If you have seen the first season of X-Men ’97 then you may be wondering why Emma Frost, aka the White Queen, is receiving an action figure in the show’s companion toy line. She didn’t play a big role in the show having a speaking role in just one episode and then what amounted to a cameo in a later one. I think she was among the characters shown off in concept art before the show’s premiere so that could be a contributing factor here. Or, she’s set to play a bigger role in the show’s second season. As of this writing, only one trailer has been shown for X-Men ’97 season two and Emma Frost was not present in it. At least I think she wasn’t. It was only shown to attendees of New York Comic Con and for non-attendees we’re left with essentially bootleg cell phone videos from the panel. If she was in it and I missed it that certainly wouldn’t surprise me. Hasbro did use the event to unveil a massive made-to-order Apocalypse figure from the show and we definitely know he’s a big player in season two based on how the first season ended. Could the same be true for Emma?
Those heels means she towers over someone like Jean.
It’s also possible this figure exists because it’s a relatively cheap release for Hasbro. Yes, like Wolverine, this Emma Frost is basically the same Emma Frost we’ve received before in the Legends line, but with minor updates that last year’s Goblin Queen benefitted from as well. The basic formula for this X-Men ’97 line is to take existing molds, add an animated head, and call it a day it would seem. Emma mostly follows in that direction, but she does have a new corset that is slightly less revealing this time around. I don’t have the older Hellfire Club release, but I have seen pictures and I do not like it. She looks like the sort of person who had some bad plastic surgery. This Emma, while the details of her face and hair are toned down to match the animated style, looks like a young Sharon Stone. As such, I think that comic book fans may take more of an interest in this release than some of the other ones in this wave.
That’s a bummer.
Emma is not much to talk about aside from the appearance. The hair is a soft yellow and her face is well painted. Her default portrait has a slight smugness to the expression which suits her. The body is fairly clean and composed mostly of colored plastic – flesh and white. There is some paint on the corset strings and a line running down the front of her boots that’s applied well. The cape is also nice with white on the outside and blue on the inside. My figure does have a splotch of gray paint on the back of her default portrait which I’ll have to try and remove. The figure isn’t as detailed as comic versions, but it works for the source material very well and I think there’s enough here that it can appear on a comic shelf.
The cape makes her harder to stand, but she looks kind of ridiculous without it.
The rest of the figure is basically nothing to write home about. We get one extra portrait which features a smile and a windswept sculpt to the hair. I do like it, but I wonder why Hasbro doesn’t make the hair swappable between the two heads? For hands, we get a set of fists and a set of open hands. No power effects, though more important is no stand. Emma sports some high heels and as a result can be a pain to stand. Without the cape, it’s fairly easy to find a neutral stance to get her to stand in. With the added weight of the plastic cape though it becomes more of a challenge. It’s do-able, but don’t expect to get much use out of her articulation as a result.
These things are going to drive you crazy if you want to get her into any kind of semi-dynamic pose.
And speaking of, the cape plus the heels makes her articulation functionally useless. The head can barely rotate because of the large fur trim on the cape and it locks her shoulders down. Her right arm is more exposed than the left so you can get something out of the elbow, but not much. There is a joint inside the corset, but it’s useless. They way Hasbro did the heels means she has more of an ankle swivel than an ankle rocker. If you want to ditch the cape then, yeah, you’ll get more. Standard arm, hips, thigh, and knee articulation is present, but she looks a little goofy without the cape on account of her long neck. I suppose the real play here is to get a third party soft goods cape, but that can be just as expensive as the figure itself.
This is the maximum amount of nuance I could get out of her legs. And she fell over shortly after.
Emma Frost is basically a barely functional action figure. It looks good in the limited poses available, but it’s not a figure you’re going to want to mess with. Maybe swap the portraits here and there, but that’s it. I thought she looked nice and since she’s a classic X-Men villain I decided to grab her, partly out of fear she’ll sell out. And she did initially and may be one of the harder figures to find in the wave. Mostly, I did worry I’d like her in season two and wish I had purchased the figure, though if she does show up chances are she’ll have a different look. Do I regret my decision? Yes and no. It’s not a great figure, but it’s also not one likely to end up on clearance. And if I just want a White Queen to look good on my shelf, she does accomplish as much. If that’s all you care about then you may be fine with this one. As long as you know what you’re in for.
If you like X-Men ’97 and are interested in more action figure reviews then check these out:
The television event of 2024 for me was none other than X-Men ’97. I loved that show and I can’t wait for the second season to come around. It’s just a shame we may still be as much as a year away, but to somewhat tide us over until then we have this third wave…
I knew who the X-Men were when the show premiered in 1992, but I didn’t know much about them. That show really was the proper introduction to the franchise for me and one thing I couldn’t wrap my head around as a kid was that these were heroes who didn’t really have a secret identity.…
I’m always going to have a soft spot for Morph. It was rare to see a character killed off in a children’s show, but that was the fate of old Morph who didn’t make it out of the show’s second episode. I wouldn’t call it traumatizing, but there was definitely a haunted quality to that…
I’m always going to have a soft spot for Morph. It was rare to see a character killed off in a children’s show, but that was the fate of old Morph who didn’t make it out of the show’s second episode. I wouldn’t call it traumatizing, but there was definitely a haunted quality to that scene, “Wolverine! Fall Back!” Come on, Morph, don’t you know that Wolverine has a healing factor? He’s the toughest, most unkillable, son of a bitch around! You didn’t need to take that Sentinel blast for him! Why, Morph? Why?!
Of course, Morph didn’t stay dead. Turns out, when you kill off a character in a kid’s show the kids who make up the audience want that character brought back. That’s why the character has stuck with me these past 30 years, though I never did take it upon myself to write a letter to Fox Kids to express my sorrow over the death of Morph. Enough other kids did though that Morph tested really high with audiences as a fan favorite so the show brought them back as evil Morph for the second season premiere. Morph had quite the long arc that year that ended with them kind of back to their old self, but the trauma of getting blasted meant that Morph needed some time away. Returning for the episode “Courage” only confirmed that even more and we didn’t see Morph again until the series finale. Now, X-Men ’97 is a thing and really for the first we get to see Morph as a fully functioning member of the team.
Morph is so slender this time around it almost gives them a juvenile look.
The X-Men ’97 version of Morph is similar to the ’92 version, but borrows some from the comics. Morph has a weird history in that the character was originally called Changeling in the comics and began life as a villain. The character would get cancer and have a change of heart offering to take Xavier’s place to basically fake the professor’s death which is why the writing staff for the cartoon decided to use the character as a sacrificial lamb in the first plotline. Changeling was just off the table because of the DC character of the same name, so Changeling became Morph. And since Morph proved popular, Morph got to be a character during the Age of Apocalypse where they sported a new look that included basically a gray, nose-less, face. That’s apparently the visage our Morph now feels most comfortable with in X-Men ’97. It makes sense as it’s like a blank face, and with Morph being a shapeshifter, it seems like a solid choice.
92 vs 97My Morph with a Casting Cave head.
The action figure for Morph appears to be entirely new. Morph is now presented as more slender than the old Morph. That Morph conformed to the Jim Lee era the show was based on where basically all of the guys were jacked and all of the women were bombshells. This Morph still retains the old X-Men blue and yellow training uniform as well as the flight jacket, they’re just slim and slender. This depiction in plastic might be just a touch too slender, but considering it’s all new sculpt, I do wonder if the intent here is to repurpose this as a New Mutants base? The Sunspot, who I didn’t buy, that’s part of this wave also has a New Mutants look which is likely to be reused for more characters, but this Morph is almost a dead ringer for a character like Cypher. I guess we’ll see. There is some clear stylization in the chest which I have mixed feelings on which probably has little utility going forward. It’s almost like Hasbro tried to match the cel-shading on the pecs, but with sculpt instead of paint. It’s odd looking, but the jacket at least takes away from it. The jacket, like Logan’s, is also very plain to conform with the look of the show which I like. There’s not a lot of paint here, but at least there isn’t a lot of mis-matched colors.
Not a lot of paint…
At least, there are no mis-matched colors concerning the base figure and the optional hands. Morph comes with a set of fists, a right open hand, and a left relaxed hand. Morph also has an alternate portrait and it’s their more humanoid look. It’s very stylized conforming to the show, but I don’t like this look for Morph. It doesn’t look anything like the ’92 version which I always found very distinct. Worse though, Morph’s neck is gray to match the default head which causes a clash when using the alternate head. The figure really needed another neck piece, or they could have made the neck part of the head sculpt. On one hand, I’m glad that isn’t the case because the articulation would probably suffer, but it does make the unmorphed head look silly and it’s something I’ll never use.
“Who are the X-Men?!”
