Oh, SDCC Thor, you were a major league pain in my buttocks. As everyone who has ever tried to get post-SDCC items on hasbrotoyshop.com knows, the entire process is a frustrating, nerve-wracking, absolute terror of an experience. You can be right at the end with multiple items in your cart, and then bammo — sold out! Then you have to dump your own cart of the sold-out item, running the risk of losing everything else you wanted. IT’S A NIGHTMARE.
In 2010, Heroic Age Thor was the first salvo fired in Hasbro’s much ballyhooed Return of Marvel Legends, and, like all Marvel Legends fans, I wanted one. Well, the site pretty much crashed halfway through the transaction, so I waited for two solid hours with several items in my cart waiting for the order to be processed. Miraculously, I managed to get everything I wanted. By the time it was over, it was less about the figure and more about the battle. I ended up liking Zarana better than Thor, but that’s beside the point.
Thor came in a gigantic hammer box that I unfortunately just threw away about a month ago after keeping it for all this time. Yeah, that was bad timing. But my basement was getting filled with packaging, and I don’t play with packaging, so it had to go.
Thor was released later in the brand-new Return of Marvel Legends series 1 without the funky lightning deco, so at least people who missed him were able to get him in some venue. Meanwhile, there are people still waiting for Psylocke from the X-Force box set, so that’s how cruel the world is.
I like the lightning deco for what it is, and the way the effect was carried out looks pretty good, but to be honest, I don’t really need Thor to be constantly lit up. As it is, it makes for an interesting SDCC specialty item, but in actuality it’s not an essential item for the collection. That’s more along the lines of how I’d prefer SDCC items.
Being an older sculpt, Thor suffers from a few articulation issues that Hasbro seemed to be leaving behind. First on the list is the ankles. These are those horrible upward plugging ankles that afford no side-to-side movement. The forum has been overrun by the words “rocker ankles” to the point where I hear it in my sleep sometimes, but the truth is that this type of ankle is really horrible for a figure, and the new Hasbro ankles are leagues better. He’s got the flat, pointy foot sculpt that was also prevalent in pre-Return-styled Marvel Legends. So ankle down, there’s a lot of troubles here.
He features the Hasbro-styled elbow, but with a bonus bicep swivel that adds a dimensionality to his arm posing that I like a lot. While I wouldn’t need it on every figure, on Thor I like it better than I would have single or double joints.
His hip movement is a bit restricted due to the sculpt, so trying to get him into overly demonstrative poses is hampered by that.
Articulation criticisms aside, he’s a great-looking figure with well-sculpted armored bits. But as is typical with a lot of Hasbro stuff — like the Wrecking crew — he’s too tall. 
Actually, if you pose him with the Wrecking Crew, he’s fine, but add in anybody else and he’s too tall. I know, I know, scale Nazi blah blah, but it’s true, he’s too tall. For instance, he easily towers over Hasbro’s brand-new (awesome) Luke cage figure, and they’re supposed to be roughly the same height. That bugs me. And the argument that he’s a god so he can be taller just doesn’t work for me. Does! Not! Work!
Overall, Thor is a decent-looking figure with a handful of issues, which is the problem with many of the Thor figures we’ve received from both ToyBiz and Hasbro. There’s never been that perfect Thor, and with my firm belief that A-listers won’t get perfect figures because the toy companies don’t want to ruin repeat purchases, I’m fairly certain we will never get one, especially if they’re now dedicated to pumping out giant Thors. Yes, I’m crazy.
But I do like his hammer a lot.