Tag Archives: marvel

July 13, 2026

Marvel Legends Mephisto

By Joe
Too Satanic for Walmart.

It’s now been a couple of years since Hasbro did a light pivot from the HasLab model of action figure delivery to the made-to-order one. That’s not to say the HasLab is dead, but we haven’t seen a Marvel Legends themed one since Giant Man which was solicited in September of 2023 and delivered about 2 years ago. Before that was the controversial Engine of Vengeance. The Engine of Vengeance was a proposed vehicle to be made via the HasLab model and is the vehicle of a more modern take on the character of Ghost Rider: Robbie Reyes. There was substantial sticker shock at the $350 ask for what was essentially a 1:12 Dodge Challenger. Being that similar objects exist in the toy aisle already for a substantially lower price it raised a lot of questions about just what Hasbro was doing here? Combine that with the relative obscurity of the Reyes Ghost Rider and it wasn’t too much of a surprise to see the campaign come up short of meeting its funding goal.

Mephisto has some height to him, but he’s not really what I would consider oversized for Marvel Legends.

That wasn’t for lack of trying. Along the way, Hasbro attempted to sweeten the pot with fairly desirable characters as stretch goal action figures most notably the Goblin Queen and Mephisto. Both characters have been cited in the past as being two that Hasbro basically can’t touch because selling them presents an obstacle. For Goblin Queen, it’s the revealing nature of her costume and for Mephisto it’s that he’s essentially Marvel’s version of Satan. Never mind that Diamond Select delivered a Mephisto several years prior. When the two were added to the Engine of Vengeance campaign it was stated that this was the only way Hasbro could make these figures. No retailer would touch them and it’s possible higher-ups at both Hasbro and Disney, Marvel’s parent company, were a bit squeamish when it came to both. That, of course, turned out to be a lie. At least in part. For X-Men ’97’s second wave of action figures, Hasbro delivered a Goblin Queen. She’s not as scantily clad as the comic book version, but then again, neither was the proposed offering via the HasLab. And just last year, Hasbro decided to offer up Mephisto as part of its made-to-order series of figures which is one that bypasses traditional retail. Never mind that Fan Channel figures exist in this day and age and I suspect none of them would bat an eye at carrying Mephisto, but whatever. As far as I can tell, this version is the exact same as what was offered via the HasLab only with one rather large addition. See, it wouldn’t do for Hasbro to just make a Marvel Legends figure this way. Previous offerings have all been oversized, so they decided to add a unique base to the mix and it’s that base that drove me to place an order when the listing went live last summer.

Not only do you have a choice of portraits, but you get a choice of hard vs soft where the cape and loincloth are concerned.

Mephisto arrives in a unique box with photography and artwork on the front and back with a very brief bio. It’s an eye-catching box, but it offers no look at the figure inside so in order to do so you’ll have to break into it. Getting into the box is not painful as it just requires slicing some tape. The figure and all of its accessories are in a two-tiered tray so re-boxing is exceedingly easy. We’ll talk about the figure first before getting to the main event which is the base. Mephisto stands at roughly 7″ with his hair taking him closer to the 8″ mark. He’s a bit taller than your typical Marvel Legends release, but not to the degree Hasbro would likely ask more money for as a standard release. And in terms of bulk, he’s quite slim and slender. As far as I can tell, this sculpt is all new and while some of his height is derived from the torso, the bulk found there is probably less than what one would find via the Vulcan body or even most Spider-Man sculpts. There’s only a slight taper to the torso and most of that comes from how Hasbro did the torso articulation. This new sculpt did allow them to situate the shoulders in a slightly more natural position than the often low shoulders we’re accustomed to though some of that seems to be created by just how low the pectorals go in the sculpt. The shoulders also are not tiny and he has somewhat ropey muscles with long forearms. The legs are quite slender, though pretty shredded as is the style of Marvel Legends. It gives the overall silhouette a mixed feeling. On one hand, the torso and legs give the figure a very tubular quality, but I like where the shoulders sit and how much mass they possess. In short, it’s a mixed bag but certainly better than some of the other Legends figures I have.

The painted details on the portraits are pretty nice.

As for paint, well there is very little to speak of. Even though Mephisto carries a premium price, he does not have a premium look or feel. There’s some shading and paint on the face which does add some life to both portraits while the body features some light highlights. The plastic is a deep red while the color used for said highlights is more of a red-orange. It’s applied to the pecs and abs as well as the front of the thighs and adds a slight hit of gloss to the overall appearance. If the effect is to create the illusion of flames all around him then I can see it. The fingernails are painted black and the loincloth continues onto the thighs and I assume that is painted. It gives them a better, more natural, finish compared with the slightly shiny red-brown plastic found in the crotch. The wrappings on the forearms are separately molded and keyed into the forearm and the boots are separate as well. A wash on the forearms probably would have enhanced them. It looks like the boots were at least hit with a clear, matte, spray as they look a bit better. I can also see a shiny spot where the spray may have failed to reach. It’s a decent looking figure and should fit in stylistically with a Marvel Legends collection, but those expecting something better than normal may feel underwhelmed.

The figure is fine, but the real driver of the $80 MSRP is this throne.

For accessories, Mephisto comes with the typical and the atypical when it comes to Legends. For parts, we get two sets of hands and two portraits which is fairly standard. For hands, there’s a set of gripping hands and a set of open, style-posed hands. For portraits, we get this angry looking one by default with the hair slightly slicked back. The alternate portrait features more of a diabolical grin and the hair is flailing out to the sides like he’s standing in front of a fan. The paint job on both is consistent from one to the other for the face, though I wish they had hit the hair with something as it has a very plastic appearance. Of the two, I definitely prefer the sinister smile so much so that I can’t see myself using the default one at all. Mephisto also comes with a sword that’s almost as long as he is tall. I have it from pommel to tip at 6.625″. The blade is plain, gray, plastic while the crossguard and pommel are painted gold and the hilt brown. I wish they went the extra mile to paint the blade a nice, shiny, silver, but it looks pretty good as-is. Mine did arrive slightly warped as it curves a bit inward. I may try to heat and straighten it at some point. The other accessories are where things get slightly different as Mephisto has two capes and two loincloths. Hasbro is not known for including such optional parts so if you were looking for something a touch more premium than typical then I guess this is where you find it. There’s a sculpted plastic cape which plugs into the figure’s back which is sculpted to be blowing off to the figure’s left slightly. There’s some black paint at the inner bottom and some sculpted details and it looks fine, though since it doesn’t feature a fastener of any kind around the neck it looks a little bizarre. I’m guessing this is consistent with artwork for the character so I don’t consider it a flaw, but it’s not the cape I’ll use. For that, there’s a soft goods one which features a plastic collar and fastener with a soft goods cape attached to it. There’s no wire, but there is a pattern on the inner part. The quality is still more like an old Kenner Batman toy so it also isn’t impressive, but I prefer it to the plastic one. The loincloth setup is the same as we get a hard plastic one and a soft goods one. The soft goods one is of the same material and quality as the cape, just without any hard plastic to anchor it while the plastic one has some bend sculpted into it.

He does look pretty sinister seated upon it.

So why did Hasbro see fit to include two capes and two loincloths? Because Mephisto needs to be able to sit on his included throne. This is the reason why this figure cost a probably still too expensive $80. The throne comes in two pieces: the chair itself and the backing which simply snaps together (and feels like it’s intended to not come apart after). It’s made of a slightly soft plastic which kind of reminds me of a rubber duck, but it’s heavily sculpted and features a fair amount of paint for a Hasbro product. It has an organic design mimicking flesh and sinew with veins painted onto it and other, colored, plastic parts inserted like the four skulls at the base. These skulls are also hit with some shading and there’s a fifth skull that’s actually free of the base for Mephisto to hold or to have placed by his seat. Three more skulls adorn the back with one featuring a red centipede snaking through it. There’s plenty of shading, but the real eye-catcher is the piece that makes up the back. There you will find a large, demonic, skull that should be familiar to fans of the band Danzig. This skull design has been that band’s logo since 1988 and prior to that it was the logo for the band Samhain beginning in 1984. Why is a logo associated with the works of Glenn Danzig worked into this item from Marvel Legends? Because it originally appeared on the cover for Saga of Crystar number 8 and was designed by Michael Golden. I have no idea if Marvel was ever compensated by Danzig or any of the record labels that released his albums featuring this skull, but if not this is one way for Marvel to strike back albeit many years later. As a result, it makes this set desirable to both Marvel fans and Danzig collectors and I know of several Danzig fans who bought this who otherwise would not have. The fact that the character released with it happens to be Marvel’s Satan is also not a bad pairing.