There is one other accessory and it’s an odd one. Morph comes with the head of Henry Peter Gyrich, the bigot who was spearheading the Mutant Control Agency in the show and is the guy indirectly responsible for Morph’s death so he has some connection here. He’s also in the new show and by including his head here it also feels like a callback to the old Toy Biz Morph which came with a Cyclops, Wolverine, and Evil Morph head to simulate the shape-shifting powers the character possessed. Though here, I think the Gyrich head is much better utilized by placing it on a suited Legends body to create a whole new character. For me, the only suitable body is the Professor X body that came with the hoverchair. And since I also have the Savage Land Xavier, I don’t mind sacrificing him for this new character. For a non-super-powered character, Gyrich is a pretty big villain in the series so having him isn’t bad. It makes me wonder if we’ll get Trask in a fourth wave.
“What was I thinking with that look?”
Morph’s articulation is what one would expect of a Marvel Legends release. The slender frame does mean the range is pretty good in places like the knees and elbows, but there’s also still some limitations. The mediocre ball hinge is in place at the head and I don’t know why any new sculpt would go this route unless getting the figure to look all the way up is really important. The arms feature standard articulation (you really don’t need me to list it all out do you?) while the torso opts for an old ab crunch and waist twist. The belt is keyed in and not floating, but the twist is below it anyway so it doesn’t interfere, but it also means you can’t pull it down to hide the joint. Legs are also fairly typical. The thigh straps hide the thigh swivel okay and there is a boot swivel, something not all figures have.
I look forward to the continuing adventures of Wolverine and Morph.
Morph is probably going to move as much as you want the figure to. It’s just always a shame when Hasbro spends money on a new sculpt and doesn’t put the best articulation it can into the figure. I mostly like the figure. It’s a good representation of the character, but I also admit my soft spot bias for Morph. I had some critiques with the articulation, and the extra portrait is useless, but my biggest complaint would just be it has a cheap look due to the lack of paint. The yellow also hues slightly orange when compared with other blue and yellow outfits. The figure would look a lot better with actual paint, but Hasbro appears to be going to even greater lengths these days to avoid having to paint figures. I guess it’s just something we’re going to have to get used to. If you like Morph’s depiction in X-Men ’97 then this is fine.
If you liked this review and want to see more from X-Men ’97 then check these out:
Since we don’t have a post this week for Turtle Tuesday I decided we should have a Mutant Monday. X-Men ’97 has returned the mutant superheroes to the spotlight and one of the main beneficiaries has been Hasbro. Their first wave of Marvel Legends based on the new show arrived last fall and, aside from…
The television event of 2024 for me was none other than X-Men ’97. I loved that show and I can’t wait for the second season to come around. It’s just a shame we may still be as much as a year away, but to somewhat tide us over until then we have this third wave…
I knew who the X-Men were when the show premiered in 1992, but I didn’t know much about them. That show really was the proper introduction to the franchise for me and one thing I couldn’t wrap my head around as a kid was that these were heroes who didn’t really have a secret identity.…
Back in 2021, Mondo unveiled for San Diego Comic Con a sixth scale Wolverine action figure based on the X-Men animated series from the 90s. It was a presale to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the show’s premiere and product went out in 2022 closer to that actual anniversary. At the time, Mondo wasn’t planning on doing more, but the response was so enthusiastic that their one-off turned into a whole line. To sculpt the next figure, Magneto, Mondo enlisted the work of Alex Brewer – a fast rising sculptor in the toy world. Alex would go on to knock it out of the park with Magneto which naturally lead to more work for Brewer. It’s basically been his style and vision that has come to define the line, and as it’s pivoted to include X-Men ’97 as well, the need for a Wolverine to fit in with the style of the rest of the line became more apparent.
Things have improved over at Mondo over the past few years.
Wolverine has the unique standing of being the first in the line and now the 9th. Well, technically this is the third attempt at the character as we did get Wolverine in his civilian attire, but that’s pretty different from his business look. When Mondo had that initial Wolverine sculpted, they weren’t planning on more which meant not much consideration was taken for scale. That Wolverine was nearly 11″ tall, and as the line went on it became pretty apparent that he was too tall. This new Wolverine not only allows for a chance for Brewer to do the character, but also to correct that scale issue. And Mondo has for this new one which stands at about 10.33″ to the top of his head putting him in that 5’3″ – 5’4″ range which feels fitting for Wolverine. Even though the box says X-Men ’97 on it, it’s still adorned with production art from the original series with new artwork by Dan Veesenmeyer that portrays the updated look. Tom Rozejowski, a name we see a lot with NECA products, handled the paint for Wolverine and Tommy Hodges also gets a sculptor credit. I’m thinking he may have done the base, but I don’t know for certain.
This is actually the third Logan in the line. The new, unmasked, portraits are actually different here and are more or less interchangeable.
Mondo has been trying to straddle the line between X-Men ’92 and X-Men ’97 with these more recent releases. This figure definitely has a more ’97 look to it. While the costume is the same, there are some telltale differences and it’s mostly in the body hair. The original series left Wolverine’s chin free of hair for the most part, save for perhaps some close-ups. The hair on his arms was usually done with lines across the shoulders and biceps. For ’97, he has some chin stubble and the hair on his arms is done with several short lines In addition, the angle of the mask fins is slightly steeper and they don’t stretch quite as high. Of course, that aspect of the ’92 series was hardly consistent, but it’s in comparison to the model sheets. The yellow of the costume is also just a little bit darker, a touch more gold, and the same is true of the blue parts. In comparing this figure with the original release, the cel-shading is also less prominent. We have primarily two shades of blue on the new figure compared with three on the original. The same is true of the belt, though the yellow on the old figure only utilized two shades, but there’s more of it. The black portions of the shirt are also sculpted in now. There’s no paint slop, but it doesn’t quite fill the entirety of the sculpted-out area. There is no shading on the flesh, and like the rest of the color palette, it’s a touch darker as well compared with the old figure.
He’s also much shorter compared with his foes.
I have mixed feelings on the updates and changes. I find the overall sculpt more suitable for Wolverine. Not only is he shorter, he’s stockier. The original is very leggy and the torso slightly slender. I think the portraits are an improvement as well even if they have a very ’97 style. There is an included ’92 masked portrait, but the only aspect of it that reads ’92 is the shape of the fins. The stubble is still present. I definitely prefer the more vibrant paint job of the original and the approach to the arm hair. The arm hair with the new release is missing something. The show tended to show his arm hair as always breaking his silhouette, regardless of how much of the arm is visible. That makes it hard to translate to 3D so Mondo just went with these dashes that almost look like a dot pattern. I think they would have been better served keeping the same approach as the first figure. The flesh tone also feels a touch too dark. It’s certainly not bad, I just wish he better fit the ’92 style since that’s how the line began. I’m still going to have this one replace the original on my shelf and that one will be returned to his bed box, but I’m definitely always going to see X-Men ’97 when I look at him as opposed to the original series.
If you have the NECA Flasher Gremlin then your Wolverine will have access to a tall frothy one as well.
Am I being unfair? After all, the box does indeed say X-Men ’97 so it’s not hiding what it’s trying to be, but the line is trying to placate both and is not shy about its intentions so I don’t think so, but I’ve said my piece. Not only is the sculpt redone to conform to Brewer’s style, but the articulation scheme Mondo utilizes has also changed since that first Wolverine release three years ago. This figure embodies those changes, some for the better, and some not so much. This is an aesthetics forward line, but Mondo has room for improvement and this Wolverine is proof of that. The joints are all the the same as Cyclops, the most recent release in the line: head, shoulders, double-jointed elbows, biceps, wrists, diaphragm, waist, hips, double-jointed knees, ankles. The original figure used a different style of double-jointed knees similar to what NECA used to make use of with a hinge above and below the knee. This allowed for some swivel at those joints, but it is a little odd looking, though perhaps only odd because we’re so used to the other style. It also used a swivel joint above the elbow in place of a bicep swivel that was ugly and persisted for quite a few releases. The range at all of the joints present is pretty typical, except for a few places that have become an issue recently.
“Hey Cyclops!”“Next time I use these!”
If you saw my Egon Spengler review, you will note I had issues with that figure at the neck and hips. Mondo textures the ball joints for a more snug fit, but they may have went overboard. The ball joint inside the neck was stuck on that figure and the hips were pretty stuck too. Wolverine has the same issues. I had to use a lot of force to move the double ball peg in the neck, though the hips required a hot water bath. Out of the box, they just wouldn’t budge and I put more force into it than I probably should have. After the hot water bath they moved better. I applied some lubricating oil to the hips and neck and it didn’t appear that any had been applied by the factory, but once the figure cooled down it mostly went back to the way it was out of the box. In addition to that, the diaphragm joint remains useless. With a lot of effort, I can get the torso to rotate there a click to each side, which is hardly much to speak of. There’s no forward or back. Also of a nuisance, the red belt rubs off onto the abdomen very easily and the blue of the trunks will transfer to the thighs as well. I’ve been able to rub these instances off, but I worry if I let it sit that way then it would become more stubborn.
“Light me up, gumbo!”“Hey cajun, next time someone tries to save your life have sense enough to let them do it.”
