Packaging - ***1/2
I like this style of mass market bubble/card back, and there's enough
personalization and background info to make me happy. The
graphics and colors are well chosen, and while these aren't the easiest
to store for the MOCers, they do hold up quite well to peg wear.
Sculpting - End Hulk
****; King Hulk ***1/2; Son of Hulk ***; She Hulk **1/2
Hasbro's sculpting on the Marvel Legends line has improved
considerably, with far more textures and small details with this wave
than we've seen in the past.
My easy favorite here is The End
Hulk. From the torn and rotting skin, to the extreme veining of his
muscles, this is a great looking figure on the shelf. This figure is
quickly becoming one of my all time favorite Hulk figures, and I don't
even care all that much about the storyline.
Key highlights for me are his
toenails, and his head sculpt, both of which show the kind of intricate
detail that is possible even on a mass market toy. He stands about 7
1/4" tall when he's fully upright.
On the opposite end of the
sculpting spectrum is She Hulk. Is it a surprise any more
when a female Marvel action figure looks like the offspring of Tom
Petty and a monkey's butt? She Hulk has never exactly been
the most effeminate of ladies, but that doesn't mean she can't be hot.
And in fact, the body sculpt
this time around ain't half bad. It has some issues with
conflicting with the articulation (more on that in the later section),
but from a pure sculpt standpoint, it's decent. The
proportions aren't nearly as awkward as we've seen in the past, the
hips aren't wider than her shoulders, and the shape of the muscles is
quite good. I don't know that she's big enough to be She Hulk
- the Hulk figures truly tower over her - but on her own the body
doesn't look half bad.
The head sculpt is reasonable,
with the exception of the chosen expression. The shape of the
head is good, and she's actually quite pretty until you get to that
weird mouth pose. She has her teeth gritted, but with the
lower and upper edge to edge, and her mouth is almost in an O shape.
Try making that mouth pose yourself and you'll see how
awkward and weird it is.
The other big negating feature
on her sculpt is the huge hat hair. Whenever you sculpt the
hair separately from the head and glue it on, you can have issues with
it looking to big and oversized. For She Hulk, this is
clearly an issue, and the top of her head sticks well above where it
should due to the huge hair. None of the hair sculpts are
done with thin strands either, and hers ends up looking the worst for
it. She stands about 6 1/4" tall.
Son of Hulk is a step up from
that, with slightly better hair and a good expression, but there's far
less detail on his body, skin and even clothing than on the other
Hulks. I'm not a big fan of his proportions either, with a
smaller chest but huge arms. The loincloth is sculpted a bit too small
as well, which causes it to ride up higher on his hips, making the
torso look even smaller and squatter. He clocks in at 7" tall.
King Hulk is much closer in
quality to the End Hulk, with great detail work on the clothing and
skin, and excellent head sculpt, and a great marriage between the
sculpt and the articulation. His hands are designed to hold
his accessories perfectly, and he stands fantastic on his own.
At about 7 1/2" tall, he's the biggest of these three Hulks.
Paint - End Hulk
***1/2; Son of Hulk, King Hulk ***;
She Hulk **
One area where Hasbro cut back on the overall Marvel Legends figures is
the paint jobs. They've utilized plastics cast in appropriate colors
wherever possible, and while this is cost efficient, it also tends to
be less attractive.
This is pretty obvious on the
major body parts of King Hulk, She Hulk and Son of Hulk. The
End Hulk has a bit more detailed paint work due to the damaged skin,
and they also added a wash that worked much better this time around.
This same style of wash on some of the previously reviewed figures was
over done and excessive, but on End Hulk they managed to get it just
about right. This use of a wash and more detail work is what
gives him the slight edge over the others.
One
of those details I wanted to mention is his teeth. They are
done
with a sloppy edge to the white and to the gums on purpose, giving him
that look of truly poor dental hygiene. In close ups you can
see
the paint clearly, but in person in the regular scale, it merely looks
like he has really bad teeth.