“Lucifer! We are here!” “Great, and what tribute have you brought for me?”
“I didn’t bring anything, did you?” “No…”
“Snacks! Oh horrible one!” “Idiots…”

If we can take it back to the actual toy now there’s still the matter of articulation to discuss. Mephisto presents like any old Marvel Legend and he mostly moves like one too. Hasbro went with the double ball peg head joint and like most Legends the lower ball is seated far too deep into the neck and chest. This means the range is pretty poor and he basically can’t look up at all. The figure does have butterfly joints, but the slender sculpt left little room for them to do a whole lot. The shoulders go back a decent amount, and forward just a touch. They could have carved out more room in the chest, but that probably would have looked bad. Otherwise, the arms and legs feature the usual Legends articulation. There is a boot swivel, but no forearm swivel and the gripping hands do have a vertical hinge. They unfortunately did a straight cut for the thigh swivel rather than attempt to stick it under the trunks. The torso is where the real mixed bag comes in. At the diaphragm is a ball joint that gets solid range forward and back. It does tilt, but it fights rotation. It’ll go, but the peg may be binding as it tends to want to snap back into a neutral spot. At the waist we have…nothing. The figure is designed to come apart at the waist to accommodate swapping out the loincloth, but Hasbro just made it a keyed joint. It can’t even swivel which is such a shame. This means the only crunch forward or back you can get is via the diaphragm and that’s also the only spot the figure can rotate, which it also seems to want to push back against. A ball joint would have separated pretty easily at the waist and since this is a non-retail figure I don’t know why that wasn’t possible. If internal safety standards meant not doing that for retail I could understand, but this isn’t retail. Nothing is loose and the range of the joints is pretty standard. The elbows and knees are a bit stiff, but that’s also pretty typical of a Legends figure.

“When’s it gonna be our turn?” “Never!”
He finally has what he’s long sought.

Which is what Mephisto is: he’s a standard Marvel Legends release packaged with an elaborate base. I don’t know how the costs break-out for most people here. As an action figure, nothing about Mephisto warrants more than the going rate for a Marvel Legends action figure. Maybe you bump him up to $30 or $35 since it’s new tooling that can’t be sold at retail (if we take Hasbro at their word), but that still leaves $45-50 to get to the MSRP of $80. Is that Crystar/Danzig-inspired base worth that much money? Maybe to a Danzig collector like me who’s accustomed to paying hundreds of dollars for a stupid necklace or trick-or-treat bag, but to a typical Legends collector? That’s a tough sell. I think a fairer price would be to treat the figure and base as the same value which would get you to a $60-70 MSRP. Is the extra $10 a made-to-order tax? I guess. The figure does at least sit the throne well enough and the sword slots into one of those skulls so in terms of what it set out to do it accomplished its goal. It’s also still available at Hasbro Pulse and still for the original price of $80 which stands in contrast to Dragon Man and the Sentinel which both saw a price hike. Those were also solicited pre-tariffs and the extra may simply come from that. Mephisto benefited from being solicited while those tariffs were in effect and arriving after the bulk of them had been struck down by the courts. Or it’s simply a case of Hasbro realizing it’s already asked as much as it can ask of its fanbase for this particular item and going any higher would be foolish. There have been whispers that the made-to-order model has not worked well for Hasbro financially. I haven’t seen any real reporting behind those whispers so take them with a grain of salt. They have not announced a new made-to-order item in 2026 to this point, but then again, they also had this and the X-Men ’97 Apocalypse outstanding and maybe they don’t want to add a third item until one or both deliver. With San Diego Comic Con right around the corner, that could obviously change. As it stands, if you always wanted a Mephisto for your Legends collection and either passed on or grew sick of that old Diamond Select one, then this is fine. It’s just way overpriced. If you care not for the throne then maybe you can flip it to a Danzig fan to lighten the price. And if you’re a Danzig fan who has no interest in the figure, I don’t doubt that you’ll be able to get some of your money back by selling Mephisto to a Legends collector.

The only appropriate image to go out on.

For some related entries, check these out:

Marvel Legends Marvel’s Crystar

Marvel Legends are still sold primarily at major retailers. This includes the likes of Target, Walmart, and even Best Buy which has been adding more toys to its portfolio over the years. And since they’re made by Hasbro, a company that has been selling toys to kids for generations, they still mostly operate on the…

by Joe

The Saga of Crystar – Crystal Warrior #8

There’s been a hole in my Danzig collection for quite some time. It was a hole that was easy to fill and actually quite cheap considering most Danzig records fetch well over $100 these days, but an important piece was missing. And that piece is not what one would necessarily expect, but I would assume…

by Joe

Marvel Legends X-Men ’97 Sentinel

When X-Men premiered on Halloween 1992 the big bad guy of the day wasn’t Magneto, it wasn’t Apocalypse, it was the Sentinels. The mutant-hunting robots were chosen because they represented the threat from humanity as it pertained to the protagonists of the show. Any show or comic book can put some scary dude in a…

by Joe

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July 9, 2026

X-Men ’97 – “Rise of Apocalypse: Part 2”

By Joe
Original premiere date July 8, 2026.

Unlike the first three episodes of season two of X-Men ’97, this fourth one is going to spend all of its time in one era. And as you could probably guess, that era is 3,000 BCE since that is where we left off last week. I consider these reviews that I do spoiler free, but even so, I don’t think it’s much of a spoiler to say that Rama-Tut’s (John de Lancie) attack at the end of last week’s episode was not very successful. The show wanted us to believe that our beloved X-Men were in real danger, but that was pretty hard to believe considering it was just the third episode. As expected, Magneto (Matthew Waterson) was able to put up a forcefield just in time to spare our heroes. Also surviving, to no one’s surprise, is En Sabah Nur (Adetokumboh M’Cormack) who is basically some kind of super man and I think he just shrugged it off. As for the rest, they’re all dead and Nur’s fortress is in ruins. Among the dead is Baal, Nur’s adopted father, and it’s unlikely he’ll react well to that.

Much of last week’s episode featured Magneto trying to get En Sabah Nur to buy into Xavier’s (Ross Marquand) dream of human and mutant coexistence. Mercy was a big part of that lesson, but when Nur discovered that Magneto and the X-Men were sneaking around behind his back and working on a time machine, he grew pretty angry. He felt this was a betrayal, which seemed extreme to me at the time, but it’s hard to get a read on just how Magneto sold himself to Nur. Clearly, he doesn’t look like someone born in Egypt so he should have known that he was from somewhere far off (we’ll ignore the whole language thing, everyone speaks English because it’s just easier that way). Then again, Nur doesn’t really look like a typical Egyptian either thanks to his mutation and I suppose he may have assumed the same of Magneto. Either way, that door was shut by episode’s end, but now it’s Xavier’s turn to try to appeal to the would-be mass murderer. Since Xavier and pals survived Tut’s attack, Nur is forced to look upon him with respect since he does buy into that whole survival of the fittest mantra. Xavier is then able to convince Nur to allow him to probe his mind to find out just what it is they are both seeking.

You’re up, Chuck.

Xavier doesn’t really learn anything new, at least not to the audience. The temple they, and Rama-Tut, are seeking is quite literally calling out to En Sabah Nur. It’s clearly not of this world, but it’s a destination they all seek. It’s also made even more important for the X-Men to find this thing because Magneto is very much committed to his idea of reform for Nur so much so that he disables Bishop’s (Isaac Robinson-Smith) time traveling bracelet. He seems to think they’ll be able to repair it with the tech waiting for them at this temple, but that’s one Hell of a gamble. The rest of the episode is fairly straight-forward. We do get some character moments of which the most intriguing is between Rogue (Lenore Zann) and Nur while camping for the night. Xavier also receives a communication from Rama-Tut himself during which viewers not familiar with the character get the Cliff’s Notes version of just who he is. The most interesting aspect of the meeting is finding out that Tut is attempting to prevent the rise of Apocalypse (Marquand), though he seems to view it as inevitable. I mostly find it interesting because we know that he, as Immortus, will assist Bishop in doing just that some 5,000 years in the future during the “Beyond Good and Evil” arc. He had to wait an awful long time for that sort of satisfaction.

Well, that answers some questions.

And inevitable is certainly a theme with this one. What we’re seeing is a fatalistic approach to time travel on display where everything occurs in a loop. We saw that in episode two with Nathan obtaining the power of Apocalypse’s celestial ship, which was referred to simply as Ship in the X-Men episode “Obsession.” That entity manifests itself as Cable’s computer, a device which allows him to travel through time and a power Apocalypse seeks in “Beyond Good and Evil.” It first rested with Apocalypse until Cable essentially stole it before he reacquired it to embark on that particular quest. With the X-Men in the past attempting to prevent his rise, they have inadvertently become a part of it. Apocalypse is inevitable, and like Bishop trying to alter time to improve upon his future, it seems like there is little mere mortals can do about it. Everything has happened for a reason and for longtime viewers of X-Men and now X-Men ’97, it’s rewarding to see how everything intertwines.

Even this one finds time for some interesting character moments.

