Review of The Wolverine sixth scale action figure

Introduction

With the release of the exceptional X-Men: Days of Future Past, it can be easy to forget that not all Marvel movies are created equal, especially those involving mutants. While the team has had several solid films, their 'star' member has been treated less kindly by writers and directors.

The Wolverine wasn't quite as bad as Origins, but neither gave us the sort of cool bad ass bundle of attitude we expect and saw in X-men 1 and 2.  Still, it did provide a unique style for Jackman's portrayal, and Hot Toys thought that look was worthy of an action figure.

This guy has been shipping for awhile - I'm a bit behind - but he's still available to pick up at most retailers. You can expect to pay around $225, depending on where you snag him.

Packaging - ***1/2
The shoe box packaging cover is very much like the early teaser poster, right down to using a similar feeling paper stock. It's a very cool piece of artwork, and sets the box apart from other Marvel brands.

It's all collector friendly of course, but I'm not a huge fan of putting one of the plastic trays in the lid, which they've done here.

Sculpting - ***
When it comes to likeness to the character and actor, I have to say this portrait left me wanting.  At the right angle I can find Jackman in there, but you have to squint just so in a dimly lit room.

The realism and detail are outstanding, of course. The hair style, one of the cooler aspects of his look in this film, is spot on, and the facial hair and eyebrows are fantastic. The subtle skin texture and expressive eyes top things off nicely.

The expression is a bit bland, with very little going on with the mouth. That's part of the problem I think - the mouth and lips look quite small in proportion to the rest of his face, a situation I don't recall the actor having. The head is a tad stubby too, squished down from top to bottom a bit too much and widened out at the temples.

The expression isn't all bad. I like the grim determination and danger that you see in the eyes, but some of that gets lost with the rest of the face.

As I said, right angle and right light and you'll find Jackman in there, but this isn't one of my favorite portraits.

The various hands are sculpted for generic poses or for holding the accessories, and they work for the maximum number of stances. Of the two shoe sculpts, I prefer the boots, but the dress shoes are solid work as well.

Paint - ***1/2
More surprising, at least for me, is that while the paint is very nice, it's not perfect.

The eyes are scary real of course, and the facial hair has that amazing light touch that is so hard to pull off. How much more perfect could those eyebrows be?

But they've gone with a skin tone that looks like he's experimenting with a fake tan, and the experiment was not a success. It looks a little wonky on his face, but it's really his hands and body where things go wrong. It's not terrible - they aren't getting even a mediocre score here - but it's not the usual perfection I've come to know and love.

Articulation - ***1/2
As with the sculpt and paint, this category surprised me a bit, and not in a good way. The normally unbeatable TrueType body was a bit too loose this time around, something we don't usually see.

Because they knew that there was a high probability that you'd go with the t-shirt only look, they cut back a bit on the arm articulation. There's no cut bicep, and the elbows are more restricted than on the standard TT. That means you can't recreate the photo from the front of the box, but you can still get some very good upper body poses out of him, thanks in no small part to the excellent ab-crunch, waist and neck articulation.

The legs is where the loose joints come into play. The knees were the worst, but there was more play in the ankles than usual as well. I was able to get him to maintain some deep stances, but it was trickier to find that perfect center of gravity and hold it.

Accessories - ***
Logan doesn't come with a ton of extras, but the quality is top notch.

There are 5 pairs of hands in total, including the fists he comes wearing. There's also a relaxed set, as well as a gripping set, and all are made from a softer material, making it easy to insert the weapons.

The other two sets are his 'claws out' versions. One is metal - and they are real metal - and the other is bone.  We saw both looks in the movie, and the bone claws are one of the biggest selling points for this release.

The metal claws come to a very sharp point - take care!  They can also be removed from the soft hands without damage, if you so desire.

I love the bone versions, and that's how I'll be displaying him on my shelves.  But the shiny, clean, sharp metal claws are the iconic look, so having the option is a nice touch.

There's some extra wrist posts as well, but the hands swapped easily without any real risk of breakage.

