Review of Daredevil, Elektra, Man-Thing
Marvel Legends Action Figures

Introduction

Have you finished up The Defenders yet? No? Get crackin'! Perhaps not surprisingly, I have no room to talk, since I'm only on episode three. Hey, it's been a hectic week.

But I'm enjoying it so far. Yes, it's a little slow, and yes, the best parts revolve around my favorite characters Daredevil and Jessica Jones. The Luke Cage bits are fine, and the Iron Fist stuff could be gone and I'd be completely okay with that, mirroring how I feel about the previous series' themselves.

Marvel Legends has just started shipping their 'Netflix' wave, named so because four of the six regular figures are based on the Marvel Netflix shows. I already looked at the Punisher and Jessica Jones patterned on their Netflix incarnations, and Blade and Bullseye based on the comics. Tonight I'll cover the Netflix inspired Daredevil and Elektra, along with the comic inspired BAF, Man-Thing.

As I said, these are shipping in numbers right now to your favorite local retailers, where you'll find them for around $20 a pop. Look for the Thor: Ragnorok figures while you're there.

Packaging - ***1/2
Yep, the same packaging you expect. It's collector friendly (although there was a piece of tape or two this time with some of the accessories) and it's personalized for each character with a bio on back and appropriate logos. Also on the back is a photo catalog of the rest of the wave, along with which figure has which BAF piece.

Sculpting - Daredevil **; Elektra **1/2; Man-Thing ***1/2
This is really a mixed bag, and I was quite surprised by Daredevil.

He's bad. Really bad. While the Punisher and Jessica were too glossy, their underlying sculpts were extremely accurate, especially at this price point and scale. If you look at Elektra, particularly the unmasked head, you'll see the same thing. I'm extremely happy with the Elektra portrait, and not only is she attractive but she's very accurate to the actress.

So what the Hell happened with Daredevil? While you can only see the bottom third of his face, it's clearly not Charlie Cox, and the likeness is so far off that I'm thinking there might be some kind of licensing issue. Is that why we haven't seen an unmasked Hot Toys prototype?

The work on the costume is much better of course, including the textures and small details. But no matter how good the costume is, the lack of an accurate likeness really hurts this one.

Elektra is far, far better. The unmasked portrait looks very much like Elodie Yung, especially when you consider the 6" scale. While the costume is pretty basic stuff, it's well done and realistic. But then they go completely off the rails with her Popeye forearms - what's up with that? The sculpt of the forearms doesn't match up well with the musculature in the biceps and shoulders - it looks odd and clumsy. The hair could use a little more detail as well, but it's really those damn arms that muck things up for her.

Man-Thing is the best sculpt, but there does appear to be some re-use, with slight updates, from earlier figures. The detail work on the leafy areas looks great, and the tubular roots and strands give him his swampy goodness. You can have your Swamp Thing - it's Man-Thing all the way for me.

He stands about 8" tall, with some good bulk and volume.  Daredevil is about 6 1/2" tall, while Elektra is just over 6".

Paint - Daredevil **; Elektra, Man-Thing ***
Daredevil is a pretty big fail here as well, although it's largely the fault of the lower face once again.

The costume looks good, but there is a bit more slop between the colors than we usually see. They have the glossy skin on the lower face, similar to the issue we saw with Punisher and Jessica Jones. I'm not sure what's up with the gloss coat - and it's *slightly* less of a problem for Elektra - but I hope it's not something we see them continue.

They also went for a stubble look, or at least that's what I'm hoping these wild spots were supposed to be. Either that, or he's suffering from some sort of awful skin condition for which I can only pray there's a cream or lotion.

Elektra's paint job is better, but that's a pretty low bar. She has a little slop here and there, and while the glossy effect is lessened, it's not entirely gone. It helps that there aren't a lot of operations on her costume, but even with the few there are, the edges between the red and black are dicey.

Man-Thing probably has the best paint job, but it's a hard one to screw up. Red eyes - check. Big green body - check. They did use a wash effect to bring out the sculpt, and it works quite nicely.

Articulation - Man-Thing ***; Elektra, Daredevil ***1/2
These are Marvel Legends, baby, you know you're getting articulation.

The Daredevil has all the usual, including an excellent ball jointed neck at the torso and the jawline. There's rotating hinge shoulders, cut biceps, double pin elbows, rotating hinge wrists, ab-crunch, cut waist, rotating hinge hips, cut thighs, double pin knees, and rotating hinge ankles with good rocker movement. He's relatively easy to pose, but several of these joints - like the shoulders and hips - are ratchet style, so they 'click' in place. While that means they can maintain certain poses longer, it also means he can't take certain poses simply because these joints are forced into certain spots.