This episode does feature an action-packed climax and a resolution designed to land with a wallop. It is, unfortunately, undermined by the show up to this point as we have had numerous fake outs and lasting consequences seem to be in short supply when it comes to X-Men ’97. That is not unique to the show as it’s something of a failing for comics as a whole. Perhaps the fallout will land better in a future episode, but for me when this one was over I didn’t feel much of anything other than appreciation for how well everything was animated. To my surprise, the episode also didn’t really toy with the idea of the X-Men taking out En Sabah Nur before he becomes Apocalypse, assuming they could. There is a brief moment where it seems like Bishop is willing to do so, but he’s stopped and no discussion ensues. A pedantic complaint I also have is we see Xavier and Magneto secretly communicating via telepathy, but the whole time Magneto is wearing his helmet. This would not have been an issue in the original series because at that point it had not been established that Magneto’s helmet blocked psychic attacks. Unfortunately for the show, that retcon was adopted for the first season of the show so it should still be in effect now. It further annoys me because we didn’t need Magneto to put his helmet on. He didn’t have it in the previous episode and I don’t even know how he managed to recover it during all that happened on Asteroid M, so why even stick it back on his head now? The design is slightly different so maybe it’s not the exact same helmet and instead one he created during their time in Egypt. Even so, it sure looks to be largely the same so there’s no reason to think it wouldn’t possess the same benefits as his old one.

That helmet is bugging me way too much.

It’s not important, just something a very invested fan like myself needs to call out. “Rise of Apocalypse: Part 2” lives up to its name and it will likely prove to be a necessary step for the greater conflict with Apocalypse this season. Nothing is resolved here as far as that conflict goes, though other aspects of this early season are. For instance, we do learn who was calling out to Xavier in that vision he had in the prior episode, though the individual is never given a name (you’ll have to…search…that information out yourself). I should also point out that there is a stinger scene at the end of this one during the credits so don’t bail on it while the X-Men are spinning on their pedestals. It’s just a tease for next week’s episode and if you looked ahead at the episode titles then you can probably guess where we’re heading. I’m expecting it to be kind of a time out episode before we get back to the Apocalypse plot, but I obviously could be wrong. This is an episode of X-Men ’97 that largely keeps the train rolling and serves to be an exciting half hour of television with some time travel quirks, albeit one with an ending that doesn’t land as forcefully as the writing staff probably intended.

Previously…on X-Men ’97:

X-Men ’97 – “Rise of Apocalypse: Part 1”

The premiere episode for season two of X-Men ’97 took us to the far off future where Apocalypse reigns supreme. The second followed that one up with a story set in the present time of the series: 1997 (Duh!). Now, for the third episode of this three-part premiere we head to ancient Egypt to meet…

Keep reading
by Joe

X-Men ’97 – “A Force to be Reckoned With”

The title of this post says X-Men ’97, but in some respects it should read X-Force ’97 because that’s what the opening title presents. Yes, boys and girls, we have ourselves an X-Force on television. Cable made numerous appearances in the original series, but never as the leader of X-Force. This surprised me as a…

Keep reading
by Joe

X-Men ’97 – “Days of Past Future”

At last, X-Men ’97 has made its return to airwaves with not one, not two, but three episodes for the premiere which means there’s a lot to talk about. Truthfully, too much for one post which is why we need to keep things to one episode per entry as is the style of the time.…

Keep reading
by Joe

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Comics, Television

July 8, 2026

X-Men ’97 – “Rise of Apocalypse: Part 1”

By Joe
Original premiere date July 1, 2026.

The premiere episode for season two of X-Men ’97 took us to the far off future where Apocalypse reigns supreme. The second followed that one up with a story set in the present time of the series: 1997 (Duh!). Now, for the third episode of this three-part premiere we head to ancient Egypt to meet up with the rest of the X-Men, only they’re not alone for in this time is the mutant En Sabah Nur who the X-Men know will one day become Apocalypse. They have been unknowingly sent here against their will by Mother Askani to prevent the rise of Apocalypse, but just how they’re supposed to go about such is a matter of debate. Beyond that is the debate of if it should happen at all?

The episode opens with the X-Men who were sent to the future now back in the ruins of the X-Mansion. They returned expecting to find the team Bishop (Isaac Robinson-Smith) was sent to retrieve there as well, but when no one appears they become concerned. This is time travel, after all, so the idea that they have to wait for their return doesn’t make sense if they were all set to return to a specific moment in time. All they can do is wait though, because Forge (Gil Birmingham) is unable to get a reading on their time bracelets. In 3,000 BCE, En Sabah Nur (Adetokumboh M’Cormack) is preparing to lead his forces against those of Rama-Tut (John de Lancie) who is a vicious ruler and slaver that once possessed Nur. Alongside Nur is Baal (Michael Dorn), the man he looks up to as a surrogate father for he is the one credited with rescuing Nur from a life of slavery. Nur is, as far as we know, the world’s first mutant with the tell-tale sign being his pale skin and blue lips. He also possesses incredible strength and durability and is something of a super man which is what makes him a natural leader of other former slaves.

The X-Men have been sent to the past to stop En Sabah Nur from becoming Apocalypse.

The X-Men trapped in this past are under no delusions who En Sabah Nur is, or rather, who he will become. Charles (Ross Marquand) feels their presence in the past is an affront to nature and they should do everything in their power to not interfere and instead focus on getting back home. Magneto (Matthew Waterson), on the other hand, sees this as an opportunity to set Nur on a different path. If he can instill in him the values of Charles Xavier then perhaps Xavier’s dream of human and mutant coexistence can come true before he’s even born to dream it himself. He views this as penance for his hand in what happened on Genosha, but Charles is not so certain this is the correct path. What no one seems to suggest is simply destroying En Sabah Nur before he can become Apocalypse. Such is the quagmire of the time traveler – if you can prevent an atrocity by taking out the orchestrator of such before it happens should you? En Sabah Nur as he exists in this moment in time is not the same man who committed countless atrocities as Apocalypse. Can he be sentenced for a crime he has not committed? This question doesn’t come up in this episode, but perhaps it will soon enough.

This isn’t the Egypt you read about in your textbooks.

As for the X-Men stranded here which includes Beast (George Buza), Rogue (Lenore Zann), and Nightcrawler (Adrian Hough) in addition to Magneto and Charles, their journey home is perhaps an impossibility. Beast is no Forge, but he has spent time working with Bishop’s time traveling device and has some knowledge of how it works. The problem is acquiring the power and resources needed to create a time machine and to do that they look to the forces of Rama-Tut. We may be in ancient Egypt, but the tech of Tut is certainly not of this era. He attacks with robotic minions lead by a human general named Logos (Chris Britton) and once the forces of Nur lay waste to them, the X-Men scavenge the battlefield for parts, but they’re not making much headway which is taking its toll on everyone, especially Beast. The plot takes a turn when Magneto is able to convince Nur to abandon his survival of the fittest mantra and take Logos hostage rather than kill him. With him in their clutches, Magneto hopes to convince Xavier to probe his mind and perhaps find a solution to their problems, but instead Xavier just finds more riddles. A disembodied voice that espouses a famous quote from Apocalypse appears before Charles alongside a massive, fiery, eye that looks like a galaxy being born. The presence of a shattered moon in the shape of Magneto’s helm leads me to believe this could be a foreshadowing for Onslaught, though I’ve seen some speculate that this could be a reference to Stryfe. I would have thought it was merely a vision of Apocalypse himself, but Xavier is the one who classifies this individual as a mystery and that would be a pretty lame mystery since we know that Apocalypse is the villain already in focus.

In this era, Rama-Tut rules, but I definitely wasn’t expecting to see the X-Ternal (credited as Candra) from the episode “X-Ternally Yours” to make an appearance.

The episode does end on a cliffhanger, though it’s a bit of a toothless one since these characters have quite a bit of plot armor at this point. Bishop will also make an appearance and, if anything, this cliffhanger may just explain why the X-Men were unable to rendezvous with their comrades in 1997. Perhaps we will find out the events of this episode caused the time bracelets to be damaged and the X-Men will have to seek out another way to return home. Of course, with me catching up and this going live the day part two drops that means these questions have likely already been answered (and maybe the identity of the mystery voice has as well), but I had to make sure I got my thoughts down before that episode dropped. I am guessing the technology of Rama-Tut hides a way for the team to get home and it would be a great example of circular story-telling since it was a future version of Rama-Tut that helped Bishop and the X-Men take down Apocalypse in the “Beyond Good and Evil” arc. There, he took the form of a cosmic janitor named Bender who only revealed himself to the viewer as Immortus at the end, but he’s basically a future version of Rama-Tut who is also an aspect of Kang the Conqueror. Yeah, it’s complicated.

A lot of capes in this picture.

