-calf swivel cuts(at the boot line), ankle hinges, toes hinges. I count it as thirty five to thirty nine POA depending on how you base your count.
* – I’ve been informed they used a similar joint in the 5" days, though with weaker plastic and the design failed. Thanks to Fwoosh chatter GhostRider for the info.
Accessories
Good. He comes with his wings, a flying stand(which he alone in all of ML10 actually needs), a piece of the Sentinel, and a comic book. Since this is the last review of a regular ML10 figure, I should not that these flying stands are a new design than that we’ve seen previously. They’re made of thicker plastic on the stalk, and better, thicker knobs. They’re not indestructible,
Overall
Very Good. What look like a pretty dull figure turned out to be rather fun. Toybiz showed their knack for reusing an outdated sculpt and getting a lot of mileage out of it. Their innovation with the wings was a master stroke, especially considering the flawed attempt they made with they X-Men Classics Archangel figure’s wings. Due to his size with wings on he’ll probably be relegated to the back of people’s displays, but not due to his being a poor figure.
About bluesparrow
bluesparrow joined the Fwoosh back in March of this year, and just wrote that oh-so-special one thousandth post. Being generally bored and spending so much time online talking about toys, he created Neon Batman (with Sword-Slashing action!) – a repository for his thoughts on toys, collecting, the industry, etc. Stop by his site for more pictures of ML 10 and more.