Although King Hulk does use a
lot of cast-in-the-color plastics, the small details that are there,
like his crown, are fairly clean. There's the occasional
smudge of paint here or there, and you can see a bit of the eye yellow
on his cheek, but for the most part he's clean.
Son of Hulk is also fairly
clean, although some of the color choices are less to my liking.
The largely gray body needs something more to set it apart on
the shelf, and the lack of detail does hurt him a bit.
She Hulk ends up with the most
slop, particularly around the mouth. They did give her lips a
bit of a gloss finish, but it's not particularly neat or clean, making
her look like a bad Baby Jane Hudson impersonator. If you
strip her down, you'll see further slop issues around the cut lines of
her underwear.
Articulation - End Hulk ****;
King Hulk ***1/2; Son of Hulk ***; She Hulk **1/2
Back in the day, Marvel Legends set the standard for articulation in
the 6 - 7" scale. Under Hasbro's reign, the sheer number of
joints have decreased, but most of these have been joints that were had
questionable purpose to begin with. While the overall number may have
decreased, the overall quality has generally increased, with tighter
joints, better pegs, and more solid construction.
Let's start with my favorite
figure of the bunch, The End Hulk.to go along with the terrific sculpt
and paint, you have some really well thought out, well designed, useful
articulation. I couldn't stick this guy in a bad pose if I
tried.
There's the same old pin and
post neck, but the range of movement is quite good. He has ball jointed
shoulders, with the joints on both sides of the balls, and these are
clicky joints, designed to stick in a pose much tighter. The
number of 'clicks' on the shoulder plate is also quite high, allowing
the arm to move in tinier increments.
Moving down the body, there's
pin/post elbows and wrists, and again these are clicky joints.
There's a good ball jointed ab crunch, as well as pin and
post joints at the hips, knees and ankles. There was far more
posability in the legs than I expected, and he also stood in just about
any pose with a natural fluidity.
King Hulk has a similar number
of joints, but they are engineered a bit differently. He has the same
pin and post neck, and he has traditional ball jointed shoulders with
joints on both sides. These shoulders have an excellent range
of movement, and work in concert with the sculpt to allow the hands and
arms to come in very close to the body.
The elbows are single pin, and
the wrists are cut/pin joints. These don't have the same
level of usefulness as the End Hulk's pin/post versions. He
has the good ab-crunch joint, and has more traditional ball jointed
hips. However, his knees are also single pin, and while the
ankles are pin and post, the range of movement is hampered a bit by the
sculpt.
Son Hulk has articulation very
similar to End Hulk, and yet on a differently sculpted body, the
results are very different.
He has the pin/post neck, but
his long hair restricts most of the movement. His shoulders
are ball jointed on one side (really what I call pin/post
anywhere else), as are his hips. The elbows, wrists, ankles and knees
are all pin and post, just like End Hulk, and he has the ab crunch as
well. So why the lower score? Because these very similar joints don't
work as well with the sculpt. The arms can't come in toward
the body as closely as with the other two, and the legs just don't seem
to be able to mimic the same fluid poses. He's decent, but not great.
She Hulk also has similarly
styled joints, but once again, they don't work as well with her basic
sculpt.
She actually has a ball jointed
neck, and you would think that simple fact would make me happy.
It does, but the fact that it pops off with the slightest
touch tends to temper my enthusiasm a bit.
She has the same sort of pin and
post joints at then shoulders, hips, knees, elbows wrists and ankles,
but I had one Hell of a time getting her to look decent in any pose.
I think this is due to two issues: first, her sculpted neck
combined with the ball joint tends to make her head stick out from the
body at an awkward angle, and second, her sculpted butt doesn't allow
her thighs to move backward from center at all. I believe it's safe to
say that this is the first time in recorded history that a man has
complained about a woman having a sculpted butt.