“Rise of Apocalypse: Part 1” is a bit slower paced than the other two episodes in this three episode premiere. Being that it’s co-written by Beau DeMayo (along with JB Ballard), that’s not a surprise as he seems to like these more talky episodes and when you get Magneto and Xavier sharing scenes that tends to happen. It’s a necessary episode, though I do wonder if this is really how I want to see Apocalypse portrayed. I like origin stories and villain ones can be a lot of fun, but Apocalypse as a Spartacus figure is hard to square. Are we supposed to have sympathy for this character? Apocalypse is a genocidal monster, I’m not sure that I want or need to know that he wasn’t always bad. This is an adaptation of Rise of Apocalypse by Terry Kavanagh and Adam Pollina so it’s not a new story, but I never read that one to know if the portrayal of En Sabah Nur was quite the same. At any rate, I’m willing to see how things progress from here and since this is only part one it does feel a little incomplete. We’ve set the table, but the meal has yet to arrive.

Previously…on X-Men ’97:

X-Men ’97 – “A Force to be Reckoned With”

The title of this post says X-Men ’97, but in some respects it should read X-Force ’97 because that’s what the opening title presents. Yes, boys and girls, we have ourselves an X-Force on television. Cable made numerous appearances in the original series, but never as the leader of X-Force. This surprised me as a…

Keep reading
by Joe

X-Men ’97 – “Days of Past Future”

At last, X-Men ’97 has made its return to airwaves with not one, not two, but three episodes for the premiere which means there’s a lot to talk about. Truthfully, too much for one post which is why we need to keep things to one episode per entry as is the style of the time.…

Keep reading
by Joe

X-Men ’97 – “Tolerance is Extinction – Part 3”

Today, X-Men ’97 dropped the curtain on its first season and what a way to bring it to an end. Last week’s episode was a roller coaster of emotions for me. I couldn’t go into much detail of my review of “Tolerance is Extinction – Part 2” without wading into spoiler territory, so allow me…

Keep reading
by Joe

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July 7, 2026

X-Men ’97 – “A Force to be Reckoned With”

By Joe
Original premiere date July 1, 2026.

The title of this post says X-Men ’97, but in some respects it should read X-Force ’97 because that’s what the opening title presents. Yes, boys and girls, we have ourselves an X-Force on television. Cable made numerous appearances in the original series, but never as the leader of X-Force. This surprised me as a kid since if you went to a toy store during that era you would find action figures featuring an X-Men cardback as well as those with an X-Force one. Cable was basically the Wolverine of that line as he received quite a few figures, though never as many as the more famous Canadian. The line lasted for a few years, but it always was less popular than the X-Men one. In my home town we had a big warehouse store that was literally located in an old warehouse that was family owned. Even though the place looked like a dump and was most associated with cheap products, the toy section was often pretty current and sometimes they would get stuff before even Toys ‘R Us. However, they would also get some of the more unwanted figures and when it came to X-Men there was a long drought because they couldn’t get rid of their X-Force figures. G.W. Bridge, Gideon, Shatterstar, and Kaine seemed to linger forever. It’s why I had a Shatterstar because he felt like the coolest of the ones available. Cable was rarely there, same for Deadpool and Fourarm. Maybe the stink of that store is what kept me out of X-Force because I think the only other X-Force figure I would own from that Toy Biz line was a later Cable who had Terminator-like tare-away flesh for some reason. And that one was given to me by my friend.

When the first season of X-Men ’97 ended with the majority of the team flung through time, but Cable remaining in 1997, it seemed like the time was now for X-Force to make its animated debut. The first episode ended with a tease as Cable (Chris Potter) is seen in the present telling two familiar faces in Archangel (Christopher Barger) and Psylocke (Naoko Mori) that they need to focus on recruitment. When the second episode, “A Force to be Reckoned With” opens, it comes as a cold open which is unusual for the show. It depicts a group of young mutants on the run being lead by some kind of energy bird to the remains of the X-Mansion. It’s in ruins, and one of the kids has an “I told you so,” attitude about the discovery because everyone knows the X-Men are gone. These kids are just the start of the cameos as this is going to be a big one for those who like to scan the background. There are more cameos in this one than there were during the segments in Genosha from the original series (and from last year’s episode, for that matter) so I’m not going to bother to list them all. These ones are rather prominent as among them are Kid Omega (Thomas Dekker) (sporting a Phoenix shirt) and Penance (Miatta Ade Lebile).

X-Factor has entered the chat.

Who are these kids running from? That would be X-Factor, the government backed version of the team that briefly showed up in the original series episode “Cold Comfort.” There, they were lead by Forge, but now they’re being directed by Val Cooper (Catherine Disher) to round up mutants in a bid to turn down the current temperature where human-mutant relations are concerned. The actual makeup of the team is still pretty much the same as we have Havok (Teddy Sears), Polaris (Carolina Ravassa), Strong Guy (Adrian Hough), Wolfsbane, and Multiple Man, the latter having no lines and thus no credited voice actor at this time. Following that scene, we catch up with Jubilee (Holly Chou) and Sunspot (Gui Agustini) at an arcade, but they’re soon visited by an old friend: Cable. Here we get the recruitment pitch, and when Jubilee asks if this team he’s putting together has a name, we smash-cut to the opening title only it’s X-Force! Each member of the team gets their own segment which is headlined by Cable and there are a lot of similar shots to the standard intro. There are throwbacks to the first season of the show as well as the original series including the scene of Cable encountering Apocalypse in his temple and one of the creation of Archangel. The ending sequence has X-Force colliding with the forces of Apocalypse with the mutant kids caught in the middle. It’s an awesome sequence that is almost sure to put a smile on the face of every viewer, even those not necessarily familiar with X-Force.

This is pretty awesome.

With the fun intro over, the rest of the episode can focus on X-Force chasing leads, the first of which concerns the horseman War (Lawrence Bayne) from the first season of the original show. He was the green guy with the bowl cut who I don’t think has ever been seen again since that episode, but Cable lets everyone know that this guy has been pretty busy spreading death and genocide wherever he goes. Our team is indeed Cable, Psylocke, Archangel, Jubilee, and Sunspot with the latter two getting a costume change. Jubilee now has her longer hair and red Generation X costume while Sunspot is sporting his X-Force blue and orange. Curiously, Archangel is back in the blue and pink which we knew from the trailers and Hasbro figure, but why he ditched his Angel look is not addressed. Psylocke is in her ninja look from the 90s and now sports a British accent despite not having one in the original series. Since this is more accurate, I can let that inconsistency slide. This is a hodgepodge assortment for X-Force, but in the confines of the animated series, I think it makes sense. The cast is already bloated and introducing the likes of Warpath, Shatterstar, and Kaine would just be like adding to the pile.

This group may not scream “X-Force,” to 90s comic readers, but for this show I think this squad makes sense.

The mission to capture and interrogate War reveals to Jubilee just how Cable envisions this squad working which stands in direct opposition of what Charles Xavier would do. Cable rationalizes them as soldiers, not students or teachers, and Xavier’s pacifist methods are not going to cut it. He’s more ruthless, and yes we do get our answer as to why the Marvel Legends Archangel comes with Cable’s gun, though I still think it was a mostly worthless inclusion. From there, the focus pivots based on what Psylocke is able to extract from War’s mind by force and telepathy to an old foe in Emma Frost (Zehra Fazal). This puts our squad on a collision course with X-Factor that also leads to Jubilee getting separated which is where the episode really kicks it into high gear.

It’s time for Jubilee to truly graduate.

During the original series, Jubilee was featured a fair amount, but often as the kid who got in over her head and needed the other X-Men to bail her out. Her most independent episode might have been “Jubilee’s Fairy Tale Theater” in which she keeps a group of students calm with a story we see acted out in animation while they wait for rescue. It’s not exactly the sort of spotlight someone like Wolverine would get. In this episode, Jubilee gets her moment as she’s captured and tasked with not just breaking out, but also freeing all of the captive mutants being held by X-Factor on what looks like a SHIELD helicarrier. It’s set to a very era appropriate song which has Beau DeMayo written all over it, but I don’t know for sure who is responsible. The sequence shows Jubilee really cut loose with her powers and skills and the nice thing was that during the new opening title we were treated to a sequence of Psylocke training Jubilee. It’s just a nice, tidy, way of saying this is something that’s been going on for a little awhile and we’re seeing the fruits of that labor on display. What I really appreciate though is that before Jubilee can bust out, we get to see Sunspot and Cable argue over what to do about her capture. Sunspot, being the heroic boyfriend, wants to set everything aside to rescue her, but Cable tells him to trust her. He knows she can take care of herself, or at least he wants to see if she can. When Jubilee does eventually cause a commotion, there’s a moment where we see Cable smile, but it’s not some cocky, “I told you so,” smile. It’s the kind of smile a teacher might feature when a student demonstrates that they’ve absorbed the material they’ve been taught. And he said they weren’t students.

