Between Wolverine’s sub-line and Marvel Legends proper, we’re getting two waves of figures sometime in the coming months. I’ve picked out five figures I’m most looking forward to among the upcoming figures.
Sabretooth
Sabretooth makes it onto the list more for his body than his figure. I know, I know, shameless, but it’s the larger Hyperion body but blank — that’s a customizer’s dream. I can only hope that he’s made in extraordinarily high quantities and is clearance priced because I need a dozen at minimum. Not that the figure itself isn’t cool on its own — Sabretooth has a nice bulk and looks good on this body, the head looks good, and he has a nice set of claw-hands, but I’m looking at it for purely mercenary means, and I can’t wait to stock up on him.
Puck
Another entry into the “smallest Build-a-figure ever” category along with Hit Monkey, Puck’s a bit lacking in articulation, but he’s a little dude, so squeezing in articulation without having him be all joint (something I’m assuming Snoop Dogg Lion is afflicted with), and, the fact is, he looks great. Alpha Flight has been getting what seems like one figure per millennium, and it’s nice to finally have yet another representation after Guardian, who was around five years ago. Now with the undersized Sasquatch (who really needs a redo) that makes a grand total of three Alpha Flight members. At this rate, maybe by 2030 we’ll have a full set.
Hawkeye
Getting a new Hawkeye on the Buckycap body is a no-brainer, and it’ll be great to finally have an improvement over the gangly Toy Biz figure. While I’d like a figure that was a bit more strictly classic with the added paint detailing that goes along with it, this rather monochrome updated version of his classic uniform will do. The smart choice was to split Hawkeye into this and his more modern CW look, so people can get whichever version of Hawkeye they want and nobody has to get all angsty about it. Well, almost nobody.
Wrecker/BullDozer
Yeah, I’m cheating, but if you think about it, Hasbro’s cheating by putting out all the Crew on the same body, so, really, my cheating is precipitated by their cheating. Or something. I’m putting the remaining two members of the Wrecking Crew on the list despite my misgivings with the body they’re actually sharing. I haven’t really been a big fan of the overlarge mish-mashed body, and I’m also in the camp that would have liked Bulldozer’s other, more memorable look, but the fact is we’re finally going to have a 6-inch scaled completed Wrecking Crew, and that in itself is a worthwhile enough feat to qualify it for the second shared spot on the list.
And finally:
Black Panther
This is the one I wanted all along.
Black Panther has received a figure before, in series 10 of Toy Biz’s run of Marvel Legends. But after the multiple-level crotch-jab of weird muscle sculpting, odd texture, small head, awkward shoulders, gold detailing that hewed more (at the time) modern, and (did I mention?) awkward sculpting, the simple beauty of a slick, streamlined classic Black Panther seemed a pipe dream. But time passed, and finally the perfect body came along to allow the toy gods to grace us with what to me is the definitive version of Black Panther. This is the figure I wanted then, and it’s my number one most wanted upcoming figure now. There’s no gold accents, no weird articulation, no unnecessary texture; this is the Black Panther I envision in my head.