Tag Archives: deadpool

October 14, 2020

Marvel Legends Deadpool 2 Two-Pack

By Joe

Look through my various toy reviews and you’ll probably notice that I’m not much of a Marvel guy. That wasn’t always the case for me though as I was huge into Marvel Legends once upon a time. I basically stopped around the time Hasbro was awarded the Marvel license. I felt there was a dip in quality and also the character assortment stopped appealing to me. I knew what I wanted from the line and had wanted for years, but it seemed the line refused to give me what I wanted. I moved on, and it wasn’t long after the line was actually suspended for quite a few years before it made a comeback. I’ve never gone back though and that’s largely just due to my fading interest in the Marvel Universe.

Pardon the stock boxed photo, I was so eager to check this set out I forgot to snap a pic.

One figure I did review though was the Marvel Legends Deadpool. That figure was from the sixth series released by Toy Biz. I reviewed it simply because it’s the only Marvel Legends figure on display in my house. All of the rest are in bins crammed in an attic and most of the choicest figures have been sold. I liked that Deadpool a lot though when it came out so I did a little post on it. Well, when I was walking through an aisle at my local Target I happened upon one of the latest two-packs released by Hasbro in the Marvel Legends line. And that two-pack is the Deadpool and Negasonic Teenage Warhead set from the film Deadpool 2. It’s an eye-catching window box as it’s done up in red with Deadpool “effects” added to it like marker crossing out the figure’s real names and a faux Deadpool sticker placed over the X-Men logo. Since I still have a Deadpool on display in my house, I was really intrigued in having an updated version of the character to go with it. It turned into an impulse buy, so here we are.

She looks the part.

First off, let’s talk about the other figure in this set: Negasonic Teenage Warhead, who will now be referred to simply as NTW. I have little to no interest in this figure, but if I wanted a new Deadpool I had to get her. She is depicted in her Deadpool 2 costume complete with the mohawk hairstyle. She stands a tick under five and half inches to the top of her forehead, and is a bit taller when you factor in the hair. She looks the part and the face is a good likeness for actress Brianna Hildebrand. The sculpt features some nice texture work on the yellow portion of the chest as well as the sleeves and shoulders. Strangely, the pants feature no such touches and are basically just plain, black, plastic with some yellow painted on at the thighs. It would be okay if this were a figure based on a comic, but not a film. The only other aspect of the sculpt I’m not high on is how her head sits on her neck. The cut just looks odd from the side as there’s quite a gap between the back of her head and neck. I suppose the counter here is how many people are going to pose her on a shelf at a side angle? Probably few.

I don’t like that gap on the back of her neck.

NTW does come packed with quite a bit of functional articulation. Her head may look odd on her neck, but it can roll around effortlessly and she has a solid range of motion when looking up and down. The shoulders are ball-jointed and she has a bicep swivel and double-jointed elbows allowing her to bend about 90 degrees. It looks like the bottom joint should allow for movement past 90, but my figure doesn’t seem to want to cooperate. She has hinges and swivels at the wrist and an upper torso joint. It works more to pivot her side to side as she has little to no movement forward and back. The legs attach via ball-joints and can swivel. She also has a thigh cut and double-jointed knees. There’s a boot cut and her feet possess hinges as well as the ability to rock side to side. Being she’s not the most acrobatic of superheroes, this strikes me as a perfectly acceptable amount of articulation for this figure. It’s all integrated well into the sculpt and should you want to get creative I don’t think you’ll be limited too much.

Hands open.
Hands closed.

When it comes to accessories, NTW is a bit lacking, but also there’s not a ton of room to really add much. She comes with two sets of hands: fists and open style pose hands. They pop off and on easily enough and both are suitable for posing with this figure. She also has a pair of energy effects that wrap around her forearms. They’re okay, a little too flimsy for my liking, but the translucent yellow-orange plastic is a good look. That’s it though, but like I said, I’m not really sure what else would make sense for her to have.