I didn’t necessarily need to know where this thing came from, but it was pretty cool.

The episode does end back in the future to wrap-up the events of the first episode. In doing so, the origin of Cable’s computer cube (Rachel Kimsey) is revealed in a rather clever way. I have no idea if this is something born from the comics or if it was created for the show (this episode was written by Anthony Sellitti and Mariah Wilson), but I do like it. It also sets up the events for the third part of this season premiere where we will check in on the squad sent to the distant past. Even though this is deliberately woven into other threads, this episode of X-Men ’97 X-Force ’97works really well as a stand-alone adventure. It ties into the core mission of the X-Men through a different lens and putting this X-Force team up against X-Factor is another great way to put the focus on just what the X-Men (and X-Force) are out to do. Jubilee’s escape is a ton of fun and should be a highlight of season two when all is said and done, assuming it’s not overshadowed in the 8 episodes to follow. There is some foreshadowing contained in this one via Psylocke’s observations in the mind of War that are certainly intriguing. I think anyone who watched how the first season ended can guess what’s coming, but it’s still fun to see the show tease it. I just wonder when it will pay off?

Previously…on X-Men ’97:

X-Men ’97 – “Days of Past Future”

At last, X-Men ’97 has made its return to airwaves with not one, not two, but three episodes for the premiere which means there’s a lot to talk about. Truthfully, too much for one post which is why we need to keep things to one episode per entry as is the style of the time.…

Keep reading
by Joe

X-Men ’97 – “Tolerance is Extinction – Part 3”

Today, X-Men ’97 dropped the curtain on its first season and what a way to bring it to an end. Last week’s episode was a roller coaster of emotions for me. I couldn’t go into much detail of my review of “Tolerance is Extinction – Part 2” without wading into spoiler territory, so allow me…

Keep reading
by Joe

X-Men ’97 – “Tolerance is Extinction – Part 2”

Magneto was right. That was the realization many characters seemed to share at the end of last week’s episode of X-Men ’97. As we roll into the penultimate episode of the show’s first season, a lot is on the line and the show is drawing inspiration from several different sources related to the X-Men over…

Keep reading
by Joe

2 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Comics, Television

July 6, 2026

X-Men ’97 – “Days of Past Future”

By Joe
Original premiere date July 1, 2026.

At last, X-Men ’97 has made its return to airwaves with not one, not two, but three episodes for the premiere which means there’s a lot to talk about. Truthfully, too much for one post which is why we need to keep things to one episode per entry as is the style of the time. It’s been a long two years since the first season ended with the X-Men scattered through time. When that episode ended, it was tough to know just where everyone landed, but with the first episode of season two that is at least resolved along with a whole bunch of other things. And structurally, the three episode premiere makes sense because each episode is going to take place at a different point in time and focus on a different group of mutants with the very first taking place in the far off future of 3960 where we know Cyclops (Ray Chase) and Jean (Jennifer Hale) wound up, but will soon learn it’s also where Storm(Alison Sealy-Smith), Wolverine (Cal Dodd), and Morph(JP Karliak) landed as well.

As we basically knew going into this one based on how season one ended, season two is going to focus on Apocalypse (Ross Marquand) as the big antagonist of the season. At least, that’s the setup and I suppose he could be dispatched before the season ends, but it sure feels like he’s going to have a presence throughout. When the show begins with that fantastic intro, we find Forge (Gil Birmingham) and Bishop (Isaac Robinson-Smith) taking stock of where the X-Men are. Forge has utilized his mutant powers of invention to create a crude version of the time portal seen in the very first season of X-Men and through that they have been able to pinpoint where everyone wound up. Because Forge’s love interest, Storm, resides in 3960 he draws the task of traveling to the future to bring back the X-Men there while Bishop will be tasked to heading to ancient Egypt to retrieve the rest.

Expect Apocalypse to have a presence throughout this season.

In 3960, we’re properly introduced to Nathan Summers (Michael Johnston) and Mother Askani (Gates McFadden). Askani leads a tribe of individuals who are resisting Apocalypse in this future. There, the immortal mutant has pretty much taken over and successfully enslaved much of the world. The Atlantic ocean is dried up and his fortress looms large. Cyclops and Jean have been training Nathan who does not know that they’re his parents for a few months while the other X-Men are just along for the ride. When Forge arrives, he finds a Wolverine sans his adamantium skeleton who is forced to tangle with Apocalypse’s robotic Dark Riders with bone claws that shatter upon impact, but soon regrow thanks to his mutant healing ability. Because the episode is heavy on the Summers family dynamic, we don’t get any insight on how Wolverine has been coping with that very traumatic moment from the penultimate episode of season one and Morph is mostly there for a little window dressing. Forge has the unenviable task of convincing the Summers family to separate and return to the present despite getting this unexpected opportunity at a life with their son.

The main focus of the episode is on the Summers family.

As such, the episode is heavy on the soapy elements X-Men is known for. Cyclops distrusts Mother Askani who declines to reveal her origins, though the episode is not shy at hinting at it. She feels Nathan is destined to take down Apocalypse and that takes precedent over the whims of his long lost parents who are struggling with the idea that their kid needs to go on without them. We also learn just why the X-Men are where they are, and even though there’s a lot of drama there’s also no shortage of action in this opening episode. It also leads directly into the second episode as we briefly touch base with Cable in 1997, one of the few heroes from season one not sent through time, and even see the origin of a second season of X-Men character.

Claws of bone have limited effectiveness against machines.

“Days of Past Future” is written by Brad Ford Sullivan, Anthony Sellitti, and JB Ballard which does call into question if anything former showrunner Beau DeMayo had planned for this one made it in. Since he will be receiving writing credits in future episodes (and is an executive producer on the series still), I suspect that isn’t the case and the larger picture he had for the show is still intact. Whether that’s a good or bad thing is not something I can say, but since he oversaw the excellent first season I can only assume it’s good despite how his time on the show came to an end. The visuals in the show have only improved, if anything, with bright, vibrant, colors even in this dystopian future dominating the palette. I especially love the little touches like how Wolverine can be seen wincing in pain every time his claws snap and the way this show really makes Storm’s powers resemble those of an actual goddess. The soundtrack by The Newton Brothers, which borrows heavily from the original series score, is thumping and there’s a great use of Cable’s old theme as well when Nathan enters a scene. If I have anything to criticize it’s that the episode resolves itself rather quickly. It’s not necessarily unexpected as we can’t have a big showdown with Apocalypse right out of the gate, but it did bring the episode to a bit of a screeching halt. It’s not unsatisfying as the character interactions work especially well, but perhaps felt a bit too neat and tidy.

Young Nathan will be forced to grapple with his own destiny.

As a return to the world of X-Men ’97, “Days of Past Future” works exceptionally well. I love the callbacks and the minor tweaks to the opening title. This is a show that is rich in lore for longtime viewers of the show and readers of the comic books from which the show draws inspiration from. And in this case, we’re talking about The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix which was written by Scott Lodbell who probably should have received a credit on the episode. It’s a good setup for the next several episodes and the season to come and if it had arrived all by itself I would have absolutely been frothing for more, but since it didn’t I got to go right into the second episode which might be even better.

Previously…on X-Men ’97:

X-Men ’97 – “Tolerance is Extinction – Part 3”

Today, X-Men ’97 dropped the curtain on its first season and what a way to bring it to an end. Last week’s episode was a roller coaster of emotions for me. I couldn’t go into much detail of my review of “Tolerance is Extinction – Part 2” without wading into spoiler territory, so allow me…

Keep reading
by Joe

X-Men ’97 – “Tolerance is Extinction – Part 2”

Magneto was right. That was the realization many characters seemed to share at the end of last week’s episode of X-Men ’97. As we roll into the penultimate episode of the show’s first season, a lot is on the line and the show is drawing inspiration from several different sources related to the X-Men over…

Keep reading
by Joe

X-Men ’97 – “Tolerance is Extinction – Part 1”

Ever since the episode list was released for X-Men ’97 I’ve been looking forward to what reads like an epic, three-part, season finale. In truth, given that X-Men ’97 is a serialized show you could basically call every episode “X-Men ’97 Season 1 Part 1” and so on, but the titles do add a dramatic…

Keep reading
by Joe

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Comics, Television

July 1, 2026

Marvel Legends X-Men ’97 Archangel

By Joe
“Behold my angel of death!”

On July 1st, 2026, our long wait ends. X-Men ’97 returns to Disney+ with its greatly anticipated second season a little over two years after the conclusion of the first. It’s something I have been looking forward to pretty much ever since credits rolled on the finale and the only thing that stinks about it is that it arrives when I’m on vacation. As a result, I likely won’t have any thoughts up on this blog for a little while where that debut episode is concerned, but to tide things over we do have a toy to look at and it’s of a character that figures to be featured somewhat prominently in the second season of X-Men ’97: Warren Worthington the third, also known as Archangel.