Accessories - Without
Foom: King Hulk, Son Hulk ***; She Hulk *; End Hulk Bupkis; With Foom:
King Hulk, Son Hulk ***1/2; She Hulk, End Hulk ***
Whether you want Fin Fang Foom or not is going to have a HUGE effect on
this category (as well as the Value category).
Son of Hulk and King Hulk both
have extras in addition to the Foom parts. King Hulk has two
very cool edged weapons, a sword and an ax. The size and
style mesh well with the character, and while the paint is a bit more
mass market than I like, they're both decent. His belt can
also be removed from his torso, making it another accessory.
King Hulk comes with the small tail section as well.
The Son of Hulk has two weapons
as well, although these aren't quite as cool. The large,
jagged, stone-like sword looks great, but the smaller knife is sculpted
in the wrapped sheath, making it only look right on the belt.
The additional problem is that the small peg on the skirt is
very short, and the knife tends to fall off at the slightest touch. Son
of Hulk has the upper torso for your Foom figure.
The other two figures are
largely accompanied by just the Foom pieces. End Hulk has both the left
arm and right wing, and She Hulk comes with the large head and long
neck section.
She Hulk's dress is soft goods
and is removable, and yes, she's wearing a bra and panties that are
sculpted on underneath, you perv. That makes the dress sorta
kinda an accessory, but I'm not sure you want her without it.
Foom - ***1/2
Like I did with Grundy, the BAF from the recent DC Universe wave 3, I
thought I'd stick Fin Fang Foom off in his own category, getting his
own independent score.
I was pretty harsh on Foom when
I didn't have him altogether yet, but now that he's complete I'm much
happier.
The sculpt is terrific,
hearkening back to a bit more of the Strange Tales days. He
has that Chinese dragon look, fitting since he hibernated there so many
times. The detail work on the face is excellent, and there's
plenty of skin texture and scaling.
He's also huge, standing between
14 and 15 inches high depending on the leg pose. He stands great on his
own, and the sculpt works fairly well with the articulation.
Speaking of which, he's much
more articulated than the usual BAF, especially one at this size. He
has a ball jointed neck, pin jointed lower jaw, cut neck at the torso,
ball jointed shoulders (with joints on BOTH sides of the ball) and
hips, ball jointed wings, double pin elbows, pin and post wrists, ball
jointed chest, two cut joints on the tail where the pieces connect,
single pin knees and pin and post ankles.
The knees and ankles have fairly
restricted mobility, but the rest of the joints work absolutely
terrific.
So why is this not a four star
BAF? One reason - paint. The coverage is very
sloppy, and very toyish. The best aspects are the toenails,
fingernails, eyes and teeth, where the small details and colors are
quite good. I really love the two tone eyes that actually look like
they're glowing.
The green and yellow of the
scales and skin is where the
majority of the slop, poor coverage, and inconsistencies lie.
If this weren't the case, he'd be an easy four stars.
Fun Factor - Hulks
***1/2; She Hulk **
I did have a few issues with the articulation on Son of Hulk, but
overall the Hulk variations are all great toys. I think most kids will
be particularly fond of End Hulk, who also has some of that
monstrousness going for him. Good articulation, great
sculpts, and solid construction go a long way to making these good sand
box buddies.
She Hulk...well, She Hulk is
unlikely to appeal to any kid, male or female. I'm not sure she'd even
appeal to the Hulk.
Value - **
Even at $15, I went a little easier on these four than on the first
four. If you're not interested in Foom, then you're not going
to be as forgiving in this category, especially when it comes to She
Hulk. The price tag doesn't seem so bad when you get the head and neck
out of the package, but if you were just interested in the rather lame
figure, you'd feel mighty ripped.
Things To Watch Out For
-
As is often the case, watch the paint when you're picking these off the
shelf. Otherwise you shouldn't have any major issues.