Oh you are one sexy superhero.
And the view from behind, because the audience demands it.

The real draw of this set, for me and probably most who pick it up, is Deadpool. And to Hasbro’s credit, the company seems to be well aware of that. He comes with a lot more stuff than his boxmate and a lot more care went into his sculpt as well. First of all, this is a Deadpool 2 version of the character’s costume, though he does come with two sets of all black gloves, reflecting his appearance from the first film. I think Hasbro intends for this to be a catch-all version of the character, though the shoulder strap is clearly based on the sequel. Regardless, it’s not that important since his costume was pretty similar from one film to the next and he very much looks like Deadpool.

Home Alone face!
Sometimes a hero just needs to chill.

Deadpool stands at around six and a quarter inches and scales well with NTW. I assume he scales well with the other figures in this wave, but I also don’t have them to confirm. The sculpt is pretty involved with this guy as he has lots of seams, straps, and buckles, all over the place. The entire costume is well textured and looks like it was pulled from the film and there’s some minor battle damage on his chest as well. The belt Hasbro put on him is floating, so it doesn’t hinder his articulation to the degree one would expect. It’s also painted and sculpted quite well, at least on the front. Hasbro went cheap on the rear of the figure as the pouches are not painted to the degree the ones on the front of the belt are. Like the head on NTW, it’s something that won’t really show on a shelf, but come on, Hasbro! That’s pretty cheap. There’s also some errors here and there when comparing this costume with the film. The sculpt seems to be all there, it’s just some parts (in particular, the boot area and the collar) are either unpainted or painted black when they should be red, or vice versa. My figure also has one paint chip on the black portion of his abdomen and I’m frustrated at myself for not noticing that in the package since I had my pick from around half a dozen sets at the store.

Let’s pose!
Gun fight? Knife fight? Deadpool is always prepared.

Deadpool, essentially being a superhero ninja, is pretty well stacked when it comes to articulation. His head appears to be on a dumbbell joint giving him movement at the head and base of the neck. The collar Hasbro has on him limits the movement a bit, but it’s fine. The shoulders are on butterfly joints that give him some inward motion without marring the chest portion of the sculpt. They’re also ball-jointed and his elbows double-jointed and he can bend well past 90 degrees as he can basically do a full curl. The hands are hinged and also able to rotate, as expected. He does have an ab crunch and the way his costume is designed makes it work well with the sculpt. The waist can swivel and you can slide his belt up a bit to make it work. He’s ball-jointed at the legs with rotation there to go along with a thigh cut below it. The knees are double-jointed and his feet are hinged with rocking action. I’m a little surprised at the lack of a boot-cut or swivel down there, but it’s fine.

Let’s get messy!

The articulation Hasbro packed into this figure is plenty enough to get him into various poses, which comes in handy since he has a lot of stuff to pose with. In terms of hands, Deadpool has two all black fists and a pair of all black open, style pose, hands. His gripping hands have the back of each painted silver and his set of trigger hands are the same reflecting his appearance in Deadpool 2. I’m still not sure if this was intentional, or if the all black hands just weren’t painted by mistake. He also has an assortment of weapons including two katanas which fit neatly into the scabbards affixed to his back and a pair of handguns he can wield. They look like action guns in that the bolt appears to be set back like it’s being fired, either that or they’re some weird, made-up, pistol. He also has a pair of holstered handguns that Hasbro, for some reason, glued in place. I’ve seen some people get these out and they’re completely separate pieces, but mine are well stuck. He also has a knife which can slot into the little holster on his left ankle. You’re unlikely to pose him with the knife in hand, but I like that it’s included. Lastly, he has his stuffed unicorn and it’s pretty adorable. I actually might have to pose him with that for the sake of comedy.

Deadpool really is just a fantastic figure. I have some nitpicks with the paint, but I think the sculpt is great and I love all of the articulation Hasbro was able to work into this figure. My biggest complaint with my old Deadpool figure was with how that sculpt prioritized articulation ahead of aesthetics and some of the joints, in particular the shoulders, are kind of ugly. I have no such complaints here and really my only other complaint is with those guns Hasbro glued in. I love that Deadpool comes with lots of stuff, so it drives me a little crazy that he can’t holster the guns he’s intended to grip because his holsters are occupied by more guns!

