We’re going to keep this Marvel/Mutant Monday thing going for one more week! After taking a look at a trio of figures from Hasbro’s new X-Men ’97 line of figures in its Marvel Legends catalog I’ve decided to do one more: Bishop. The first three figures I looked at were basically all missing pieces to the VHS line Hasbro did last year for X-Men, the animated series which aired on Fox in the 90s. Bishop wasn’t featured in that line either despite being the most frequent guest star in the series so it would stand to reason that I’d be interested in adding him as well. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your view, Bishop’s character received a redesign for the new show. It’s not incredibly drastic, but it removed his most mighty possession: his fabulous mullet.
Yes, Bishop decided to ditch the 80s haircut he had (despite being a guy from the future – maybe the mullet makes a comeback?) for something a bit more modern. He now sports a closely cropped head of hair, but largely maintains his look outside of that. He’s still sporting the yellow and blue, still has that kerchief about his neck, and also carries a big gun. Well, more on that last part later. Still, for someone like me who just wants to assemble the team from the show I grew up watching, it seemed like this was a figure I could skip. Then I saw him in a store, then I saw him again, and eventually I caved and bought the thing. I just like how it looks! Something about that yellow and blue will always appeal to me, but beyond that the figure looks better than a typical Legends release. It’s more in-line with how I would personally design the line if asked to so let’s dive into this one so I can explain what it is about Bishop that made me want to take him home.
Bishop stands at right around the 7″ mark making him the tallest figure in his wave. He’s composed mostly of blue and brown plastic with some yellow where it makes sense. His belt and the cuffs around his shoulders are soft, yellow, plastic keyed into the figure and secured with glue. The ends of his sleeves also appear to be yellow strips of plastic glued into place. The only paint needed on this figure was the yellow and black stripe down the body, the red and black X logo on the belt, and the details on his face. And perhaps to no one’s surprise, the painted areas are the weakest part of the figure and it’s mainly just that yellow stripe that runs the length of his body. All of the figures I found on the pegs had some issue with that part of the figure, either messy application or a chipped spot and I settled on the one that bothered me the least. The yellow isn’t as saturated as it needs to be so some blue shows through while the black line running down it gets messy in places. The easiest way for Hasbro to have prevented that would have been to cast the figure in yellow and paint on the blue and black, but Hasbro really doesn’t want to use that much paint so this is what we got.
Aside from that, I really like the presentation on this figure. I don’t have any other Bishop figures (I never even got the Toy Biz Marvel Legends one), but I believe most of what is presented here is new. He has a much sturdier build than most Legends figures I’ve encountered. His shoulders are broad, his chest has a lot of mass, and his proportions look great. I do think the cuffs at the shoulders help to minimize that low shoulder look a lot of Legends have and they also make the shoulders appear bigger. I’m guessing if I cut those off I’d be less impressed, but since they’re present I have to give the figure its do. I also really like the matte finish this thing has. It’s on the blue portions as well as the skin and it’s just really, really nice. There’s a temptation to seek out an older Bishop head that would better match the character I know, but I doubt any head I found, custom or official, would have the same finish. It means I’ll probably just have to get used to short haired Bishop, unless someone wants to sell custom pieces of hair since it appears to be a separate piece that’s glued down.
The accessories for Bishop are like the other figures in the wave – terrible. It’s basically bare minimum type stuff here as Bishop has a set of trigger hands, a right fist, and a left gripping hand. I’m not sure why we need the gripping hand and trigger hand, I’d have preferred two fists, but either way the accessory count is too low. Bishop also has his gun which looks a lot like the one from the original show. It’s pretty small though and I wish it had more size to it. Maybe it’s accurate to the new show – I don’t know. In the 92 series, his gun wasn’t very consistent and there are some shots where it looks puny, but I would say it’s supposed to be on the bigger side. He has a holster behind his left shoulder that it slots into fine and the sculpt is solid on the weapon. It’s cast in gray plastic and unpainted so it’s certainly not flashy. There’s nothing else in the box though – no effect parts, no alternate head, no nothing. It’s Hasbro doing the bare minimum at a not bare minimum price point.
