It’s now been a couple of years since Hasbro did a light pivot from the HasLab model of action figure delivery to the made-to-order one. That’s not to say the HasLab is dead, but we haven’t seen a Marvel Legends themed one since Giant Man which was solicited in September of 2023 and delivered about 2 years ago. Before that was the controversial Engine of Vengeance. The Engine of Vengeance was a proposed vehicle to be made via the HasLab model and is the vehicle of a more modern take on the character of Ghost Rider: Robbie Reyes. There was substantial sticker shock at the $350 ask for what was essentially a 1:12 Dodge Challenger. Being that similar objects exist in the toy aisle already for a substantially lower price it raised a lot of questions about just what Hasbro was doing here? Combine that with the relative obscurity of the Reyes Ghost Rider and it wasn’t too much of a surprise to see the campaign come up short of meeting its funding goal.
That wasn’t for lack of trying. Along the way, Hasbro attempted to sweeten the pot with fairly desirable characters as stretch goal action figures most notably the Goblin Queen and Mephisto. Both characters have been cited in the past as being two that Hasbro basically can’t touch because selling them presents an obstacle. For Goblin Queen, it’s the revealing nature of her costume and for Mephisto it’s that he’s essentially Marvel’s version of Satan. Never mind that Diamond Select delivered a Mephisto several years prior. When the two were added to the Engine of Vengeance campaign it was stated that this was the only way Hasbro could make these figures. No retailer would touch them and it’s possible higher-ups at both Hasbro and Disney, Marvel’s parent company, were a bit squeamish when it came to both. That, of course, turned out to be a lie. At least in part. For X-Men ’97’s second wave of action figures, Hasbro delivered a Goblin Queen. She’s not as scantily clad as the comic book version, but then again, neither was the proposed offering via the HasLab. And just last year, Hasbro decided to offer up Mephisto as part of its made-to-order series of figures which is one that bypasses traditional retail. Never mind that Fan Channel figures exist in this day and age and I suspect none of them would bat an eye at carrying Mephisto, but whatever. As far as I can tell, this version is the exact same as what was offered via the HasLab only with one rather large addition. See, it wouldn’t do for Hasbro to just make a Marvel Legends figure this way. Previous offerings have all been oversized, so they decided to add a unique base to the mix and it’s that base that drove me to place an order when the listing went live last summer.
Mephisto arrives in a unique box with photography and artwork on the front and back with a very brief bio. It’s an eye-catching box, but it offers no look at the figure inside so in order to do so you’ll have to break into it. Getting into the box is not painful as it just requires slicing some tape. The figure and all of its accessories are in a two-tiered tray so re-boxing is exceedingly easy. We’ll talk about the figure first before getting to the main event which is the base. Mephisto stands at roughly 7″ with his hair taking him closer to the 8″ mark. He’s a bit taller than your typical Marvel Legends release, but not to the degree Hasbro would likely ask more money for as a standard release. And in terms of bulk, he’s quite slim and slender. As far as I can tell, this sculpt is all new and while some of his height is derived from the torso, the bulk found there is probably less than what one would find via the Vulcan body or even most Spider-Man sculpts. There’s only a slight taper to the torso and most of that comes from how Hasbro did the torso articulation. This new sculpt did allow them to situate the shoulders in a slightly more natural position than the often low shoulders we’re accustomed to though some of that seems to be created by just how low the pectorals go in the sculpt. The shoulders also are not tiny and he has somewhat ropey muscles with long forearms. The legs are quite slender, though pretty shredded as is the style of Marvel Legends. It gives the overall silhouette a mixed feeling. On one hand, the torso and legs give the figure a very tubular quality, but I like where the shoulders sit and how much mass they possess. In short, it’s a mixed bag but certainly better than some of the other Legends figures I have.