Wolverine is a bit tough to pose as a result, and it’s especially a bummer because he has a lot of stuff to be posed with. For heads, we get that ’92 inspired portrait I mentioned before as well as ’97 masked portraits featuring a neutral, growling, and yelling expression. If that’s not enough, he also has two unmasked portraits: neutral and a teeth gritting/growl. They’re both really similar to the portraits that came with the Logan figure which is kind of disappointing as it would have been nice to get different expressions to share between the two. That figure though was all the ’92 series while this one is updated for ’97. It’s not much of a difference, just stubble and a different approach to the shading. He also has a more pronounced single bang of hair and his ears are fully visible. With how subtle the difference is, it’s kind of shocking they bothered to sculpt new portraits, but they do look good.
“That hurts, Wolverine.”“Grrr…!”
For hands, Wolverine is actually a touch light. We have fists, gripping, and his “Come here,” gesture from the cover of Wolverine #1. I’m surprised there are no relaxed hands or pointing hands, but I guess most are likely to keep the fists in place any way. Packaged behind the figure is the traditional Mondo figure stand though this one has the X logo painted on it. I only call this out because I sometimes leave these stands in the box since they’re not really needed, but if you want to find Wolverine’s claws you’ll need to remove it as they’re hidden behind it. Mondo provided 8 claws so you essentially get two extras. They’re just gray plastic and they’re the same as the ones that came with Logan. I wish they were white to better match the show, maybe with a touch of light blue, but this plastic may not take well to paint. They clip in easy enough though and they’re compatible with all of the hands in the box. You also get a set of charged claws as seen in the first episode of X-Men ’97. They’re done with translucent pink plastic and they clip into the backs of his hands in place of the claws. There’s also an included mask for draping over his neck when using an unmasked portrait, a similar accessory to what we saw with the Marvel Legends version of the same. Mondo also through in another picture of Scott and Jean from the episode “Captive Hearts,” only this time it’s an enamel pin instead of a picture frame accessory.
The limited edition Wolverine also comes with even more stuff like an entire second torso. Yeah, this is the first figure I’ve ever bought with a swappable torso as there’s a bare one since Wolverine always seems to get his shirt blown off in a big fight. To help sell the damage there’s a strip of the tattered remains of his shirt included made out of a soft plastic. You just place it over a shoulder to complete the look, or you can have him go completely shirtless which is a look from the show. To accommodate this change, the arms need to pop out easily and they do, which you will want to take advantage of when unwrapping the figure anyway as there are plastic bags over the arm pegs. The shoulder pads slot over the shoulder pegs and are conveniently stamped for left and right, should you get them confused. The torso separates easy as well. Unfortunately, the diaphragm joint on this torso works no better than the regular one. Lastly, Wolverine has some Sentinel parts as well including the remnants of a head that serves as a base and a chunk of a fallen robot with wires dangling from it. It has three claws holes to go over one of Wolverine’s hands to complete the look. The base has two, deep, indentations for Wolverine’s feet which gives him a secure base, though does limit things since his stance is left kind of boring. He can kind of crouch on it, but I can’t decide if that looks more dynamic or if it just makes Wolverine look like he needs to poop. The foot holes are designed for Wolverine, but I did find Gambit can fit in them as well. Cyclops and the original Wolverine have feet that are too big.
This is pretty cool, but I wish they worked in more foot-holes for different poses.
For the most part, this Wolverine redo is much like past releases in this line. It captures the likeness well and certainly comes with enough stuff to help justify the hefty price tag of $245. This one was also solicited before all of this tariff nonsense with has really jacked up the price on subsequent releases, but I’ll complain about that in reviews of figures actually impacted. This Wolverine does capture the look of X-Men ’97 very well, just at the cost of not capturing the original series as well. I like the extra torso and stuff, but I personally would have traded it for more ’92 accurate arms and heads. Mostly, I’d rather the figures seek to emulate the look of the original series and make the ’97 heads the one-off for those that want it that way. The articulation issues with the neck and hips are unfortunate and really something Mondo needs to correct. If they want to charge this kind of money for their products then the quality needs to be there. They’re pretty receptive to feedback, and I do plan on dropping them a line regarding it. If you don’t have the previous Wolverine then this one is worth getting if you’re collecting this line. And even if you do have it, I think it’s enough of an upgrade to consider. It does fit the style of the other figures better, but if you’re happy with that one then maybe you don’t feel this is necessary. The limited edition is sold out, but the standard version is still available. It’s slightly cheaper, but may come with tariff surcharges depending on where you buy it from.
The team is filling out.
We have plenty more from Mondo’s line of X-Men, including a couple of Wolverines at that:
Mondo has been absolutely killing it with its sixth scale line of action figures based on the now classic animated series X-Men. The company also really ramped up production in 2023 on the line by soliciting five new figures during the year. At over 200 bucks a pop, it was quite the hit to the…
When San Diego Comic Con was cancelled for 2021, many of the entities that would have sold exclusive merchandise at the event pivoted to web sales. And since the 2020 iteration of the famed event was also canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many seemed to expect the same for 2021, or the massive delays…
After putting a real hurting on my wallet in 2023, Mondo decided to take it easy in 2024 with its line of sixth scale action figures based on the animated series X-Men which ran from 1992-1997 on Fox Kids. Two figures ended up getting released this year, Rogue and now the leader of the X-Men…
I knew who the X-Men were when the show premiered in 1992, but I didn’t know much about them. That show really was the proper introduction to the franchise for me and one thing I couldn’t wrap my head around as a kid was that these were heroes who didn’t really have a secret identity. Yeah, when they weren’t on the job they wore normal clothes, but the characters didn’t have any hang-ups about using their powers out in public if the situation arose. That just seemed so foreign a concept to me as someone raised on Superman and Batman. I didn’t realize super heroes could walk a different path.
All hail the short king.
During the course of the show, I got familiar with the non-costumed looks of the X-Men and by far the most memorable is Wolverine. He would ditch the tights in favor of some work pants, a yellow plaid shirt, and a bomber jacket with a furred collar. I don’t know if this look was directly pulled from the comics, but the show definitely made it iconic. It’s just another of the many classic looks for the character and it was immortalized in plastic way back during the Toy Biz era. And since every wave of X-Men figures could use a Wolverine, it’s hardly a surprise we’re getting the look in Marvel Legends.
I don’t have the 97 Wolverine, but it’s essentially the same figure as the 92 one.
This figure is almost entirely reuse. Past Wolverines have utilized these parts including even the head which is reused from the first X-Men ’97 Wolverine. The clawed hands are from the Weapon X release and feature the slightly longer middle claw which is an odd choice as that’s not something carried over into the show. The coat overlay is probably new and the arms might be as well, but that’s it. Does it matter? Yes and no. The coat has that animated look to it. It’s very smooth and untextured while the pants are textured like denim. This isn’t consistent with the source material and it’s a bit frustrating. Yeah, in the grand scheme of things it’s not a big deal, but it just serves as a reminder that Hasbro is not committed to accuracy with this line. It’s also odd to get the same Wolverine head recycled here, though the complexion is a touch redder which is odd. If you want a new unmasked portrait you have to get the new two-pack with Storm (I passed).
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
The figure is compromised, but looks all right. The accessories, on the other hand, are pretty unimpressive. Wolverine has his clawed hands, as usual, and the claws can actually pop off. They’re unpainted, gray, plastic and pretty bland looking. It can be hard to get them straight too and the claws on my figure’s right fist are kind of driving me crazy. The other options include a left fist without claw holes and an optional right hand that’s in a unique shape. That shape is to facilitate the use of a hand of playing cards which is also recycled from a past release. They’re fine? It might be more fun to give them to Gambit, but they don’t add a whole lot to the experience with Logan here.
“Now this is more like it!”
Articulation is pretty standard. Ball-hinge head, ball-hinge shoulders, bicep swivel, double-elbows, wrist swivel and hinge, diaphragm joint, waist twist, ball-socket hips, thigh swivels, double-jointed knees, ankle rocker and hinge. The cowboy boots that he appears to be wearing are kind of annoying. He’s tricky to stand and the coat limits the torso articulation. The diaphragm joint doesn’t really do a whole lot and the collar of the coat also interferes with the head. You’re going to be hard-pressed to get him into a low, Wolverine, crouch. It’s unfortunate this follows the Gamerverse Wolverine because the articulation in that makes this look like a hunk of crap.
“Logan! This is a school!”
Logan is what he is. The figure is only worth pursuing if you have a fondness for this look. Yeah, the pants and the belt are wrong, but it’s also instantly recognizable as Wolverine’s civilian look from the cartoon. That’s what got me to buy this even if I was a little hesitant. It’s also Wolverine so it might appear in large numbers. If you’re unimpressed, and I mostly am, then it may pay to wait this one out to see if it ever goes on sale. It’s October as I write this so the holiday shopping season is pretty much here and things have a habit of going on sale during this time of year. That might be the approach to take.
