Hasbro Marvel Legends Infinite 2016 Store Exclusives review
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After four straight reviews for four different series of Marvel Legends Infininte figures consisting of a total of thirty two new figures,
it's hard to believe that Hasbro has any left to offer fans. But with Marvel and especially the Marvel Cinematic Universe at a high point
in its popularity, all of the major toy retailers are coming out with exclusive for the line to draw in customers. Walmart has a pair of
movie based figures: Falcon and Winter Soldier. Target has a two pack with a version of War Machine based on the Civil War movie and a new
interation of Iron Man's many armors. Toys R Us has a three pack of comic based figures including Vision, Sam Wilson's version of Captain
America and Kate Bishop, aka the Young Avengers version of Hawkeye. Even Walgreens is back on the action with two new exclusive figures: Namor
and the Punisher. There is also a three pack of figures available with Captain America, Spider-Man and Iron Man that was released to celebrate
the Civil War movie and Spidey's part in it. But that set isn't actually an exclusive, the figures didn't appear to be too accurate and I
already had more than enough new figures, so I skipped it for now. But that still leaves me with nine new figures to check out.
Packaging - TRU 3 pack, Punisher & Namor 6/10, others 7/10The current Marvel Legends Infinite package design has been used for all of the exclusive sets, including the multi-packs. And for the most part, it works well. As I have written in the past, I think the design works better for the movie based figures. The two Walgreens exclusives (Punisher and Namor) both have that slight disadvantage as well as also wasting a fair amount of space on the bottom of the box back advertising the Giant Man and Absorbing Man series figures despite the fact that neither figure actually shipped with or even at the same time as those series. But I will give both credit, for once the short little bios written on the back of the packages and translated into four languages actually do a decent job of summing up the characters in very few characters. Walmart's exclusive Falcon and Winter Soldier get more room on the back to show off the figure, but the write ups are extrememly generic. The same holds true for the Iron Man/War Machine two pack which has even more space going to waste. The Toys R Us three pack has even more space on the back. So it's unfortunate that they didn't use that to give any real information about the characters. You can get away with that to some extent when the figures are based on the most popular movie franchise around. But when your set suddenly seems to have one character cosplaying as Captain America instead of the actual Cap and a Hawkeye that is seemingly the wrong gender and it might be worth explaining who these characters are and what their roles in the Marvel Comics is, especially given you have plenty of space to do so.
Sculpting - Vision & Punisher 5/10, Iron Man, War Machine and Namor 6/10, Others 8/10Both Vision and Punisher use generic bodies and then Punisher adds a few accessories to dress it up. That should work well enough for Vision. But the body that they used is absolutely ripped. And I don't just mean he is beefy. If he weren't made of plastic, I would be seriously worried that his muscles were about to explode. There's really no reason for an android to have such bulked up muscles. The Punisher has a nicely detailed belt and shoulder straps. But there's no sculpted detail for the gloves or boots. And the biggest oversight is the lack of hands with sculpted trigger fingers. I guess you can just say he exercises proper trigger safety. But a Punisher figure that can't pull a trigger is a sad thing. Iron Man's Mark 27 armor is just the Super Patriot version of War Machine from the Iron Monger series. There doesn't appear to be anything very stealthy about it though. I can't quite decide how I feel about War Machine. From what I can tell, the details of the figures are accurate. But the overall look seems off to me. His chest seems too thick and the arc reactor seems too low in the chest. Namor, like Vision, is based on an extremely muscle-bound body. But this time he has his modern costume sculpted over it. The costume looks great. It's just a shame that they didn't use a slimmer body. I would also complain about the slicked back look of his hair sculpt. But I guess it is actually fitting for a character that is underwater much of the time. I haven't read any Marvel titles with either Sam Wilson as Captain America or Hawkeye in her new costume. But both seem to match the current comic designs well. But it's the movie version of Falcon and Winter Soldier that really show what Hasbro can do with this line. Both have fairly complex costumes but the figures replicate them well. Falcon could use a bit more depth to the costume details. But his likeness is spot on whereas Winter Soldier's face doesn't seem quite right. It's close, but the jaw line isn't quite right.
Paint - Vision, Iron Man & Falcon 6/10, Others 8/10The paint work for most of these figures is really well done for mass market figures. They aren't perfect. But there's nothing obvious missing. And the paint work all turned out clean and neat. But then you come to Falcon, Vision and Iron Man. Iron Man's colors are just really strange and the vast contrast in the colors makes even smallest issue extremely noticable. And you can essentially copy and paste that for Vision. I'm not sure if this multicolored costume is based on a comic or not. But in either case, Vision is the one figure where I notice multiple small quality control issues with the paint. Individually, they are all very small. But when one of them is dead center in the middle of the diamond on his chest, it's hard to ignore. Thankfully Falcon doesn't have the quality control issues or outlandish colors. But he has so much sculpted detail that they just couldn't realistically paint it all. They did paint enough to keep it from looking too dull. But fully painted, I'm sure the figure would look much better.