Archangel made his debut in the first season of the original series. He’s ambushed by Cable over his funding for a cure for mutation and winds up being the first victim of said cure when Mystique turns him into a slave of Apocalypse. In the process, Worthington’s feathery, angelic, wings were replaced with cold steel and his skin turned blue. He’d break free of Apocalypse’s control by the next episode, but his quest for revenge consumed him in his next appearance, “Obsession,” before a slightly milder version of the character appeared during the “Beyond Good and Evil” arc. That story was intended to be the show’s finale and at the end of it Archangel was to join the X-Men where he belonged, but a surprise order for new episodes extended the show and such plans were scuttled. During that arc, Archangel had returned to his Angel persona of blue and white, but for some reason when we meet him in X-Men ’97 he’s going to be sporting his original blue and pink Archangel look which is what this figure is based on. Will a reason be given in the show for the switch back? I don’t know. It could be whoever was in charge of the character designs just likes this look better, but I guess we’ll have to watch to find out.

Archangel is a pretty standard height for a superhero.

Archangel is considered a deluxe offering so he comes at an inflated sticker price and in a box as opposed to a blister card. The base figure is the same as the previously released Angel of a couple of years ago which is essentially just a modified version of the Vulcan sculpt. The only difference from that mold is that the torso had to be redone to exclude the butterfly joint in the shoulders in order to fit the ports for the wings. The body even still has the grooves in the forearms intended for characters with long gloves because it’s apparently too much to ask for Hasbro to just sculpt some smooth forearms. The costume is very similar to its appearance in the original series which is also quite similar to the look from the comics. It’s still blue with a pink design painted onto it and the application is pretty clean. The opacity of the pink varies as it transfers to different types of plastic which make up the body. It looks pretty damn good on the torso where the paint has a nice matte appearance. It gets a little thin on the thighs, but it’s not as noticeable as it was with the Gamerverse Venom and its white logo. The only difference between this version of the costume and the one from the 90s series that I can see is that the hands are the same color as the rest of the costume. In the older show, the sleeves ended at the wrist and Archangel’s hands were bare and matched the shade of blue of his face. He also tended to have dark, black, lines under his eyes which are not present here, but that’s probably for the best. They also decided to give him clawed hands which is an interesting choice. I would have preferred that they didn’t, but this (and the color of his hands) all appears to be part of the character design in X-Men ’97 so these aren’t critiques of the figure, but of the design.

The two wing setups available.

Archangel’s distinguishing feature is the pair of big, steel, wings on his back. For the show, Archangel’s wings are fairly simple and are represented by two somewhat triangular pieces of metal. In the comics, he could have all kinds of panels and metallic feathers and there are definitely some designs that are quite busy. This is a simplified look and it’s one I prefer. The wings clip into the figure’s back, but there’s also a joiner piece in the center they port into. The center piece basically just exists to match the look of the show, but it does provide some stability as well. There’s a hinge close to the center for flapping, but otherwise this central piece basically holds the wings in place. If you want to shift them up and down you’ll have to remove that piece, though it leaves behind something ugly. The wings are basically a light gray plastic and there’s no metallic paint applied. It would have been nice to see them fully painted to better reflect their look on television, but that’s not really how Hasbro does things. They do look fine, though I’m torn on how much I like the curve sculpted into them. Maybe something a little less severe would have looked better? If you don’t like them, Hasbro did include Archangel’s retracted wings. Resembling a tuning fork, this just plugs into the back like the standard wings and will take up far less shelf space. It’s a nice option to have, though I don’t know if I’ll be able to resist posing him with his wings out in a flying pose.

He comes with an alternate version of Cables’s gun for some reason.

The other accessories are a bit minimal. Archangel has two portraits: neutral and a teeth gritting one. Both are cowled and it’s a shame we didn’t get an un-cowled look. If Ka-Zar wasn’t so expensive I’d consider buying one and painting the face blue as I always preferred Archangel with his blonde locks showing. By default, Archangel has a trigger finger right hand and a left fist. He also comes with a set of open, clawing, hands which are okay, but I already mentioned how I’m not a fan of his new talons. I’m also irritated we don’t get a right fist, despite one appearing on the back of the box. What would that have added to the budget? A penny’s worth of plastic? If that? The trigger finger hand is unusual, but they did decide to include a gun. Cable’s gun, to be exact as it’s the same one that came with the X-Men ’97 figure. It’s the bigger of the two guns and it has a new deco. The colors are more matte where as the original used a shiny plastic Hasbro loves for metallic objects. This new deco makes it a bit more animated looking, but it’s an odd accessory to include with Archangel. I assume he wields the gun at some point in season two, but getting it over a third head option, extra fist, or some feather blade accessories kind of sucks. A flight stand would have also been nice and, honestly, should be standard issue for a deluxe figure that has big wings on its back.

It’s like they gave him two fists on the back of the box just to call attention to the fact that we’re missing one.

Archangel’s articulation is pretty standard for the line. If you have a figure on this Vulcan body (like Cyclops), then you know what to expect for the most part: hinged neck, ball-hinged shoulders, ab crunch, waist twist, bicep swivel, double-jointed elbows, wrist hinge and swivel, ball-socket hips, thigh swivel, double-jointed knees, shin swivel, ankle rocker and hinge. As stated earlier, the only change is the removal of the butterfly joint which does kind of suck for a flying character. Range otherwise is fine at all of the joints though the various swivels break-up the sculpt of the pink linework and musculature in a rather ugly fashion so they have limited utility. If you want Warren to wield the gun, the trigger hand does have a vertical hinge though the open, clawed, left hand is only so-so as as a stabilizing hand for the barrel. The wings have a hinge where they plug into the back and towards the middle so they can “flap,” and they can also wrap around to the front of the figure. As I mentioned earlier, you can take out the central mount to get swivel articulation, if that’s your preference. The joints are the usual tolerance for a Legends release with the exception of the left elbow. Mine is a touch on the loose side, but not so much that it can’t hold a pose or support the weight of the gun. I’ve never seen a loose elbow joint on a Legends release since they moved to the pin-less design so I’m thinking it’s a one-off with mine and likely not something afflicting all copies.

He should mix in fine with other characters from the animated universe.

This X-Men ’97 Archangel is not an unwelcomed addition to the collection. As a reoccurring guest character in the original series, it always made sense to do a figure of Warren. While I don’t think any of the subtle changes to his look are an improvement, it’s not far enough removed from the 90s look for me to care all that much. What I do care about are the lackluster accessories and Hasbro getting cheap on us with the hand assortment while simultaneously upping the price. They’ve been doing that more and more with releases and it’s getting pretty annoying. Most Legends figures pull from the same pool of already sculpted hands so we’re just talking about the cost of plastic in most cases which is pretty damn negligible with something as small as a hand. And at the asking price of $40 it’s not as if this is a basic release. We’re paying an extra charge just because this guy has wings which is honestly kind of ridiculous. Back in the old days, Archangel was the same price as anyone else, but Hasbro likes to take any excuse it can to raise the price which is why they recently solicited a Doc Samson figure for $35 even though he’s really not deluxe sized and only comes with one extra head and one extra set of hands. I shudder to think what the X-Men ’97 Beast is going to cost since he actually has a backpack accessory – they’re practically breaking the bank! As a result, I’m far more excited for the return of X-Men ’97 than I am for this figure of Archangel. It’s not an underwhelming release, nor does it overwhelm the synapses. It merely whelms. He’ll slot into my animated X-Men collection, though I’ll always wish he had an unmasked head or another fist.

For more X-Men ’97 and ’97 adjacent releases from Hasbro, check these out:

Marvel Legends X-Men ’97 Cable

Today we finish our look at wave 3 of X-Men ’97 Marvel Legends action figures and I think I saved the best for last. Cable was one of the non-members of the X-Men to play a pretty substantial role in the original animated series. He showed up in multiple episodes in both the first and…

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by Joe

Marvel Legends X-Men ’97 Rogue

Previously, on X-Men reviews we looked at Magneto from the upcoming series X-Men ’97. The animated series may have been delayed into 2024, but the action figures from Hasbro are already here. And if you were collecting Hasbro’s line of figures based on the animated series from the 90s, this new line offers a chance…

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by Joe

Marvel Legends X-Men Retro Card Series Apocalypse

It is Halloween and that means it’s time for costumes, candy, and spooky fun. It’s also Halloween 2022, a pretty important date if you grew up loving those mutants who ran around in colorful spandex fighting for a better tomorrow. That’s because 30 years ago on this very night, the animated series X-Men premiered on…

Keep reading
by Joe

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

June 29, 2026

The Return of X-Men ’97

By Joe
I’m guessing you already heard the news, but in case you haven’t: the X-Men are back.