If you like this review then check out these other X-Men ’97 releases:
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…
Since we don’t have a post this week for Turtle Tuesday I decided we should have a Mutant Monday. X-Men ’97 has returned the mutant superheroes to the spotlight and one of the main beneficiaries has been Hasbro. Their first wave of Marvel Legends based on the new show arrived last fall and, aside from…
The television event of 2024 for me was none other than X-Men ’97. I loved that show and I can’t wait for the second season to come around. It’s just a shame we may still be as much as a year away, but to somewhat tide us over until then we have this third wave…
The self-professed mall babe is back with a new look.
The television event of 2024 for me was none other than X-Men ’97. I loved that show and I can’t wait for the second season to come around. It’s just a shame we may still be as much as a year away, but to somewhat tide us over until then we have this third wave of Marvel Legends action figures from Hasbro. The first two waves were undoubtedly done based on concept art of whatever Disney and Marvel were willing to share with the toy maker at the time. It seemed to fill-in some of the gaps left behind by Hasbro’s brief dance with the original X-Men cartoon via the VHS style box releases while also getting in a few show specific characters and looks. This third wave feels like a post season one wave. It contains characters we didn’t really know were going to be in it as well as some different looks for those we did know were coming. Up first, is Miss Jubilee.
She’s sized pretty well for what she is.
Jubilee, unlike some other characters, did get a slot in that VHS line based on the original show from 1992. That Jubilee was pretty much a hodgepodge of past Jubilee releases with some half-assed and poorly applied cel-shading. I don’t know if it’s my least favorite in that line, but it’s in contention. This update is based on the end of the first season following a minor wardrobe update. The look, from what I understand, is from the comics when she went through a vampire phase. Yeah, I don’t know. I wasn’t reading and I don’t care to know more than that. It’s basically just an all black, skin-tight suit, with her customary yellow trench coat. It’s not a look I care about, but maybe it has some utility for the ’92 display? Let’s find out!
The stars of the show.
Jubilee is a pretty basic figure. She has a brand new headsculpt that more or less matches the look of the show. I think it’s a little full in the face, but definitely more on model than what we’ve had before. The body is mostly reuse from past Jubilees, but updated with pinless joints. The arms might be new, but I am not certain. I think the upper diaphragm is also new, but it’s basically black plastic with minimal paint near the chest. The arms are yellow plastic while the coat is a thinner plastic. It has some pliability, but it’s also really shiny giving it this very rain coat quality. It’s okay, but cheap looking.
This one is definitely an improvement over the old figure, but not the look I prefer.
Jubilee’s accessories are surprisingly robust. She has a set of open hands, a left fist, and a right C-grip hand. I don’t think any of these are new, but that’s fine. Her C-grip hand is for a soft drink she comes with which looks fine and calls back to her origins as a mall rat. She also has some new effect hands and these are a massive improvement over those little swirly things the 92 Jubilee had. They appear to be a translucent acrylic which ends in star shapes and has this nice transition of colors from purple to blue. They’re permanently affixed to a set of open hands which almost appear to be insert-molded into these things. It’s a bummer because it means it won’t work with other Jubilee figures unless those ones also feature black gloves. And since the fingers of said gloves are inside the effects, it also means that painting them yellow or blue isn’t going to be a perfect solution. They look great for this figure, but only this figure.
This looks better, but that old coat still kind of sucks.
Jubilee’s articulation is pretty basic. She has a double-ball joint at the head, ball-hinge shoulders, double-elbows, bicep swivel, wrist swivel and hinges, diaphragm joint, ball-socket hips, thigh swivel, boot swivel, double-jointed knees, and ankles with hinges and rockers. The lack of a waist twist stinks and the presence of a jacket would have made hiding a butterfly joint fairly easy, but we don’t get either. The double-ball head is okay, but it has that annoying quality where the neck-ball pops out often when removing the head. I had to heat it up and pull that joint out of the head to do it properly. Why did I remove the head? Well…
Ok, yeah, now we’re ready to rock!
Jubilee’s original ’92 look is by far my preference. While I like these new effect parts, I would much rather have Jubilee in her more colorful threads. Swapping heads with the 92 figure is pretty easy. I found the old heads don’t want to go on this new body all that easily, but getting the new head on that old body was a piece of cake once I got the peg out. I also found I much preferred the look of this new coat to the old one. Getting it off was also pretty easy as was putting it on the old figure. Getting the old coat off the old figure was more difficult as that plastic is a bit thicker and less forgiving, but I still was able to do it without popping the arms out at the shoulder. The end result is, for me, a much better representation of Jubilee. She still has the ugly shading on her sleeves, but I could remove that if I so desire. I may yet try to paint the hands in the effect parts, but for now she can continue using the dumb swirly ones. I could also repaint the C-grip hand if I want her to be able to enjoy her soft drink. It’s just a matter of making sure I can match the shade of yellow in use here, but I’m just happy the old sleeves mix well with the new coat.
I obviously bought this Jubilee not intending to enjoy it for the figure it is. If you like the updated look, then it’s fine. The articulation is just so-so and it has a cheaper look than usual, but the new effect parts are nice and she does match the source material well enough. She also makes for a suitable kit-bash if that’s your aim. Do with that information what you will.
If you liked this one then check out these other X-Men ’97 reviews we have:
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…
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…
If you are reading this the day it goes live then Happy X-Men ’97 Day! Today is the day the long-awaited sequel series to X-Men debuts on Disney+. Rather than fast-track a review of the first two episodes to this blog, I decided instead to do what I most often do: review an action figure!…
If you buy a Jack Skellington action figure, then you almost have to get him a Sally. That’s exactly what I did, though it proved mildly difficult to track down. I have seen NECA’s Ultimate Jack Skellington around throughout the year as I head into stores that carry NECA products, but Sally had proved elusive. I’m sure I could have ordered her at some point from somewhere, but I wanted to find it in store. And if I didn’t, then it wasn’t made to be. Coming in midway through the Halloween season is that NECA Ultimate Sally which I finally encountered at retail. I wasted little time in selecting my figure as they all looked pretty good and now she’s on my shelf with my Jack enjoying the fall decorations.
Sally comes in the same style of packaging as Jack. It’s an all black box with some artwork done in white. Chris Longo is credited with packaging, but I don’t know if he’s responsible for the illustration or not. Sculpt is credited to Kyle Windrix, Marty Henley, and Andrew Lawson with fabrication credited to Marty Henley. Jon Wardell and Geoff Trapp handled the paint duties.
They look good together.
Sally stands right at the 7″ mark making her noticeably shorter than Jack. The size disparity between the two looks appropriate to me. She only had one look in the film and that’s what she has here. Proportions look really nice as she has a long, slender, physique with tiny hands and feet. Her dress features sculpted stitchwork as does her flesh and a muted color palette. Her skin tone has a blueish tint to it that might be a touch too saturated for my taste. I always had the impression the lighting in the film was more responsible for the blue hue than her actual composition. Or perhaps I have it backwards and it’s the lighting that make her appear more pale in the film. Either way, it looks nice enough. The paint is clean and better than my Jack in that regard. The only thing about the appearance of the figure that is unfortunate is the tie in the packaging left behind a slight crease in her dress. I hate those god damn ties NECA uses and I would outlaw that practice if I could.
Sally is not as expressive as Jack, but still pretty damn expressive.
Sally’s articulation is pretty basic as well as pretty restricted given the character design. She’s composed entirely of plastic, no soft goods, so the dress is going to prevent her hips from doing anything. She does have a ball joint at the head and at the base of her neck so she gets decent range there. Her hair is a long sheet of plastic so it gets in the way a bit, but not enough to stop her from being able to look her beau in the eye…sockets. Shoulders feature ball-hinges, elbows are single hinged with a swivel, wrists rotate and hinge. There’s a diaphragm joint that offers a little tilt, but it mostly works for rotation. Knees are single-hinges and the ankles are hinged and do feature an ankle rocker, but her feet are so tiny it can be hard to use. Articulating her feet feels like wiggling a loose tooth.
I’m not sure if these accessories are essential, but I enjoy them.
Sally isn’t going to do much aside from stand there, but she doesn’t do much in the film nor does she come with a ton of accessories that require her to do anything. For portraits, she comes with five: neutral/smile, open mouth smile looking to the side, concerned looking ahead, concerned side eye, and an angry expression with her eyes narrowed. I like them all, though I wish she had an open-mouth smile without the side eye as well. Her expressions swap via face plates and it’s easy to utilize. She also has two sets of hands which are easy to swap: open palms and gripping. It’s a light assortment of hands, but I can’t think of any gesture she needs to be able to perform not covered by the options included.
NECA is doing a good job of making these NBX figures earn that “ultimate” label.
Sally’s other accessories are mostly tailored to her time in her tower and some other odds and ends. She comes with the basket she brought to Jack when she worried he wasn’t taking care of himself (does a skeleton really need to?). For contents, there are two white bottles one marked with an S and the other P which makes me think salt and pepper, but it would be odd to have those in bottles, no? There’s also a translucent green bottle which is from the movie. Sally also comes with her slotted spoon and the jar of deadly night shade. The jar has some really nice texture and paint work on it to the point where I expect it to feel like a true ceramic every time I pick it up. The black cat is also along for the ride and he has a little plate with fish bones on it. The cat is articulated at the head and no where else. Sally also has a jack-in-the-box with a black cat theme to it as well as a smiling jack-o-lantern. Lastly, she has a stand just like Jack’s which you will need since her feet are so tiny. She stands okay with it, but I did have her take a shelf dive the first night so do be careful.