That's not it for his weapons. He comes with a beautiful katana, made from real metal and polished to a high sheen. There's writing in Japanese on both sides of the blade, and an intricate hilt is topped off with a colorful bangle. This sword slips effortlessly into the supplied scabbard.

Although the blade is metal, the arms and shoulders are tight enough to be able to hold the weight in just about any pose and maintain the look. They've matched the look from the film nicely, and produced a very high quality accessory.

There's two different outfits as well, but I'll be covering that in the next section.

Finally, he has the usual basic black display stand for consistency. While all this doesn't add up to a ton of extras, the quality helps make the sparsity a bit less noticeable.

Outfit - ***1/2
There are two complete outfits, although you get to the second one without a lot of extra clothes.

He comes wearing the monotone outfit we saw early in the film. There's the black overcoat, black suit coat, black shirt, black tie, black belt, black pants, and black dress shoes. The shoes don't feet over feet - they are the feet, popping right on to the balls of the ankle posts.

There's socks under all that - black, of course, and both a tank top and 'sweater'. These are both colored...you guessed it, white.

The 'sweater' is really a body stocking for the arms and shoulders so that the black color of of the shirt doesn't stain the underlying body. I know I appreciate that, since I'm going to be using the other outfit with this figure, exposing the shoulders and arms.

To get to that other outfit, you have to remove all that black, which is a bit of a trick. Read and follow the instructions, and note that the collar of the shirt is sewn together. That's not a button or snap!

Once you get him down to his socks, you can put the white tank top back on (remember, you had to remove the 'sweater'), and pop on his brown pants with the separate belt and brown boots. Voila, you've gone from funeral Mondays to casual Fridays!

I much prefer the simpler outfit, although I have to admit that the black suit is a rather unique look. Both outfits are fairly well done, but some of the tailoring here is not *quite* as good as I've come to expect. for example, I'm not digging on the fit of the black pants, and the white tank top t-shirt has some padding on the obliques that I think adds too much weight to the waist. It looks fine in photos, but in person the fit isn't quite as tight on the torso as it should be.

Still, both costumes are very high quality with the best materials and excellent stitching. Having two looks is a great addition as well, almost as good as getting two portraits.

Fun Factor - ***
Even with the slightly loose knees and ankles, the collector will have plenty of fun posing and redressing this figure.

Value - *1/2
This is one of those figures that's beyond expensive, even for a Hot Toys release.  At $225, he's running $25 or so more than recent releases like the Adam West Batman, or the Rock, and matches the cost of a figure like the Tony Stark Mechanic, who had a ton of extras. 

The two outfits is nice, but the second one amounts to a pair of pants, a belt and new feet. And the use of real metal works great here, but it's not enough to justify this price point.

It seems that $225 is the new norm, or at least that's what they are shooting for, but they have to provide enough in the way of accessories, dioramas or head sculpts to make that viable.

Things to Watch Out For -
The real metal blades on both the hands and the sword have very sharp points, so this is not the sort of toy you want to hand over to a child unsupervised.

Overall - ***
While this isn't an awful figure by any means, it's not quite at the quality level to justify the steep price point. There's no one significant glaring problem, but rather small ones that add up overall to a middling release.

Lots of Wolverine fans will appreciate the two outfits, as well as the bone claws. And the expression they chose is a nice middle ground between the extreme snarl and mannequin-like stare of the previous two releases. But it will be a tough call as to whether those things can outweigh a steep price point and a look based on a film that lacks fan-love.

Score Recap (out of ****):
Packaging - ***1/2
Sculpting - ***
Paint - ***1/2
Articulation - ***1/2
Accessories - ***
Outfit - ***1/2
Fun Factor - ***
Value - *1/2
Overall - ***

Where to Buy 
Online options include these site sponsors:

- Sideshow has him for $225.

- or you can search ebay for a deal.

Related Links -
This isn't the first time Hot Toys has done Wolverine - check out this guest review of their first attempt. Hot Toys also did a Last Stand version, as did Medicom back in the day.

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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