The return of the ’92 era X-Men featured in the classic animated series could not have gone any better. I was extremely excited for that show’s continuation via X-Men ’97, but at the same time a bit fearful. Could it really live up to my own expectations even as I tried to tamp them down? It turns out that it absolutely could and I truly feel we were gifted something unique. Not many shows are allowed to grow up with its audience. Even long-running shows like The Simpsons or Sponge-Bob Squarepants mostly stay the same and rely on picking up new fans as older ones fall off. X-Men ’97 really did take a show crafted for 7-12 year olds in 1992 and age it up for that same audience 30 years later. And the fact that it worked was pretty remarkable. That first season ended two years ago so it’s been a bit of a wait for the show’s second season. For that first season, I reviewed every episode and intended on doing a season one wrap-up or overall review, but I never got around to it. As a warm up for this second season, now seems like the appropriate time to share my final thoughts on that first season while also getting hyped for what’s to come.

I watched quite a bit of the first season of X-Men ’97. When a new episode would premiere, I’d get up and watch it while riding my exercise bike which really helped get my heart rate going. My son also took an interest in the show so we’d usually watch it together after school and then I’d watch it again the next day to prepare for my review which I’d post on Friday. Recently, with the release of the new trailer for season two I went back and watched the whole season again in one sitting. It was a rainy Sunday so a perfect time to refamiliarize myself with the show again. Before that rewatch, my opinion of the first season was that it was quite good, but also felt rushed at times. Upon rewatching it, I felt it didn’t go by as fast as I remembered. Some stuff certainly did like the entirety of the “Inferno” plot being condensed into one episode. I still don’t like how that one ends with Cyclops declaring he won’t abandon his son and then immediately flipping or how the clone Jean Grey just pulls the name Madelyne Pryor out of thin air. The “Lifedeath” arc was the other one I felt got rushed, but upon reflection I no longer think so. It was probably my least favorite plot in the season so the idea of spending more time with Storm and Forge isn’t really a recipe for making the season better. Once the show hit the fifth episode, “Remember It,” it moves at a nice clip. The events of that episode are felt throughout the rest of the season and dedicating three episodes to the finale was also a smart move. The final episode of the season is more of an aftermath episode with a lot of character work. Cyclops and Jean seem to resolve their differences and have that nice moment with Cable while Xavier and Magneto reconcile with the damage they’ve inflicted upon each other over a lifetime despite their love for each other.

Effect shots like Nightcrawler taking Wolverine and this jerk on a ride through his teleportation simply were not possible in the original series.

The production values of the first season were also wonderful and the biggest upgrade over the original series. Much of the voice cast returned and while many sound a bit older, their acting chops have only been further honed over the decades. The redone X-Men theme is grander and worthy of cinema and I am delighted that Marvel seems to have settled on it as the theme for the X-Men from here to eternity. The animation though is the clear upgrade. Going from the original series to this one reminds me of the first time I saw the Star Wars prequels. No, not in terms of the quality as a whole, but just in what we were allowed to see the characters do. The technology is now available to match the imagination of the writers and storyboard artists. The old show would never have been able to pull off the action that this show possesses. The action sequences from that show are what have arguably aged the worst. And you don’t have to watch X-Men ’97 for very long to see this on display as in the very first episode we get that incredible sequence where Storm enters the battlefield and uses her powers to blast the desert sand with lightning turning it into a sheet of glass. She then unleashes a tornado on the same which shatters and grabs the shards of glass to create a violent, Sentinel-destroying, freak of nature. Such a thing would not have been possible in 1992 either due to the talent of the animators or the budget supplied by Saban.

The prospect of topping that first season is what really drives my excitement for the second season set to premiere on July 1st. Last year, attendees at New York Comic Con were treated to a new trailer to hype that season which was sadly never made public. While there were leaks, us regular folk had to wait until fairly recently for a proper trailer. A follow-up has already been released and the hype train is now traveling at full speed. When that first season ended, the X-Men were scattered across time. Some appeared to be stranded in the present like Wolverine and Morph, while a small group was sent to ancient Egypt where they meet En Sabah Nur, better known in the present time as Apocalypse. Cyclops and Jean were also shot forward in time where they meet Mother Askani and their son, Nathan, who is now a boy of about 10 by the looks of things. And if that wasn’t thrilling enough, the final stinger for that first season featured Apocalypse combing through the ruins of Genosha and uncovering a playing card while musing on the subject of death, an obvious foreshadowing for what is likely in store for the fallen Gambit.

The sister of Colossus, Magik, is an unexpected casualty of the Genosha massacre.

I’m not going to go through all of what is in the trailers for season two, but I wanted to touch on some things featured prominently. One, it sure looks like we have more Genosha fallout to deal with. One of the scenes featured in the trailer is Colossus, wearing for the first time his yellow and red costume, cradling the body of his sister Illyana, also known as the mutant Magik. We later see a scene where Colossus, now in his Acolytes outfit, is leading Rogue and Nightcrawler to a shrine where his sister’s picture is front and center among others lost in the attack on Genosha (and now that I look at it more closely, is that a picture of Iceman to the left of the Never Forget sign?). This is an interesting development as in one of the final scenes of the first season we see Forge and Bishop conversing in front of a wall of portraits of mutants as Forge is attempting to account for them. Magik is featured and is noted as being alive, but clearly something has changed since then if she actually fell in Genosha. It was a huge catastrophe and it’s reasonable to assume more bodies were still being recovered, though at that point they probably would have had a firmer idea on who was alive and who was presumed dead. Much of the second season had already been written by the time the first aired, but just before the show premiered the showrunner Beau DeMayo was fired by Disney. It stands to reason that a new showrunner would likely have ideas of their own and things may have changed.

Is this a bad sign for Bobby?

The Magik reveal further interests me because it calls into question other names on that bulletin board. My beloved Iceman is seen on it and seemingly fine, but there was also a blink and you’ll miss it moment in the fifth episode where an ice cream man on Genosha uses his mutant powers to make a treat for Leach. He certainly looks a bit like the Bobby character model from the original series so was he on Genosha too? With this show being far more willing to tackle social issues it would surprise me if the most prominent gay X-Man was unceremoniously killed off like that, but you never know. In the trailer, we see Bobby’s ex-girlfriend Lorna return to what appears to be the mansion and a photo of her and Iceman together is shown. Is she reflecting on the loss of him as well as the X-Men?

That you, Bobby Drake?

Lorna’s presence also coincides with the return of X-Factor and the apparent formation of Cable’s X-Force. Both teams are featured prominently in both trailers and it does make one wonder if the cast is perhaps getting too big? That’s a whole lot of people to follow, not to mention we see scenes of Wolverine and Morph paling around with the likes of Sabretooth and Deathstryke plus some young mutants including Kid Omega. In the old show, it wasn’t unheard of for groups of mutants to drop in and out so this could end up being nothing. We had episodes with Alpha Flight, X-Factor, The Morlocks, or episodes like “Slave Island” which were full of cameos. Not everyone is going to get the spotlight shined on them and that’s probably for the best with a cast as big as this one. I do think some characters will be featured more though and Polaris definitely seems to be one. The show also has yet to reveal that Cyclops and Havok are related and we saw their other brother, Vulcan, among the Shi’Ar in season one so that could come into play at some point.

During some part of the season it would appear that Wolverine will dawn a costume evocative of his feral appearance from the comics, but perhaps without the feral personality?

What does intrigue me perhaps the most is Wolverine’s arc this season. He is shown prominently in the trailer since he was given the line, “We’re back,” and he delivers it while striking a pose identical to the cover of his first mini series by Frank Miller. As he does, his claws pop out and they have been re-bonded with adamantium. What further intrigues me are the sequences we see where he’s in his skull cap look with bone claws. This harkens back to the “feral” Wolverine era in the comics. Some time after losing his adamantium skeleton during the “Fatal Attractions” arc, Wolverine is lured into a trap by Genesis, the son of Cable corrupted by Apocalypse. He tries to replicate the adamantium bonding process with Wolverine to turn him into a weapon for himself, but Wolverine’s body rejects it leading to this feral transformation. Perhaps that happens right after his skeleton is returned? It looks like he’s in his brown and tan costume in the trailer when he flashes those claws, but the feral look is yellow and blue so I think it’s something from later in the season. There’s also a group shot of Wolverine with his adamantium skeleton and brown costume that could take place anywhere in the second season timeline. We’ll just have to wait and see.

This feels like an homage to X-Men vs Street Fighter and I am here for it!