She’s not sold on this whole Christmas thing.
Sally is a fine addition to NECA’s Nightmare Before Christmas collection. I don’t think she looks quite as good as Jack, but that’s not a slight against this figure as I think that Jack looks pretty damn amazing. This collection should be the final say on this film in plastic form. I can’t imagine ever needing to upgrade on either Jack or Sally. Some might prefer soft goods to the all-plastic approach NECA took, but I am not one of those people. I think this looks great, I don’t need her to come with anything else, and I don’t need her to articulate any better than she does here. I guess she can’t really kneel on the ground as she did in her omen scene, but maybe that’s also why NECA didn’t include a little Christmas tree or burned one. She’s on my shelf with Jack where I suspect she’ll be for many Halloweens to come and I may even let her hang around for Christmas. If you’re a fan of the film I think you’ll be pleased.
Simply meant to be.
If you like this Sally figure, then you may be interested in these ones as well:
Today’s review has been a long time coming. It was on December 26th, 2024 that I received in the mail a NECA Ultimate Santa Jack action figure based on The Nightmare Before Christmas. Christmas had come and gone so it didn’t make much sense to post a review, so I waited. Nearly a year, in…
When Tim Burton created The Nightmare Before Christmas while working for Disney I don’t think the powers that be had any idea what kind of a gift he had just given them. Obviously they didn’t since they didn’t even believe enough in the film to release it as a Disney film instead opting to put…
There are a number of Christmas specials out there that are basically known by all and I’ve written about most of them here. Some have been annual traditions especially when we had more of a monoculture in the US, but the slow death of cable television has made those annual traditions fade away. One holiday…
When Tim Burton created The Nightmare Before Christmas while working for Disney I don’t think the powers that be had any idea what kind of a gift he had just given them. Obviously they didn’t since they didn’t even believe enough in the film to release it as a Disney film instead opting to put it on the company’s Touchstone brand. In creating what is now a beloved film, Burton gifted Disney something it values more than art itself: merchandizing. In particular, a product that could be sold and tied into the two most commercialized holidays on the planet: Halloween and Christmas. It’s a film that stars Halloween characters creating their own Christmas special. Or, to perhaps put it simpler, it’s a Christmas movie with a Halloween aesthetic.
With the Halloween season upon us it felt like a good time to take a look at a figure that I’ve had in my possession for a little while now: NECA’s Ultimate Jack Skellington. NECA released action figures based on The Nightmare Before Christmas many years back, but in 2024 the company decided to return to the franchise with some all new sculpts. There isn’t much shortage for merch based on the film these days, but NECA felt like it had something to say where the characters are concerned. Those old toys were okay for their time, but could use an update. Super7, Diamond Select, Beast Kingdom, and more have all tried to put their stamp on the franchise as well in recent years to varying degrees of success and failure. NECA, always being more of a horror brand when not making Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, must have felt like it could top them all and they may have done just that.
I feel like it only makes sense to compare him to a Halloween-type figure and a Christmas one.
Jack Skellington was one of four figures released by NECA at the end of 2024. Missing Halloween, but arriving in time for Christmas was Jack, Sally, the mayor, and a Santa variant of Jack. I had planned on reviewing at least some of those figures for Christmas last year, but I never had an opportunity to buy this particular figure during that window. And that’s fine, because as a standard Jack this is firmly in the Halloween part of the film and a better figure for this very moment.
There are so many expressions included.
Jack comes in the standard Ultimates style box with artwork on the front and photography on the sides and back. There’s no credit for the artwork so I assume it’s from Disney. It certainly looks nice if you’re an in-box collector, but I am not. Once Jack is removed from the box he’ll stand around 8.25″ to the top of his head. He’s composed entirely of plastic with no soft goods at all. The plastic is also fairly rigid including the tails on his coat and his bow tie. The proportions look spot-on to the source material with incredibly thin, long, limbs. The body looks like it’s all black plastic with white lines painted onto it for his tuxedo. There’s an intentional wiggle to those lines reflecting the look in the film and I almost wish I had two figures to compare each other to see if there’s a random element to the shape of the lines or if this is taken from the film. The application isn’t perfect. There’s some messy paint on the right thigh of my figure that I lament not noticing at the store when I picked this guy up as I had a few to choose from. The backside of the coat tails also aren’t painted, or if they are it’s a touch glossy and I wish it were matte. The white of the hands and the chest are clean as is the head.
And speaking of, that head is magnificent. They all are, actually. NECA really captured the look of Jack with each and every portrait in this box and it’s what sells the figure. By default, we have a smiling Jack portrait but there’s also a mischievous grin, an open mouthed smile, angry smile, a look of wonderment, an “Ooo” mouth, a scared portrait, and a howling one. That’s eight total portraits, if you weren’t counting, and you practically have enough to do your own stop-motion with this figure. There’s also four sets of hands to add to the expressive nature of the figure and they are relaxed, pointing, gripping, and I guess what I’d consider clawing. He doesn’t have a tight gripping hand, but aside from that I can’t think of anything that’s really missing. Some of the heads are better than others when it comes to paint, but mostly to how the head was extracted from the mold. My howling head has a blemish by the left eye and a couple of them have little divots in the top of the skull. They should hopefully be visible in the pictures.
He’s a good boy.For ambience.Something’s missing…
We have a few other accessories to talk about including the best, little, ghost dog around: Zero. He’s sculpted in this milky, translucent, plastic with a nicely painted jack-o-lantern nose. His head rotates, but that’s all for articulation. He does come with a transparent ball-socket stand that gets the top of his head about 3.5″ off the surface if you’re keeping him parallel with the ground. You can tilt and move him about on the stand and it’s a solid way to pull off Zero. I wish the plastic had more of a blueish hue to it instead of a yellowish one, but I’m happy we got a Zero with Jack. The other accessories include a pair of jack-o-lanterns, the jack-o-lantern jack-in-the-box (that’s a lot of hyphens), and the framed picture of Jack holding yet another jack-o-lantern (he is the Pumpkin King, after all). Lastly, there’s a clear, oval, stand for Jack that works only so well. It has two pegs on it, but I’ve found if I actually use both pegs that Jack will fall over eventually. The jack-o-lanterns help here because they have some weight to them so you can plop on the stand to help stabilize things. I think it works best to only use one foot peg on the stand and turn it so it’s pointing out from Jack for a little more coverage that way, though given the proportions and tiny feet in play here, this is a figure that’s never going to be 100% secure on your shelf. He really needs more of a doll stand to grab him at the waist. Just be mindful with where you leave this guy on a shelf.
Articulation for Jack is basic, but also pretty substantial given what’s here. He has a simple ball joint at the head and another at the base of the neck. Since there’s really nothing to get in the way, Jack can look up and down pretty well even with the neck joint having minimal range. From there, we get ball-hinge shoulders, hinged elbows, hinged wrists that swivel, ball-jointed diaphragm, ball-socket hips, hinged knees, hinged ankles, and ankle rockers. Even though the knees and elbows are single hinges, they bend well past 90 degrees because there’s just nothing to impede them. You can swivel at both points as well, but the pins are tiny and I can’t say I like the feel there. The diaphragm joint rotates pretty well, but doesn’t move forward and back much. The hips will let Jack do splits while the angle of the pelvis won’t let him kick out straight, but the leg will go off to the side and pretty high. He’ll pretty much do what you need him to do, but there’s no getting around that his limbs are all very thin and slender. There’s a fear element to working some of these joints out of the box. Bending the knees the first time was one of those moments where I just had to take a deep breath and see how it goes. Everything has been fine so I’m not saying there’s any issues with the durability or quality control, but the design of the character is going to lead to at least the perception that this is a fragile figure. And I don’t think there’s any getting around that, but from what I’ve experienced the figure is structurally sound.
This is a really satisfying figure to own.
If you have ever wanted an action figure of Jack Skellington then I think you’ll be very happy with this NECA figure. NECA captured the look and personality of the character to near perfection. If it can be helped, I just recommend finding him in store where you can cherry pick the best paint job available and mind those lines. I was caught up in making sure the heads looked as pristine as possible and didn’t even look at the legs, not that I should have to, but I wish I had. Otherwise, I love the look of this one and he looks like a puppet from the film. You could probably substitute this figure into a shot of the movie without anyone noticing. Getting Zero included is a great perk while the other accessories help for a festive, Halloween, display. And if you want to leave him up all the way through Christmas then you’re more than welcome to, though NECA also has a solution there as well.
