Hasbro’s 2014 SDCC offering continued a three-year trend of great box sets filled with a wide variety of characters for the discerning Marvel Legends fan. After 2012’s X-Force set and 2013’s Thunderbolts set, the bar was set pretty high, and we were all wondering what they could do to equal or top themselves.
GLADIATOR is what they did.
It’s always a nice feeling to get your holy grail figure. Gladiator has been a consistent high ranker in Fwoosh top tens, and has been at the top of my personal top ten list for as long as I’ve been a member of Fwoosh. But if the set had been Gladiator and a bunch of crappy figures, the box set would have felt bittersweet. Thankfully, the rest of the figures were not too shabby at all.
We’ve covered the individual figures before (Blastaar, Gladiator, Black Bolt, Medusa, and Star-Lord) so this is an overview of the set as a whole. And it’s a nifty set.
Dubbed the “Thanos Imperative Box Set” (or alternately the “Galactus Engine,” as it was bafflingly called on Hasbro’s website), Marvel put together a loose theme to bring us some much-needed figures and one redo of a previous glaring misstep. There was unfortunately no Thanos to be seen in this box set despite the name, which is a bit of a head-scratcher, but that’s the way it goes sometimes.
Star-Lord is riding high in popularity now, having starred in a brand new Marvel Studios movie and littering the toy aisles with various versions of his movie appearance. But, despite all that, we were still missing a proper comic version. We knew he was an inevitability; his picture had been teased at the previous SDCC, and the AIM body was built on the body that Star-Lord was supposed to be using. We just didn’t know when he’d be showing up. There was a collective fear that he may be pushed aside completely. But when the SDCC set was revealed, our fears were put aside.
In terms of pure action figure goodness, Star-Lord may be the most well-done figure in the set, despite Gladiator’s inclusion. I’ve had a fondness for this look ever since it debuted, and reading the comic series that featured this costume cemented that feeling. This is a great body that is very playable and looks good. I’ve heard complaints that his head is too big, but I don’t agree at all. He has a head under that helmet, and this actually looks like he has room for a head under that helmet, unlike many other helmeted figures.
Black Bolt was a much needed re-attempt at a figure Hasbro did back when they were still learning how to provide decent Marvel Legends figures. That initial Black Bolt was a strangled mess of bad articulation choices and uninspiring blandness. This one, built on their much improved standard body, is leagues better. It suffers a bit in their attempts to achieve his underarm wings, though. While it looks good in a regal spread-arm flying pose, it juts out unnaturally from other angles. I think it could have been done better, but the figure as a whole is better than the previous one, so that’s at least a plus.
Getting one Inhuman is sometimes like finding a unicorn on Main Street, so getting two at once is like finding a unicorn with Amelia Earhart riding on it’s back. With previous offerings Moonstone and Satanna, Hasbro debuted a new female body that was their best yet. But not willing to rest on their laurels, they’ve continued tweaking, and Medusa is the culmination of those efforts, getting rid of the slight “thunder thigh” effect. However, they’ve fallen into a bad pattern of heeling their women, which renders them more unstable than they should be, regardless of whether or not it’s appropriate to the character.
While we’ve often wondered how they would pull off the lifelike attributes of Medusa’s hair, Hasbro’s answer was to sculpt a lot of it. The result is impressive, but suggestive more so of a woman who hasn’t been to the salon than a woman with total control over her hair. In other words, there’s a lot of hair, but there’s not much actual “life” to it. She’s in a more modern costume, and it’s a nice-looking one, but I would have preferred a Medusa with a more classic appearance, or at least a mask of some type. They’ve come a long way with their females, with only a few more glitches that need fixing.
Blastaar was another character who has been denied a Legend all these years. When he showed up in the Marvel Universe line, many of the 6-inch collectors were wondering when it would be their turn. He’s an impressive, imposing figure. While many, me included, would have preferred his classic appearance, Blastaar shows up in his post-Annihilation look, which is understandable when taking into account the other costumes in the box set.
He looks like some sort of post-apocalyptic Mad Max-styled biker, so the comparisons to DC’s Lobo started immediately. Knee-jerk reaction for me was to want the classic appearance, but I’ve made my peace with this version. He’s built on the Avengers Hulk body with new lower legs, which seems to be an appropriate enough choice from Hasbro’s current arsenal of bodies.
Finally, there’s Gladiator. There is mostly good with only one bad with this figure. The good is pretty good. First and foremost, it’s finally a frickin’ Gladiator figure in the Marvel Legends line. I’ve been waiting forever for him to get his turn in the spotlight, and nothing was going to keep me from grabbing him. I like his head sculpt. Head sculpts are an area where Gladiator can go very wrong, and, being one of my favorite characters, I had a pretty set way I wanted him to look. His mohawk is just right, and his cape is flexible enough so it doesn’t impede his articulation. He has fists and attitude, all required components of any self-respecting Gladiator figure. I’ve written the word Gladiator probably more often than any other word in all my Fwoosh wish-listing, so it’s nice to be able to retire it from my endless wanting.
He’s built on the Luke Cage/Hyperion body, which is a good, well-articulated, and fun body. I like the power in this body, and it’s perfect for a large amount of characters including the previously mentioned Luke Cage, Hyperion, and the as-yet unreleased Tiger Shark. When put up against either of the smaller bodies they’ve been using, this is by far the better choice because I would have revolted if he was released on the body they’re using for the X-Men Legends Magneto. But in a perfect world scenario, Gladiator needs that mid-range body that they don’t have yet. It’s a body that would be perfect for people like Gladiator, Silver Surfer, Wonder Man, Captain America, US Agent, even their upcoming Drax redo figure that they intend on putting on this body. I think would look better on the body they don’t have.
Despite any nit-picks, this was a fun set filled with a nice array of much-needed characters. Hopefully those that wanted it were able to grab one, either at SDCC, through Hasbro’s infuriating website, or on eBay at ridiculously inflated prices.