Paint - **1/2
The paint ops are decent, but certainly not above average. While
the blue face was consistent, the white teeth are sloppy, and the lines of
the pants are very hit or miss. Some look great, and others look
pretty poor. The hair line is also a bit uneven, with some over spray
onto the face.
The color choices are good though, although they are (or
should be) dictated by the film. His outfit is certainly eye catching,
and makes a nice break from the basic black that I expect we'll see with the
other characters.
I wanted to point out that the color of the face, hands and
tail looks off in the photos to me - it's much more obviously blue in real
life. Of course, I'm color blind as hell, so it might look blue in
these photos too, and the blue background may just be throwing me off!
Articulation - ***
Nightcrawler has neck, ball jointed shoulders, cut biceps, wrists, chest,
waist, hips, cut thighs, tail and ankles. The ball jointed shoulders
have somewhat of a restricted range of motion, but overall this is quite a
bit of articulation for this style of figure.
Sure, this isn't your usual 12" figure, with a cloth
uniform and highly articulated body, but the price point reflects that.
Speaking of the tail, I wish it had been a more bendy
rubber. It is somewhat bendy, but is made of a fairly rigid
plastic. You can manage to position it in a few different ways, but
you'll have to heat it and cool it to really do much with it.
Accessories - Bupkis
I'm sure he could have had SOMETHING, and this is really the only area
that's going to hurt the overall score. I suspect that by going
without accessories, they are able to keep the cost down, and avoid having
more complicated packaging. It would be necessary to protect any
accessory to avoid theft, so this style of basic box wouldn't have worked.
Outfit - ***
Yes, technically he has an outfit, since the part of his coat that covers
his body is cloth. It's well stitched, although not lined, and they've
done a much better than usual job of blending the cloth jacket into the
sculpted arms.
But the big plus here for the coat is the wire they've placed through the
bottom seam. That means you can pose the bottom of the coat in various
ways, giving him a much more dynamic appearance. Nice touch!
Value - ****
This figure is a fantastic value, considering he's only ten bucks.
You're getting a good looking 12" scale version of Nightcrawler, with
decent paint ops and articulation, all for the price of one much smaller
7"-8" figure from most other companies.
Overall - ***
This is almost a ***1/2 star figure - all that's holding it back is the
lack of any accessories. If they threw in one, along with slightly
better paint ops, this figure could have easily reached four stars.
Still, if you're an X-men fan, pick it up. It's a simply
terrific value, and looks great on the shelf. Now that we have the
Hulk in this style (although not really in scale), along with the X-men 2
figures, it opens up a whole 'nother scale to put together in a display!
Where to Buy:
I picked up mine at the locak Kaybee store at the mall. I'm sure
we'll see them at Toys R Us and Target very soon as well On-line:
- Entertainment
Earth has them listed by the case. You'll probably get three
Wolverines and one Nightcrawler for $40 plus shipping.