If you liked reading about this Jack Skellington then here’s some more seasonal fare that may interest you:
Is it a Christmas movie? Is it a Halloween movie? Can a film be both? That seems to be the big question surrounding Tim Burton’s multi-holiday classic The Nightmare Before Christmas. Released on Disney’s Touchstone label (because the company was too scared to be directly associated with the film at first) around Halloween 1993, The…
There’s a scourge taking over our local record stores, clothing outlets, and gaming boutiques. It comes in mass quantities dominating its chosen territory at the expense of other merch. It swears no allegiance to anyone and will even place mortal enemies side by side as it amasses an army of licensed property of yesterday and…
It’s a battle for the hearts of children around the world! What is the superior holiday: Halloween or Christmas? Today’s entrant is founded on the premise that Halloween is the only holiday to rival Christmas as far as what children look forward to most. This feels more or less on point as a kid…
Another figure from last summer’s blockbuster. We like to stay current here.
It feels like a theme this summer for me is buying action figures I previously deemed unworthy of my money as they go on clearance. Sometimes that’s a dumb thing to do. If I didn’t want something six months ago why should I want it now just because it’s cheaper? In the case of today’s review, the answer is because I think it’s a good figure. The S.H.Figuarts Wolverine from the movie Deadpool & Wolverine is probably the best figure yet of the character from that film, with the caveat it’s the most expensive and technically isn’t from the film. Both of those aspects of the figure is why I cancelled my original preorder, but when I saw I could get the figure for 40% off I decided that was good enough to get this imperfect representation of Wolverine.
Probably the best figure from the movie so far, even if he never looked like this in the movie.
Let’s cut to the chase – this figure is not really from the movie. It depicts Wolverine in full costume which includes the mask and the sleeves. At no point in the movie did we see Wolverine look like this. By the time he put the mask on he had ditched the sleeves. Unfortunately, Bandai didn’t base their figure on this look nor did they include an unmasked head like the Marvel Legends release. There could be reasons for that which are perfectly valid. Bandai may have been going off of concept art released to them by Disney which is probably the most likely reason. They may have also not wanted to pay for the actor likeness to include a Hugh Jackman head which would make them cheap. It would have been nice if such could be included, or if there were bare arms also included (or just made the default look), but we can only judge the figure on what is present and what it’s trying to achieve. It just meant that it wasn’t worth $85 to me. As imperfect as the Legends release is, I was mostly sated in having it, but the lure of a better price has brought me here today.
And for those wondering, no, you can’t use the Legends unmasked head with this one.
Wolverine stands at approximately 6″ to the top of his head, or just a little taller. Hugh Jackman is 6′ 2″ so that little tick over the 6″ mark basically puts him at an accurate 1:12 scale, assuming the boots he wore in the film didn’t add an inch or two. He is shorter than the Legends version which I had at 6.5″, but that’s pretty consistent for Legends which tends to run a little bigger than true 1:12 scale. He seems a little shorter than the SHF Deadpool though that seems to mostly be in the head. That Deadpool has an oversized melon that becomes more apparent when placed with this figure (for the record, Jackman and Reynolds are both listed as being 6’2″). The costume is textured all over like the one from the film and it’s comprised mostly of colored plastic. The yellow is a pale yellow, especially compared with the more saturated Legends release that is more like honey colored. This shade looks more accurate to my eye. The blue and black is what’s painted, as well as the tiny silver buttons, and everything is pretty clean. The finish is nice and on the blue of the gloves, boots, and shoulder pads there’s a bit of a glossy finish which reflects the look of the film as well. The claws are a nice, metallic, silver and quite pointy. Be careful swapping hands as those claws are rigid and will hurt if you’re not careful.
Deadpool is actually a little taller this time.It works.They don’t like each other.
What stands out the most with this release vs the Legends ones are the proportions. The head size, shoulder width, and leg length all look pretty accurate to the film. The Legends one was pretty stumpy despite being a taller figure and it was my main peeve with that release. There’s a solid amount of mass as well in the torso, legs, and arms, though I would have liked the chest to be pumped out just a little more, but that’s more of a nitpick. The details of the costume are all captured well and I like how they did the folds of the neck portion. The Jackman likeness also looks fine to me. Granted, it’s just the area around his mouth, but the paint is clean where it could have easily gone off the rails with all of the facial hair. The fins on the head are also a rigid plastic which likely helped keep their shape in transit whereas the Legends one is a little warped.
He comes with three sets of non-clawed hands, but I bet most will never use them.
Wolverine is much lighter than his co-star when it comes to accessories, but he also doesn’t demand the sort of weaponry that Deadpool does. For portraits we get two: neutral and teeth gritting. I like the personality of the teeth gritting head more, but both are fine. For hands, we get fists, open, and relaxed hands. For clawed hands, there are fists and open and that ends the accessories. It’s light, but in terms of hands I’d say we’re set. Yes, we should have bare arms and an unmasked head and that’s a shortcoming of the figure. If they couldn’t give us an unmasked head they could have given us a yelling one. It was five dollars cheaper than Deadpool so at least that appears to be reflected in the price, but it’s still an $85 figure so if you wanted more from it then I think you’re entitled to such feelings.
If you find fists boring there’s these hands.
Since this is a SHF release it should also make this Wolverine the best articulated figure of this version of the character and for the most part it is. The head and neck work together allowing Wolverine to look up and down, but maybe not down as much as some would want. It has all of the rotation and nuance you would expect of a SHF setup. The butterfly at the shoulders doesn’t allow for much, but the figure can do the claws across the chest pose. The shoulder pads are pegged into the front of the shoulder and can be moved out of the way. The shoulder can raise a little past 90 degrees and it rotates fine. The double-jointed elbows and knees bend past 90, and the wrists, thigh swivels, and toe hinge do what they’re supposed to.
The articulation isn’t amazing, but is probably good enough for this version of Wolverine.
The torso is a little more mixed. There’s a ball joint in the center which allows for some forward and back. In conjunction with the ball-jointed waist, the figure can bend forward a decent amount, but it adds nothing going back. There’s no rotation in that upper torso joint, but there is tilt. The waist is where the rotation comes from and even more side-to-side tilt. The hips go out to the side almost to full splits, but kick forward a tick shy of 90 degrees and have no range going back. The ankles can go back a little ways, but have little to no forward movement. The ankle rocker works fine at least, but there’s no boot swivel or swivel at the glove. In terms of visuals, none of the joints are ugly. The thigh swivel is pretty apparent, but not to the degree it has been on some of Bandai’s Dragon Ball figures. The elbow joints stand out a little because they are a slightly brighter yellow and bending them all the way will produce small gaps. The same is true of the knees.
It’s not the Wolverine I want, but it is pretty fun to have.
This Wolverine from the film is basically what I expected of the figure. It’s articulated reasonably well and for the look it’s going for it pretty much nails it. It’s just not the look I wanted and wasn’t willing to buy for full price. And that was my mind set when I cancelled my original preorder: why buy something I really don’t want? I want a sleeveless Wolverine. If he was that way and still lacked the unmasked portrait I would have paid full price. Ideally, we’d get a figure that comes with both. In a way, I place almost no value on the sleeved look. I’d happily ditch those arms in favor of the bare arms look and that’s how I felt with the Legends figure as well. I just think the costume looks better that way. At a reduced price though, this is fine. It’s very functional and I’ve had him on my desk for about a month and I mess around with him when I have some downtime. He’ll look good with my Deadpool, and if Bandai comes back with the version I want I’ll have to consider that one was as well. Since they’ve apparently had trouble moving this one though I’m not holding my breath. If this is the look you want for Wolverine on your shelf, then you’ll probably be satisfied with this release provided you feel it’s worth it vs the cheaper Legends release. And since basically everyone seems to have this one on sale, you probably won’t have to pay full price for the pleasure of finding out for yourself.
Here are all of the other Deadpool & Wolverine reviews we’ve done up to now:
Despite the fact that I own dozens of them, I don’t really consider myself a fan of Hasbro’s Marvel Legends series of action figures. They largely are able to get a purchase out of me thanks to Hasbro’s exclusivity agreement with Marvel/Disney which basically makes them the only game in town. Despite that, I will…
It might be hard for the young folk to believe, but once upon a time movies based on comic book characters were treated like box office poison. Unless you were Superman or Batman, you just didn’t belong in cinema. Even those characters weren’t bulletproof. Superman had a nice run, but fizzled out with the fourth…
Despite the amount of reviews presents on this blog, I still do not consider myself a Marvel Legends collector. That’s because my interests are somewhat narrow when it comes to the Marvel brand. Over the years I’ve developed a fondness for Deadpool as depicted on film by Ryan Reynolds. I think the comic book character…
As a kid, I did a lot of my comic reading in the early 90s and as a kid in the early 90s that largely meant X-Men. The X-Men were the “it” team of the moment and seemed so far and above the rest of the pack in terms of coolness. Batman was still in style on the strength of the Burton films and the animated series and Spider-Man (and Venom) was also pretty hot. When it came to comic and comic card trading with friends, those all commanded top dollar. One franchise that did not was The Fantastic Four.