I’d say things have improved over the last 15 or so years.

NTW is a fine figure as well. I’m disappointed that Hasbro seemed to phone it in on her lower half sculpt, but she looks the part and has all of the articulation she needs. Let’s be realistic though, if I could have bought Deadpool solo I would have. I’m not collecting Marvel Legends and I don’t plan on adding to this Deadpool collection either. Maybe Hasbro will get me to grab Cable if I run into him since I already have these two, but probably not. It’s great to see the Deadpool franchise getting some love from Hasbro though since it’s presently in limbo as far as films go. It was very successful for 20th Century Fox, but in the hands of Disney it feels like it doesn’t have a home. We know the company likely has plans for the whole X-Men Universe. I hope Deadpool is a part of those plans, but who can say? This figure sure kicks ass though!

I found this set at Target, but it’s being sold elsewhere as well. You can even pre-order it at Best Buy right now, or find it at other various online retailers. The MSRP is $49.99 so happy hunting!

3 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Comics, Film, toys

May 17, 2018

Marvel Legends Series 6 – Deadpool

By Joe

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The name is Deadpool, Captain Deadpool.

In celebration of the release of Deadpool 2 I thought it would be a good opportunity to take a look at one of my favorite action figures from the Marvel Legends line – Deadpool! Marvel Legends is a series of action figures that originated with the now defunct ToyBiz and is now owned by Hasbro. The series launched around the turn of the millennium and was a sister series of sorts to the Spider-Man Classics line. It was a collector oriented line that likely grew from the diminished sales and interest in the standard ToyBiz figures. This was also after McFarlane kind of changed the game in terms of what an action figure could be with its Spawn line. McFarlane placed greater emphasis on the sculpting process realizing that spending just a little more time tooling a figure could give it broader appeal. Adding more detail to a sculpt really adds little cost to the individual toy and this proved to be a wise move. I’d even wager the Spawn toys were likely more popular than the comic.

ToyBiz, as well as other toy manufacturers, were forced to play catch-up. ToyBiz would end up not only improving its sculpts, but would also prioritize articulation correctly assuming that collectors who removed toys from its packaging would want to be able to create dynamic poses for their mini heroes. ToyBiz would only get better as the years went on before Marvel eventually decided it no longer wanted to be in the toy manufacturing business. ToyBiz was owned by Marvel and the Marvel toys it put out represented basically the entirety of the company’s catalog. Rising oil prices were making plastic more expensive and Marvel probably felt it could make more money, while assuming less risk, by simply licensing their intellectual properties to other manufacturers, which is how Hasbro eventually took over. It was a bit of a bumpy start for Hasbro and for awhile the line was discontinued all together, but its made a return of sorts over the last couple of years.

Marvel Legends Series 6 arrived basically during the height of the line’s popularity in late summer 2004. ToyBiz had yet to tap into all of Marvel’s hottest properties so there was still great anticipation for every line. They had also hit on some new sculpts and were packing their figures full of articulation. In particular, a figure of Daredevil for the Spider-Man Classics line (which had been rebranded as simply Spider-Man with an emphasis on a younger audience) that would go on to be the base of many other ToyBiz figures, including this one of the Merc with a Mouth – Deadpool.

Back when this figure first came out, Deadpool was far from a household name. He was largely a character getting by on his cool design, even if it was derivative of several other heroes and villains from comics. His comic was niche, but certainly unique given the character’s lunacy and penchant for breaking the fourth wall. This was in an age when the only popular Marvel properties were really Spider-Man and the X-Men. In a pre Marvel Cinematic Universe world, the likes of Iron Man and Captain America were for comic geeks only, though the Ultimate Universe was gaining in popularity and The Ultimates, the version of the Avengers for that world, were a pretty big reason why.