As for paint, well there is very little to speak of. Even though Mephisto carries a premium price, he does not have a premium look or feel. There’s some shading and paint on the face which does add some life to both portraits while the body features some light highlights. The plastic is a deep red while the color used for said highlights is more of a red-orange. It’s applied to the pecs and abs as well as the front of the thighs and adds a slight hit of gloss to the overall appearance. If the effect is to create the illusion of flames all around him then I can see it. The fingernails are painted black and the loincloth continues onto the thighs and I assume that is painted. It gives them a better, more natural, finish compared with the slightly shiny red-brown plastic found in the crotch. The wrappings on the forearms are separately molded and keyed into the forearm and the boots are separate as well. A wash on the forearms probably would have enhanced them. It looks like the boots were at least hit with a clear, matte, spray as they look a bit better. I can also see a shiny spot where the spray may have failed to reach. It’s a decent looking figure and should fit in stylistically with a Marvel Legends collection, but those expecting something better than normal may feel underwhelmed.
For accessories, Mephisto comes with the typical and the atypical when it comes to Legends. For parts, we get two sets of hands and two portraits which is fairly standard. For hands, there’s a set of gripping hands and a set of open, style-posed hands. For portraits, we get this angry looking one by default with the hair slightly slicked back. The alternate portrait features more of a diabolical grin and the hair is flailing out to the sides like he’s standing in front of a fan. The paint job on both is consistent from one to the other for the face, though I wish they had hit the hair with something as it has a very plastic appearance. Of the two, I definitely prefer the sinister smile so much so that I can’t see myself using the default one at all. Mephisto also comes with a sword that’s almost as long as he is tall. I have it from pommel to tip at 6.625″. The blade is plain, gray, plastic while the crossguard and pommel are painted gold and the hilt brown. I wish they went the extra mile to paint the blade a nice, shiny, silver, but it looks pretty good as-is. Mine did arrive slightly warped as it curves a bit inward. I may try to heat and straighten it at some point. The other accessories are where things get slightly different as Mephisto has two capes and two loincloths. Hasbro is not known for including such optional parts so if you were looking for something a touch more premium than typical then I guess this is where you find it. There’s a sculpted plastic cape which plugs into the figure’s back which is sculpted to be blowing off to the figure’s left slightly. There’s some black paint at the inner bottom and some sculpted details and it looks fine, though since it doesn’t feature a fastener of any kind around the neck it looks a little bizarre. I’m guessing this is consistent with artwork for the character so I don’t consider it a flaw, but it’s not the cape I’ll use. For that, there’s a soft goods one which features a plastic collar and fastener with a soft goods cape attached to it. There’s no wire, but there is a pattern on the inner part. The quality is still more like an old Kenner Batman toy so it also isn’t impressive, but I prefer it to the plastic one. The loincloth setup is the same as we get a hard plastic one and a soft goods one. The soft goods one is of the same material and quality as the cape, just without any hard plastic to anchor it while the plastic one has some bend sculpted into it.
So why did Hasbro see fit to include two capes and two loincloths? Because Mephisto needs to be able to sit on his included throne. This is the reason why this figure cost a probably still too expensive $80. The throne comes in two pieces: the chair itself and the backing which simply snaps together (and feels like it’s intended to not come apart after). It’s made of a slightly soft plastic which kind of reminds me of a rubber duck, but it’s heavily sculpted and features a fair amount of paint for a Hasbro product. It has an organic design mimicking flesh and sinew with veins painted onto it and other, colored, plastic parts inserted like the four skulls at the base. These skulls are also hit with some shading and there’s a fifth skull that’s actually free of the base for Mephisto to hold or to have placed by his seat. Three more skulls adorn the back with one featuring a red centipede snaking through it. There’s plenty of shading, but the real eye-catcher is the piece that makes up the back. There you will find a large, demonic, skull that should be familiar to fans of the band Danzig. This skull design has been that band’s logo since 1988 and prior to that it was the logo for the band Samhain beginning in 1984. Why is a logo associated with the works of Glenn Danzig worked into this item from Marvel Legends? Because it originally appeared on the cover for Saga of Crystar number 8 and was designed by Michael Golden. I have no idea if Marvel was ever compensated by Danzig or any of the record labels that released his albums featuring this skull, but if not this is one way for Marvel to strike back albeit many years later. As a result, it makes this set desirable to both Marvel fans and Danzig collectors and I know of several Danzig fans who bought this who otherwise would not have. The fact that the character released with it happens to be Marvel’s Satan is also not a bad pairing.