Elektra is pretty much the same. She only has the ball jointed neck below the jawline, and she swaps rotating hinge elbows for the double pins, but otherwise she's as articulated as Daredevil.

Man-Thing has a bulky body, which does reduce the movement in some of the articulation. He has a ball neck, but the long 'beard' and location of the neck (forward on the torso) cuts down it's mobility. There's rotating hinge shoulders, cut biceps, rotating hinge wrists, and single pin elbows. While the arms pose well, the angle on the elbows can't get much tighter than 100 degrees. He has the ab-crunch and cut waist as well.

From the waist down he has rotating hinge hips, cut thighs, double pin knees, and rotating/rocker ankles. The ankles are very restricted by the sculpt, but the other joints work well.

Accessories - Man-Thing Bupkis; Daredevil ***, Elektra ****
Man-Thing IS an accessory, so it's no real surprise that he doesn't come with any extras. And what would you really give him, anyway?

Daredevil has the BAF piece of course, as well as his two piece baton. There's loops on his holster for the two separate pieces, and they can be joined at the middle via a peg.

Elektra does the best, coming with the BAF piece, a pair of sais, and her extra head sculpt. It's this unmasked head sculpt that boosts her score way up, adding a full star to this category. The heads swap easily, and both look great.

Fun Factor - ***1/2
There's some nits here - some of them pretty big - but these are still Marvel Legends. And they are still the best 'action' figures on the mass market pegs today.  Kids will have a ton of fun, and collectors will enjoy adding them to the display.

Value - **1/2
At $20 a pop, these are pretty much in line with my expectations. Regular readers know that a **1/2 here is an average score, and won't pull the Overall up or down.

Things to Watch Out For -
Not a thing.

Overall - Daredevil **1/2; Elektra, Man-Thing ***;
With every Marvel Legends wave, I get surprises. For example, with this wave my must have figure was Man-Thing, because I loved him as a kid.  I was also assuming the Punisher would end up high on my favorites list, based on early photos.

Once I had them in hand, opened up, and assembled, that all changed. Out of the four Netflix figures, Jessica Jones is my favorite, and overall I think Bullseye might be my number one. And that's a character I couldn't possibly care less about, but the execution on the figure and the extra portrait are spot on.

As to Man-Thing...he's still a childhood favorite, but the figure is less impressive in hand.  I ended up feeling pretty average about him, and while I plan on adding him to the display (he might even end up with the Mezco One:12 characters at some point), he isn't the must have I thought he'd be.

Score Recap (out of ****):
Packaging - ***1/2
Sculpting - Daredevil **; Elektra **1/2; Man-Thing ***1/2
Paint - Daredevil **; Elektra, Man-Thing ***
Articulation - Man-Thing ***; Elektra, Daredevil ***1/2
Accessories - Man-Thing Bupkis; Daredevil ***, Elektra ****
Fun Factor - ***1/2
Value - **1/2
Overall - Daredevil **1/2; Elektra, Man-Thing ***;

Where to Buy 
These (along with the Thor: Ragnorok series) are hitting pretty hard right now at Target, Wal-mart, and Meijers, where they run around $20 each. Online options include these site sponsors:

- Entertainment Earth has a case (these six figures plus an extra Daredevil and extra Punisher) for $160 and free shipping.

- or you can search ebay for a deal.

Related Links -
I just recently covered the first half of this wave, including Punisher, Jessica Jones, Bullseye, and Blade. Before that was the Symbiote Spider-Man, Green Goblin, Shocker, and Sandman. Prior to that we had the Jackal, Ms Marvel, Spider-UK, and Spider-Man 2099, the Titus wave, with Vance Astro, Darkhawk, Kid Nova, Angela, and Titus, and Star-Lord, Drax, and Yondu. I also started the Warlock wave with a look at Sunfire, Shatterstar, and Polaris and Dazzler, Wolverine, and Colossus. Prior to that was the three BAF's, Space Venom, Dormammu, and Juggernaut.

There are a TON of additional Marvel Legends reviews before that, so you should hit the Search Reviews page to find those, and in case any other applicable reviews were done after this one was published.

You should also hit the Search Reviews page, in case any other applicable reviews were done after this one was published.

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