It could have just been my little corner of the world, but The Fantastic Four were regarded as your dad’s comic book franchise. They were pretty lame. If you went to Toys R Us hoping to score a Venom, Spider-Man, or Punisher action figure there was a decent chance you would have to settle for the Fantastic Four instead. I personally never settled, though I was a little interested in The Human Torch. Even though I didn’t particularly care about the franchise, my earliest Cartoon Network memory is becoming aware of the channel by seeing a listing for a Fantastic Four cartoon in TV Guide airing on the network. We didn’t have access to the channel in my market, but it was about a year later that we did and I wanted to check out that damn cartoon. Too bad it was pretty bad, but not as bad as those lone cartoons based on The Thing where the character was a kid who activated his Thing power via a magic ring: Thing Ring do your thing!
I will say they have a good tailor.
Despite my feelings on The Fantastic Four growing up, it’s hard to argue that they’re not Marvel royalty. Created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, the group is one of the oldest superhero teams with a memorable rogues gallery headlined by Dr. Doom. When comic book movies exploded in popularity, 20th Century Fox threw The Fantastic Four into the mix with a pair of films in the 2000s that made money, but didn’t seem to make a huge cultural impact. Fox decided a reboot was necessary and the franchise returned in 2015. Again, it made money, but not the kind of money that gets studio executives excited. Fox was reportedly still kicking the tires on more movies, but the acquisition of 20th Century Fox by Disney in 2019 put an end to that. Now, Marvel and Disney are back with what it hopes will be the definitive take on the franchise in film. Ever since Avengers: Endgame basically put a bow on the massive story begun with 2007’s Iron Man, Marvel has been searching for that massive hit that catapults them into the next big event film. Attempts via Disney+ and other films have been met with mixed results, but can The Fantastic Four get audiences as hyped as Avengers did back in 2012?
The setting is practically a character on its own.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps is a film that has been in the works basically ever since Disney acquired 20th Century Fox. It took some time to get right, but once it did we ended up with a picture helmed by Matt Shakman with a screenplay by Josh Friedman, Eric Pearson, Jeff Kaplan, and Ian Springer. The film stars Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic, Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman, Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm/The Human Torch, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm/The Thing. The film is set in 1964, but a futuristic take on the era. This is a world where technology has advanced by leaps and bounds thanks to incredibly smart people like Richards. When we find him early in the film he’s working on teleportation just to give you an idea where we are as a society. As such, it doesn’t look like 1964 other than some design cues and the setting is really it’s own character. The closest example I can think of is Batman (1989) and it’s not 1940s setting that also kind of looks like 1940s America.
She does not bring tidings of great joy.
When we meet The Fantastic Four we’re informed right away that this film starts with their fourth anniversary as a team. Their origin is relayed via montage delivered by an in-universe television special and includes some cameos of their more famous adversaries though with one notable omission. When we actually meet the team, we learn right away that Sue and Reed are expecting a child, something they had been trying for with little success for years. This also sets off massive amounts of anxiety for the father-to-be who can’t help but wonder what effect their cosmic-induced mutations will have on his unborn child. Concerns have to be dismissed for an unusual individual soon reveals themself to the world: Shalla-Bal (Julia Garner), aka The Silver Surfer. She comes baring the unfortunate news that Galactus (Ralph Ineson) has marked Earth for consumption. This naturally comes as a surprise to all involved and it falls on The Fantastic Four to journey into space and barter with the world-devouring entity in hopes of sparing the Earth. They do manage to make it all the way to where Galactus dwells for a face-to-face with the massive entity and find a being who actually is willing to make a deal. The only problem is Galactus desires but one thing: the unborn son of Reed and Sue.
The shadow of Galactus looms large.
That becomes the central conflict of the film: would a parent give away their own child to save the world? It’s a pretty unfair question to ask, but I’m sure you can guess what Reed and Sue want to do and also guess that the rest of the world has a different opinion. The film mostly keeps its focus on that, but also finds time to show Ben trying to find his place in the world and Johnny’s obsession with trying to uncover more information on Shalla-Bal. The film is a tidy 114 minutes and never loses sight of the fact that this is The Fantastic Four’s film. It sounds cliche, but they do a great job of maintaining that family element without resorting to terrible sitcom tropes. This isn’t Full House, but it’s also not some anti-Full House either. There’s conflict between members of the family, but it’s organic. These characters know each other extremely well and love each other. They can annoy each other, but they also rely on each other. And I like that the film remembers that these are all super smart astronauts. Johnny isn’t some dumb jock spending all of his time trying to pick up chicks and The Thing isn’t a big grump who just wants to smash stuff. There’s nuance to all of them and I found it really gratifying to see them rally around a young Franklin Richards (Ada Scott and what Wikipedia refers to as “several other babies”) because that’s what The Fantastic Four should do.
Putting young Franklin at the center of the plot works well for a film emphasizing the family element.
When you have a cast that includes a rock man, a silver woman, and a planet devouring god-being you’re going to need some special effects. Marvel Studios does a solid job bringing characters like The Thing to life. You’re not going to forget that he’s a CGi being, but he doesn’t look out of place. Silver Surfer is also handled rather well and the film is pretty confident about placing this ridiculous being into the film and not making a big deal out of it. Galactus hews pretty close to his classic design with some modern embellishments, but the film definitely doesn’t shy away from showing the being. The colors are muted, but not removed or replaced and I suppose he looks as good as he probably could. The sets look like real sets in many places which is a nice touch over the green screen sets the MCU traditionally relies upon. H.E.R.B.I.E., the resident helper robot, looks like a mix of practical and CG elements and will likely be a crowd pleaser. Maybe not on the same level as Krypto, but kids will enjoy the little robot.
Your kids are going to want one of these.
The film does move fast which may have some questioning if it should have been longer. It’s a bit of a double-edged sword as I think audiences have superhero fatigue and the two and a half hour movies have become exhausting. I very much like how the film gives you the cliff notes version of the origin, though I can also understand some people wondering just what exactly Sue Storm’s powers are? Mr. Fantastic doesn’t get to show off his powers much and the crew really doesn’t get to engage with villains for much of the film. It’s a more procedural film with most of the action reserved for the last act. For action buffs, that’s a bad thing. For me personally, I wasn’t bothered by it. I think it helps set The Fantastic Four apart from more action-heavy franchises. I’m interested in these characters more as characters than as superheroes. It’s an approach that I think will serve the X-Men well whenever they finally get to run wild over the MCU.
The film decided to go the CG route for The Thing and the results are mostly fine.
One final point of criticism I have for the film resides with the ending. If you want zero spoilers about that ending (i.e. when we can expect to see The Fantastic Four again) then skip the rest of this paragraph as I’m going to talk about the mid-credits stinger. Yes, this film has a scene during the credits meant to hype the next adventure. Throughout the film I was quite content with how contained it was. There wasn’t any homework and I didn’t feel like Marvel was setting up another movie. Nothing felt sacrificed or incomplete for the sake of a larger narrative. Then came that mid-credits scene. I won’t actually spoil wht happens in the scene, but it concludes with “The Fantastic Four will return in Avengers: Dooms Day.” I don’t know if I let out an audible groan, but I felt like it. This film did such a good job of making me care about these characters that I don’t want to see them quickly thrust into an even larger ensemble. Now, the scene did follow a “Four years later,” message so it gives Marvel Studios a chunk of unexplored time they can go back to for later films, if they want, but I’d much rather see another Fantastic Four film before seeing them integrated with the Avengers. I know this Dooms Day thing is what the studio is hoping will do Infinity War/Endgame dollars, but I think Marvel and Disney are chasing a dragon there.
Hopefully we get to see a lot more from this group. There are always issues for The Fantastic Four to deal with.
Such concerns could be all for nothing. We’ll see. It also doesn’t really harm First Steps as a movie experience which is one I had a lot of fun with. I don’t think it’s in contention for best comic book adaptation or anything, but it’s a solid B+ theater experience. For the first time in my life I actually care about The Fantastic Four. I want to see more of these characters, this cast, and this really fun setting. Hopefully we do get more of that and hopefully this movie kicks off a new era for The Fantastic Four. The devoted fans have certainly waited a long time for this.
To my surprise, I don’t have any MCU reviews on this blog so here’s the best I can do for related posts:
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It has been just over 10 years since I last posted about a Lego set featuring The Simpsons. That last set, the Kwik-E-Mart, came out in 2015 and was preceded by the home of the Simpson family the year prior. Those sets along with two waves of mini figures seemed to sell pretty well, but for whatever reason Lego decided that was enough Springfield for now. I don’t know why they’re suddenly back ten years later with a new set, but I’m not complaining. I was hoping for at least one more set plus another wave of mini figures since we were missing so many iconic characters from the show: Principal Skinner, Superintendent Chalmers, Lenny, Carl, Barney, Jimbo, and many more. It was unlikely that we’d ever get every character we wanted, but it felt like a third wave would have really filled in the most crucial gaps.