Assuming much of what’s here is new, Bishop should articulate fairly well. Or at least as well as a burly fellow like him can. The head is on a double ball peg and it’s just okay. He looks down enough and the rotation is obviously fine, but looking up is severely limited. That’s because Hasbro just buries the lower part of the peg in the neck and doesn’t allow for as much range as it could. The shoulders are just hinged ball pegs and they rotate and can go out to the side to a horizontal position. The biceps swivel is fine and the double-jointed elbows bend past 90 without much fuss. The wrists swivel and the trigger hands have vertical hinges, the rest horizontal. In the torso is an ab crunch that’s pretty “clicky.” It basically has three positions: neutral, forward, and back. Going back just makes his belly stick out and he looks pretty silly, going forward is fine, but it’s not a great joint. The waist twist is a peg twist. The hips go out to the side well past 45 degrees though not to full splits. He kicks forward about 90 degrees, but doesn’t kick back very far. There is a thigh cut and a boot cut, though the thigh cut breaks up not just the striping down the left side of the figure, but also the sculpted pouches on the thighs so it’s a pretty useless joint. The knees will go past 90 degrees, and are on the tight side. The ankles hinge forward and back a good amount while also pivoting just fine.
The articulation for Bishop is probably acceptable given he’s a big dude with a gun, he’s not here to do high kicks and such. My only real complaints are with how they did the joint at the head since he should have more function up there if they just did it right. I’m also kind of tired of these Legends figures with useless thigh cuts that break up the costume in unnatural ways because who is going to pose their figures in such a way? Put the rotation at the ball joint and it will look so much better. The torso also sucks and I’d like to see Hasbro ditch these ugly ab crunches in favor of double ball pegs in the abdomen. That will let the figure bend forward and back, especially if paired with a ball joint at the waist, while also providing tilt and rotation. It’s not something that’s really any more expensive to produce compared with what we have, it’s more a matter of changing over the infrastructure that’s the real cost. They’ve been doing it with pin-less joints for years now, a figure of mostly new tools like Bishop would have been a great place to incorporate more advances.
The criticisms I have for this representation of Bishop are basically criticisms directed at Marvel Legends in general. For a Legends release, I think this Bishop is pretty damn good and it largely just comes down to the finish and proportioning. He’s supposed to big a big, burly, man and he is. He has the mass to his chest that so many figures lack. Just look at a figure like the well-received VHS Cyclops or the new Magneto from the side – there’s so little mass they’re almost flat. That’s not the case with Bishop and he looks a lot better than most figures as a result. He looks so good that I bought him when I had no intention of doing so. I probably could have waited for a clearance sale, but didn’t want to chance it. Now watch them re-release the figure with a ’92 inspired head (you know they will) so I can kick myself for giving Hasbro money in the first place.
If you’re interested in X-Men ’97 here are my other reviews on the line:
Marvel Legends X-Men ’97 Gambit
Everyone can relax – Gambit has returned. Or arrived, since I’ve never reviewed a Gambit action figure in this space, but that’s because I haven’t bought a Gambit figure in about 20 years until now. When X-Men arrived on airwaves in the fall of 1992, hardly anyone on that team could be considered a true…
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Marvel Legends X-Men ’97 Rogue
Previously, on X-Men reviews we looked at Magneto from the upcoming series X-Men ’97. The animated series may have been delayed into 2024, but the action figures from Hasbro are already here. And if you were collecting Hasbro’s line of figures based on the animated series from the 90s, this new line offers a chance…
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Marvel Legends X-Men ’97 Magneto
It was two years ago that Hasbro made the announcement that it was wading into the weeds of X-Men, the cartoon series that aired on the Fox Kids Network from 1992-1997. The line was released across eight installments in 2022 (plus a ninth if you include the obviously animated-inspired Apocalypse released on a retro card)…
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The Nostalgia Spot 
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