Overall - End Hulk,
King Hulk ***1/2; Son of Hulk ***; She Hulk **
For me, the choice of the favorite figure out of this entire wave was
easy - it's The End Hulk.
If I had managed to get a good paint job on my Wendigo, it would have
been a tough call, because I love that sculpt as well. I've
seen Wendigos on the pegs with good paint, so you just have to try to
be picky when snagging yours.
I also really like the King Hulk, and Savage Hulk ain't bad.
This overall wave is odd in that the Hulk variants are the
winners, while the unique characters like She Hulk and Absorbing Man
are less impressive and interesting.
But it's worth picking up even the slackers of the wave just to get
Foom. Yea, I wish they'd spent a little more quality control
time on the paint, but he's damn impressive on the shelf, and looks
great with your Iron Man figure.
Score Recap:
Packaging - ***1/2
Sculpting - End Hulk ****; King Hulk ***1/2; Son of Hulk ***;
She Hulk **
Paint - End Hulk, King Hulk ***1/2; Son of Hulk ***; She Hulk
**
Articulation - End Hulk ****; King Hulk ***1/2; Son
of Hulk ***; She Hulk **1/2
Foom - ***1/2
Accessories - Without Foom: King Hulk, Son Hulk ***; She Hulk
*; End Hulk Bupkis;
With Foom: King Hulk, Son Hulk ***1/2; She Hulk, End Hulk ***
Fun Factor - Hulks ***1/2; She Hulk **1/2
Value - **
Overall - End Hulk, King Hulk ***1/2; Son of Hulk ***; She
Hulk **
Where to Buy -
You're best bet right now is Toys R Us and Target stores, who have been
getting this wave in pretty regular. The tough one to find is She Hulk,
since scalpers assume the female figure is a) short packed and b) more
desirable.
- You can also use the
sponsor MyAuctionLinks
to search ebay.
Related Links -
I reviewed the first half of this wave
last month, but I've covered a TON of ML figures over the years:
- I never did look at the third
wave of Hasbro ML's, but I did cover wave
2 and series 1, first at MROTW
and then here at QSE.
- you’ll want to check out my
review of the other
four figures at MROTW.
- Hasbro has also released
several of the 12″ Marvel Legends Icons, including Punisher
and Doom, and my favorite, Thor.
And if you still pine for the days Toybiz -
- in the 12″ Icons line, there’s
Spider-man
and Beast, Wolverine
and Venom.
- The Face Offs series 1 (with
Hulk/Leader in one
review and the other two sets in another)
and series
2 both had guest reviews.
- there’s the guest review of
the Fearsome
Foes of Spider-man boxed set, Urban
Legends box set, X-men
Legends boxed set, and the Fantastic
Four boxed set, along with my review of the Monsters
boxed set.
- The previous Sentinel
BAF was guest reviewed.
- then there’s the various
series reviews, including the Wal-mart
series, series 13,
series 12,
series 9
(including Galactus), series 8 Captain
Marvel and Doc Ock,
series 7 Vision,
series 6 Juggernaut,
Wolverine
and Deadpool,
series 5 Blade,
Nick Fury,
Sabertooth and Colossus, along with series 5 Red Skull,
Silver Surfer and Mr. Fantastic, series 4 Goliath,
Punisher,
Beast,
Gambit, and Elektra,
series 3 Daredevil
and then the rest
of the series, series 2 Thing
and Namor,
and finally, from three and a half years ago, the series 1
review.
Discussion:
Want to chat about this review? Try out one of these terrific forums where I'll be
discussing it!
Reader Ratings!
Here's your chance to weigh
in! Select your rating for this figure(s) to the
right.
Yea, it's a five star system and not a four star system like
mine,
but it's the best I've been able to come up with so far. You
can
only rate once from any particular IP. This one is a tricky
one, since
there are four figures AND they are such a mixed bag, but if I have to
give the full set a score overall it would be ***, and then converted
to
a five star system for comparison it's: 3.75
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