If we can take it back to the actual toy now there’s still the matter of articulation to discuss. Mephisto presents like any old Marvel Legend and he mostly moves like one too. Hasbro went with the double ball peg head joint and like most Legends the lower ball is seated far too deep into the neck and chest. This means the range is pretty poor and he basically can’t look up at all. The figure does have butterfly joints, but the slender sculpt left little room for them to do a whole lot. The shoulders go back a decent amount, and forward just a touch. They could have carved out more room in the chest, but that probably would have looked bad. Otherwise, the arms and legs feature the usual Legends articulation. There is a boot swivel, but no forearm swivel and the gripping hands do have a vertical hinge. They unfortunately did a straight cut for the thigh swivel rather than attempt to stick it under the trunks. The torso is where the real mixed bag comes in. At the diaphragm is a ball joint that gets solid range forward and back. It does tilt, but it fights rotation. It’ll go, but the peg may be binding as it tends to want to snap back into a neutral spot. At the waist we have…nothing. The figure is designed to come apart at the waist to accommodate swapping out the loincloth, but Hasbro just made it a keyed joint. It can’t even swivel which is such a shame. This means the only crunch forward or back you can get is via the diaphragm and that’s also the only spot the figure can rotate, which it also seems to want to push back against. A ball joint would have separated pretty easily at the waist and since this is a non-retail figure I don’t know why that wasn’t possible. If internal safety standards meant not doing that for retail I could understand, but this isn’t retail. Nothing is loose and the range of the joints is pretty standard. The elbows and knees are a bit stiff, but that’s also pretty typical of a Legends figure.
Which is what Mephisto is: he’s a standard Marvel Legends release packaged with an elaborate base. I don’t know how the costs break-out for most people here. As an action figure, nothing about Mephisto warrants more than the going rate for a Marvel Legends action figure. Maybe you bump him up to $30 or $35 since it’s new tooling that can’t be sold at retail (if we take Hasbro at their word), but that still leaves $45-50 to get to the MSRP of $80. Is that Crystar/Danzig-inspired base worth that much money? Maybe to a Danzig collector like me who’s accustomed to paying hundreds of dollars for a stupid necklace or trick-or-treat bag, but to a typical Legends collector? That’s a tough sell. I think a fairer price would be to treat the figure and base as the same value which would get you to a $60-70 MSRP. Is the extra $10 a made-to-order tax? I guess. The figure does at least sit the throne well enough and the sword slots into one of those skulls so in terms of what it set out to do it accomplished its goal. It’s also still available at Hasbro Pulse and still for the original price of $80 which stands in contrast to Dragon Man and the Sentinel which both saw a price hike. Those were also solicited pre-tariffs and the extra may simply come from that. Mephisto benefited from being solicited while those tariffs were in effect and arriving after the bulk of them had been struck down by the courts. Or it’s simply a case of Hasbro realizing it’s already asked as much as it can ask of its fanbase for this particular item and going any higher would be foolish. There have been whispers that the made-to-order model has not worked well for Hasbro financially. I haven’t seen any real reporting behind those whispers so take them with a grain of salt. They have not announced a new made-to-order item in 2026 to this point, but then again, they also had this and the X-Men ’97 Apocalypse outstanding and maybe they don’t want to add a third item until one or both deliver. With San Diego Comic Con right around the corner, that could obviously change. As it stands, if you always wanted a Mephisto for your Legends collection and either passed on or grew sick of that old Diamond Select one, then this is fine. It’s just way overpriced. If you care not for the throne then maybe you can flip it to a Danzig fan to lighten the price. And if you’re a Danzig fan who has no interest in the figure, I don’t doubt that you’ll be able to get some of your money back by selling Mephisto to a Legends collector.
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