Articulation - Vision 7/10, Others 8/10The articulation for all of the figures is the Marvel Legends standard at this point. For Captain America Sam Wilson, that includes:
Accessories - Vision 0/10, Winter Soldier & Captain America 4/10, Punisher, Iron Man & Namor 5/10, Others 6/10There is a substantial quantity of accessories that come with these figures. But they tend to be of lower than average quality. Vision is the only figure to not have any accessories. (I'm not counting the cape, though it is removable.) Winter Soldier comes with a nice combat knife and a very fake looking pistol. Seriously, it looks like Bucky carved this thing out of a block of wood, espcially the bulky handle. Sam Wilson's version of Captain America comes with the usual shield, complete with peg and wrist clip. The shield is fine. But the lack of wings isn't. Mark 27 Iron Man comes with a laser cannon that mounts to the back of either of the the shoulders. It's the same laser as the War Machine version of this sculpt included. But they didn't bother to mold it in a matching color plastic or paint it. So it looks somewhat odd. Namor comes with his trident and a spare set of hands. The new sculpt for hands is a nice option, but I don't know why I would want to give them to Namor. I assume it is for a swimming pose, but I don't recall Namor swimming with his hands flat and fingers extended straight out. The trident looks great. It's well sculpted and painted and made of stiff enough plastic that it won't be warping. But the handle is too thick for Namor to hold without forcing his right hand open much farther than it was originally molded to be. And it won't work in his left hand as the thumb and pointer finger are molded together. If they had just molded a portion of the trident a bit narrower to be easily held, the Trident would have been great. Punisher comes with a rocket launcher, assault style shot gun, and a machine gun. He also has an alternate head as well. I don't mind that the shot gun and rocket launcher were recycled from the recent Deadpool figure. And the machine gun looks great. But the lack of hands with properly positioned trigger fingers is a really annoying. Things finally start to get good with the final three figures. But even they have issues. Hawkeye comes with a quiver and bow. The bow is reused from the modern Hawkeye from the Rocket Raccoon Series. The quiver is nice. But the fact that part of it is empty makes it feel like something is missing. I don't care if they wanted to recycle some individual arrows or throw in a folded up version of the bow that could be stored in the quiver as well. But include something. War Machine comes with the largest collection of accessories. But they also have the worst quality issues. He has a set of spare hands. But the closed fists aren't really useful for anything. For weapons War Machine has a pair of folding machine guns that can clip to his hips or under the arms. But they don't actually fold out in a way that allows War Machine to hold them properly. He also comes with two versions of a stun baton, one extended and ready to strike and one in its more compact form for storeage. Finally he has a shoulder mounted cannon that plugs into one of the slots behind either shoulder. The cannon is small, not very detailed and falls off far too easily. The variety of his weapons are nice. But I'd rather have one or two weapons done well than an assortment that is going to fall off and get lost in two days. Finally there is Falcon who comes with his backpack, wings and two versions of his redwing drone. The wings can be plugged into the backpack and extend out and slightly back. It also has a folded up version of his Redwing drone which can be stored on the backpack and a fully deployed version of Redwing. I have to applaud Hasbro for their attempt. But having the wings stuck in their fully deployed position is going to make him pretty awkward on a shelf. And they don't attach very securely given their size. It's kind of a shame that the Marvel Legends Infinite line doesn't have an option for deluxe figures that would have made it feasible to include a backpack with at least partially articulated wings. That could have made this figure a real show stopper.
Value - Two Pack 6/10, Three Pack, Winter Soldier & Falcon 7/10, Others 8/10Despite being exclusives, all of the figures still carry the usual $20 per figure price tag, including the multi-packs. So the Two Pack is $40 and the Three Pack sells for $60. While I like War Machine, Hawkeye and Captain America, with both sets it feels like you get stuck buying a fairly silly looking repaint to get them. Namor and Punisher are nice updates to previously released figures, though I suspect a lot of fans will want to swap some parts around on Punisher, at least to give him new hands. The two Walmart exclusive figures, Falcon and Winter Soldier are a bit more questionable. Without the accessories, both figures are pretty dull looking on their own. Of course that changes for Falcon once you add the wings. But as I discussed earlier, they have problems of their own. If you are a collector of the movie characters, you are probably going to want to buy them just to fill out your ranks. But if you don't care about the MCU, they may be worth passing up.
Happy Hunting:Perceptive readers will have already picked up on the fact that all of these figures are exclusive to certain stores. Punisher and Namor are exclusive to Walgreens in the United States as well as being available on their web site. Falcon and Winter Soldier are exclusive to Walmart stores and Walmart.com. The Iron Man and War Machine set is sold by Target and the comic three pack is available from Toys R Us. While I'm not normally a fan of exclusives and making it harder to find the figures you want, all four stores seem to be doing an admirable job of making these figures relatively easy to aquire.
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