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A meeting of the minds.

Marvel Legends Series 6 was a notoriously difficult series to find at retail. By now, the secondary market and specialty shops were fully aware of the line’s popularity and collectors were forced to battle with scalpers at the big box stores in order to land the toys they coveted. I don’t think I ever came across the entirety of this series at retail, which also included figures of Wolverine (brown costume), Juggernaut, Phoenix, Cable and The Punisher (Thomas Jane). Since The Punisher was based on a movie likeness, he was the only one I ever saw at retail because few people wanted him. I knew I wanted Wolverine, Deadpool, and Juggernaut especially so I actually pre-ordered them through an online retailer. I paid a premium, but it proved to be the right move as they quickly went up in price basically every where they weren’t sold out. I eventually traded with another collector for a Phoenix, and I never got my hands on Cable which is a shame since he would have paired nicely with Deadpool.

Deadpool was easily my favorite of what was otherwise a good series of figures. The Daredevil base is obvious given the tell-tale shoulders, but ToyBiz even left the holster on his right leg for Daredevil’s baton weapon. For Deadpool it makes a good holster for his sai, which were holdovers form a prior Elektra figure. In addition to those weapons he also came with two AKs, two katana, a handgun, and an alternate unmasked head. He also came packaged with Doop, not pictured because I never cared for the Slimer knock-off and didn’t bother to dig him out of storage. He also has an action stand which was becoming commonplace for the line in lieu of a more elaborate base. Eventually the bases would be dropped all-together for build-a-figure pieces to construct much larger figures. Deadpool also features a belt that’s separate from his sculpt. I suppose you could remove it if you really wanted to. It has holsters for his weapons plus molded on grenades and his adorable little mask-logo on the belt buckle.

Deadpool possesses extensive articulation which is befitting a ninja. He can be posed in almost any position you can think of. His joints are nice and tight and he really only needs the stand for more dramatic aerial poses as he can comfortably stand on his own just fine. The sculpting on the body is fairly simple and relegated mostly to just his musculature. His face features subtle, but effective, sculpting suggesting an angry expression is lurking underneath. His secondary, Freddy Krueger-like head, looks spectacularly disturbing and sports a character appropriate wild grin. The only short-comings with the sculpt lie with the hands and shoulders. The bulky shoulders were the cost of making the arms capable of posing in basically any position. They were the main draw-back to this character base. The hands are also articulated and we’ve come to learn over the years that articulated hands just don’t work well to hold weapons. Deadpool’s weapons are all nice and light, so he can hold them just fine, but you will be constantly tweaking them to get them just right (and don’t bother with the sai as they’re almost too thin for any worthwhile pose). If he were made today he’d probably just have swappable hands or just non-articulated ones capable of gripping both a sword and gun.

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What always stood out for me with this figure is the simple look of Deadpool. The red on black is striking and there’s little that can be messed up as a result. The loads of accessories are also a huge benefit. Even if the sai kind of stink, they’re still nice to have and look good in that thigh pouch. The handgun is tucked away neatly on a holster while the katana and AKs can be stored on the back of his belt. The AKs don’t seat all that well, but it can be done. Lots of accessories plus places to store them is something i appreciate in any action figure, especially since keeping track of numerous little pieces can be a huge pain. The only thing he can’t store on his person is the second head, but that would be a little odd if he could.

As you can imagine, the Legends line has taken new stabs at Deadpool, especially in light of his growing popularity thanks to the film franchise. I have never been tempted to buy another though because I’ve always been happy with this one. Had I purchased one I’d probably be forced to concede it’s an improvement, but that wouldn’t diminish my fondness for this one. Deadpool is perfectly suited for the world of plastic and movies so it’s great to see this character’s popularity explode. And as a legacy piece, those who were at ToyBiz should be proud they made an awesome Deadpool when few people wanted one and it can still hang with today’s action figures more than 10 years later.

1 Comment   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Comics, toys

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