That didn’t happen. Is a third wave now on the table since we have a new set to talk about? I don’t know, but for now we do have Krusty Burger. When I was left to ponder new sets for Lego, I’m a little surprised at myself for not having Krusty Burger pretty high on my list. If I had to make a wager on what was most likely, I was going to go with The Android’s Dungeon the local comic book store run by Jeff Albertson better known simply as Comic Book Guy. It’s small, has some nerd appeal, and works well with existing figures. Maybe it could have led to us getting a Lego Stan Lee? Instead, we have Krusty Burger, the local fast food establishment run by the clown of the same name. Many episodes (and even the movie) have scenes set at Krusty Burger and some are quite memorable. It’s a perfectly cromulent selection by Lego so let’s see how it turned out.
This set comes with a total of 7 mini figures, though some are repeat customers.
The Krusty Burger set contains 1,635 pieces and seven mini figures. Of the mini figures, four are repeat characters: Homer, Bart, Lisa, and Krusty. Bart and Lisa are exactly the same as some past releases. They have neutral expressions and Bart comes with a slingshot while Lisa has her saxophone. Homer also has a neutral expression, but he at least gets some grease stains added to his shirt. Krusty is all new and he’s in his farmer Krusty attire from the episode “Coming to Homerica” complete with hat. It’s a bit interesting to me because Jakks Pacific recently released a Krusty Burger in their toy line featuring a Krusty in the exact same outfit except theirs omitted the hat.
The character selections were made for their ties to the restaurant and Krusty and with some headswaps with old figures we can almost make Grandpa from his time at the restaurant (though he wore the old uniform in his time there).
The rest of the figures are of new characters. Working at the Krusty Burger is the squeaky-voiced teen. He is a teen of many names in the show and also many jobs. He’s in a green and gray uniform which is a color combo seen in more recent seasons of the show. In the old days the workers often had purple shirts. He looks the part and also has his hat on which is non-removable. Also there to enjoy a Krusty burger is officer Lou. I assume he’s included because of the scene from “22 Short Films About Springfield” where he discusses visiting a McDonald’s in Shelbyville which confuses fellow officers Wiggum and Eddie. We also already have a Chief Wiggum (two, actually) so he pairs well with him. Lastly, we have Sideshow Bob. He’s featured in a green shirt and blue pants which would appear to be the default style guide for Bob these days. He’s here I guess because of his connection to Krusty and he is a pretty big name character. He unfortunately doesn’t look the best as Lego really went conservative with his outlandish hair.
Homer’s Krusty-fied car turned out fine, but I wish we had a Homer as Krusty to go with it.
Just like the previous two Simpsons sets, The Krusty Burger also comes with a vehicle. This time it’s Homer’s sedan, but redone to match the episode “Homie the Clown” when Homer became a Krusty impersonator. It has the Krusty visage on the front and also comes complete with speed hole decals for the hood. The build is pretty much exactly the same as the standard version of Homer’s car which includes no roof. I guess this is so Marge could fit inside, but I really hate the no roof look. Why not give us an optional one? It also has exposed studs on the hood like the original which is also something I don’t care for. I would have preferred a smooth exterior there. And while I think this is a solid inclusion, it does make me wonder why we didn’t just get a Homer as Krusty mini figure? That obviously would have cost more money because they would need to cast a new head, but they could have made up for it by just having Krusty come with his default head instead of the one with the hat. Or drop Bart or Lisa from the set – I don’t know. I want a Homer as Krusty!
This little living room set that was a throw-in for people who ordered from Lego is a nice little item, especially for those unable to get the Simpson’s house.
If you ordered this set from Lego directly then you also get a mini set of the Simpson living room. It’s the couch, TV, and end table, and a lamp and it’s basically a cut-away. The TV is the same as the one included with the house only this one comes with a screen featuring a Krusty Burger commercial. A mini figure can easily fit on the couch if you want, but it’s not a couch that is to scale with the house. It can really only accommodate two figures so no family couch gag is happening here. Still, it’s a fun little throw-in and considering the Simpson house set is 11 years old there may be a lot of people buying this set who don’t already have it. This isn’t exactly a substitute for the whole house, but it’s better than nothing.
The Krusty Burger is by far the smallest Simpsons set from Lego so far.
As for the Krusty Burger itself, it’s the smallest of the three sets and by a noticeable margin. It’s pretty self-contained with nothing surrounding it aside from the buildable sign. The layout is a bit odd as the front door is right next to the drive-through window, but that’s how it’s depicted in modern episodes. The right side of the building has a lot of windows while the backside features a rear door and an overflowing grease container. It’s done well with translucent yellow bricks and feels like the sort of thing one would likely find behind an actual Krusty Burger. The left side of the building features the drive-through menu and intercom which pretty much matches the depiction of the same from “Lisa vs Malibu Stacy.” You get to see what everything costs which depicts this restaurant as frozen in time back to the early 90s. My one critique as a fan of the show is that it lists milkshakes on the menu. Krusty Burger doesn’t sell shakes, it sells partially gelatinated, non-dairy, gum-based beverages.
To access the interior, you have to first remove the roof. It just rests on top of the set and there’s a big fan on it that doubles as a handle. There’s also roof access for your mini figures via a little trap door. Once removed, one side of the building can open up which basically breaks the kitchen in half and isolates the dining room in the center. If facing this open set, the left part is the counter and kitchen. There’s a large menu over the counter and two registers. Behind the registers is a small area to fit a mini figure with a prep table behind it that contains some massive burgers. The burger build is creative, but does lead to comically large sandwiches. The deep fryer can be found here as well which has a removable fry basket. For the french fries, Lego is using Wolverine’s claws, but in gold. I’ve seen them do some funny stuff with their hot dog shape, but I wasn’t expecting Wolverine claws for fries here. Also back here you’ll find some storage and an ice cream machine that’s forever out of order. The contents are basically just water which is a nice touch.
It takes up considerable more space when opened to access the various rooms inside.
The center of the build contains the dining area. It’s pretty cramped as it contains one booth and two tables each of which has two stools. Tucked into the corner is Krusty’s Kidz Zone which is a small ball pit. It’s cute, though I would have probably preferred more seating to fit as many figures into this thing as I wanted. Having the Simpson family at one table and the cops at the other would have made sense. Some food is intended to go into this area including Krusty’s version of the Ribwich. It’s made with those tiny Lego cars which is pretty amusing. I had previously seen those in a Christmas tree set.
The right side of the build contains the bathroom and the rest of the kitchen. The bathroom is pretty small and walled-in. For the image on the box, Lego even removed the side wall to make it present better which you could also do if you chose to display the set open. The bathroom is in a pretty sorry state as the sink appears to be overflowing, the toilet is leaking, and there’s no toilet paper left on the roll. It’s what one would expect of a Krusty Burger. The part of the kitchen that’s behind it is the drive-through window. There’s a nice little in-joke on the order screen and there’s also a drink machine in this area.
There are a lot of references throughout the set which is what we’ve come to expect as Simpsons fans with basically anything like this. Lego did a good job with the past sets and they do an adequate job here. This set did begin life as a Lego Ideas design and the pitch was pretty similar to what we got. One of the main differences though was that it was going to come with Marge’s station wagon instead of Homer’s Krusty-fied sedan. It is surprising to me that we have now had three sets from Lego that all came with vehicles, but we still don’t have Marge’s car. And with this set in-hand, a Simpson fan is likely to immediately wonder what could be next? I’m not holding my breath, but now that we have a Krusty Burger I would so love a Skinner house so we could recreate the Steamed Hams sketch in Lego form. The house could be pretty small as we only need the dining room, kitchen, and then they can do whatever with the upstairs. Just having that setup would surely be unforgettable.
If you were curious, the answer is “Yes, you can fit both cops into the previously released cop car.”
The Krusty Burger is a pretty quick and enjoyable build. It’s not very big, but I’m also not surprised that it didn’t get the same love as the Kwik-E-Mart given that ten years have past and costs have changed. The set will set you back $210 making it the most expensive Simpsons set so far, especially per brick. Given the cost, I do wish there were more printed bricks and less stickers. This one came with two sticker sheets and if I have one major complaint with Lego it’s stickers. My Kwik-E-Mart’s stickers are curling on the front and it’s become an eyesore. I don’t have the same issue with other Lego sets that I have, but a lot of them also don’t have exterior stickers like that one. The Krusty Burger does though, and I hope it doesn’t end up in a similar state one day.
As a Simpsons fan, I almost can’t not recommend this Lego Krusty Burger. Sure, I would have packed in more references to the show, probably would have preferred some different characters for mini figures, and definitely would have done things differently with the car, but everything that’s here is still done pretty well. It looks good and there are certainly a lot of memorable scenes from the show one could stage here. It may be small, but it doesn’t look drastically out of place with the other sets. Hopefully, this isn’t the last we see of The Simpsons and Lego and hopefully the next collaboration isn’t ten years away. There’s a lot more Lego could do with Springfield even if there are aspects of it they’d never touch, and I am certainly ready for whatever comes next.
If you missed my other Lego Simpsons reviews or want to see what else is out there check below:
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Back in October, we took a look at the very first wave of action figures from Jakks Pacific based on The Simpsons. At the time, I only had two figures from that inaugural wave: Homer and Bart. It was a series of great interest to myself and other Simpsons fans since it’s existence basically meant…