And then there’s Apocalypse. He’s obviously the big baddie this season and it looks like the X-Men will be confronting him across timelines. I can see this being the season long arc. Maybe not every episode will deal with that conflict (we know that Danger is featured), but I would be surprised if there isn’t some big showdown in the final episode with Apocalypse and perhaps a new set of horsemen. Nothing is teased about Gambit possibly returning as Death (unless you consider Rogue being handed a playing card foreshadowing) and that makes sense. They should refrain from such to preserve the surprise as much as possible so I think there is much that is still to come. I have seen some speculate that the events of this season could give rise to an Age of Apocalypse third season. That would be interesting since the original series already did something similar with the “One Man’s Worth” episodes, but that arc also didn’t involve Apocalypse so it wouldn’t be as redundant as it seems at face value. Those episodes were the genesis for the hypothetical “What if Charles Xavier were assassinated before starting the X-Men?” question that gave rise to the Age of Apocalypse in the comics which is why many of the character designs from that arc were featured in the episodes. And since we’re following the show’s version of “Fatal Attractions,” the prospect of Onslaught still looms. Hasbro even re-released Onslaught (or is set to) in its Marvel Legends line and they usually don’t do stuff like that with very specific characters unless there’s an outside reason for such. Perhaps that will be our season three which is right now scheduled to arrive in 2027 so we won’t have to endure an extra long wait to find out.

I am completely and utterly hyped about this second season and I can’t wait to sink my teeth into it. Unfortunately, the premiere arrives while I’m on vacation so I’m not sure when I’ll be able to share my thoughts on it. I do plan to take time out of my vacation to watch it, but if I had been home I probably would have spent the Tuesday before binging the first season once again. Whenever I do get to it I am sure it will be a fun time and I plan on reviewing every episode right here on The Nostalgia Spot.

To help you get hyped for the return of X-Men ’97, here are the reviews of my favorite season one episodes:

X-Men ’97 – “Mutant Liberation Begins”

The first episode of X-Men ’97 left me grinning from ear to ear and eager to see what would happen next. I’m happy to say, the show’s second episode left me feeling very much the same. “Mutant Liberation Begins” starts off right where the previous episode ended. Magneto, has revealed that it was the wishes…

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by Joe

X-Men ’97 – “Remember It”

Last week’s episode of X-Men ’97 saw the show take a breather with a fairly low stakes plot involving Jubilee and Roberto getting sucked into a video game. The last 7 or 8 minutes of the episode concluded with a more serious tone as Storm and Forge found themselves at odds in the wildlands of…

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by Joe

X-Men ’97 – “Tolerance is Extinction – Part 2”

Magneto was right. That was the realization many characters seemed to share at the end of last week’s episode of X-Men ’97. As we roll into the penultimate episode of the show’s first season, a lot is on the line and the show is drawing inspiration from several different sources related to the X-Men over…

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by Joe

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June 17, 2026

Mondo X-Men ’97 1/6 Scale Beast – Limited Edition

By Joe
I don’t normally do this, but for once I figured why not try to emulate the box art with the pose?

Back in the old Toy Biz line, it felt like we had to wait a long while for an action figure of Beast, or The Beast as the opening title of X-Men: The Animated Series referred to him as. Perhaps that was due to the character spending the bulk of the first season out of sight and out of mind thanks to being incarcerated. And I say it was a long wait, but what is a long wait to a child? It may have been about two years, but Beast eventually arrived with flipping action and an accessory that let him hang off of a smooth surface via a suction cup. I believe I got my figure for Christmas in 1994 and it felt like a big deal as he arrived alongside Morph and nearly filled out the roster from the cartoon. All that was missing was a proper Jean (we’d have to settle for her as Phoenix) and Jubilee (who eventually received a figure in the Generation X subline) while Rogue would arrive shortly after, if memory serves (action figure producers in the 90s were quite reluctant to make women). When Hasbro returned to X-Men for its Marvel Legends line based on the show, they made sure to get to Jubilee and Jean pretty early, but never did release a Beast. For the X-Men ’97 line, once again Jean and Jubilee made it out along with Rogue, but Beast got the shaft yet again. Finally, Hasbro unveiled a ’97 version of Beast on June 8th which is set to go up for preorder in August and will presumably release at some point in 2026. And that very same week I got a shipping notification from Mondo for its take on Beast who will get us ever closer to completing the main roster from the original series.

If you stand him up as tall as he’ll go then he’ll look down on the likes of Wolverine, but I think this is about right for his posture.

Beast has the distinction of arriving before Storm despite going up for preorder after her. And in this case it was well after as Storm went up around Halloween while Beast went up in February, but for some reason the blue guy beat her out of the factory. Maybe it’s the soft goods needed for Storm’s cape? I’m not sure, but I’d be lying if I said I was disappointed for while I do look forward to getting Storm, Beast was a pretty sizable want for me (literally). He’s just a fun design and we really have never received a proper animated Beast. Even that old Toy Biz figure featured more of a comic look as Beast had his whited-out eyes while the animated version had normal, blue, human eyes. Most of the Legends versions have followed a similar pattern with perhaps the only deviation being the very first Marvel Legends Beast which, apart from the eyes, didn’t bare much resemblance to the cartoon version (not that it was aiming for that). This Beast unquestionably is and like most Mondo releases in this line it arrives first as a limited edition with a bunch of extra goodies thrown in the box. It is yet another wonderful sculpt by Alex Brewer with paint by Mara Ancheta and packaging artwork Dan Veesenmeyer. The packaging does follow the same design as Mr. Sinister with no flap on the front and a write-up by Eric and Julia Lewald on the back detailing their affection for Hank. It would seem this is the standard going forward which is honestly fine as the front flap on the old boxes revealed little since these figures ship wrapped in plastic to protect the paint.

“Eureka!”
“Let me tell you about this wonderful resource.”

Beast is a big hunk of plastic coming in it at about 11.75″ per Mondo. Since he is a character often depicted standing with a bit of a hunch, exactly how much vertical space he’ll occupy on your shelf is certainly variable. He does pack some heft though as he’s solid. He doesn’t look out of place among the other figures and I do like that Mondo appears to have a mostly no compromises approach to size and scale with these releases. He’s also very much a ’92 design. While there isn’t much separating Beast from the original series and its sequel series, there are some subtle differences most notably in the shape of the face and the linework of the body. This Beast has the wide face of the original series with tufted bits of fur along the jaw line. His stark, black, eyebrows also sit more in-line with the eye as opposed to stretching well beyond them and his hair is a bit more unrestrained. It’s also reflected in the paint job as the original series was more likely to paint the inner lines of Beast’s musculature in a rougher manner. Instead of one, curved, line it was more like several shorter lines arranged in a curve shape to create a subtle illusion of fur. The ’97 art mostly goes with an all blue body with the fur only appearing as a means of breaking the silhouette in key places, something the original series also did. For this figure, Mondo did not sculpt any fur inside the body, but painted it withing the muscles such as in the base of the pectorals and basically along all muscle groupings. It means Beast has a slightly furrier appearance in plastic than he does on celluloid, but given the scale I think it’s a necessary touch to give him a bit more depth and the paint job is subtle enough that it doesn’t detract from the source material. Instead, it feels like this is how Beast is represented in the show on episode’s with the biggest budget or in close-ups as opposed to when he’s just lost in the background.

Beast is known for being well-read.
He’s not really known for being well-dressed. This is as formal as he gets.

Apart from the paint job, this is just a really great looking take on the character. Initially, I thought the shoulders looked a little bulbous in the promotional shots, but in-hand I don’t see the same. Beast always had quite large shoulders on the show and sculpt reflects that rather accurately. My favorite X-Men character designs are the ones that bely the personality of the individual underneath. A great example is Nightcrawler, the character who looks like a demon but is actually a devout Christian. In the case of Beast, it’s a monstrous individual who is actually a scholar and medical doctor. What makes me prefer the animated design over all others rests with his face. Beast has this very gentle, human-like, visage as opposed to the more primal one he is often given by comic book artists. And for this one, Brewer really nailed the different expressions contained in this set. We get a neutral face by default that has a faint hint of a smile which feels like the perfect default Beast. There’s also an angry one, and a yelling one if you want more of a battle setup. We also get this humorous toothy grin which is the only face that might be from X-Men ’97 though it still reads as a ’92 look to me. Lastly, there’s sad Beast and this is likely pulled from his spotlight episode, “Beauty and the Beast,” though he does have moments of sadness in other episodes that it could work for. I really like that Beast is the chosen character to wear his emotions on his sleeve as he’s basically the first to cry in X-Men ’97 when things get heavy.

It’s not easy being a beast.
A Howard the Duck shirt will be a smile on even the saddest face.

Those are just the expressions available, for hands we get a solid spread that includes sets of fists and gripping hands. There’s also another set of gripping hands that are asymmetrical, a very wide or style posed right hand, a pointing right hand, and an open left hand. He also has two books, one that is open and one that is closed. The closed book contains a shoutout to showrunner Erik Lewald and writer Julia Lewald as it’s titled Lewald’s Book of Words. The open book is The Genus of Genius, a bit smug for someone like Beast. For seeing that small print, Beast has his glasses which slot over his ears well enough without the need for any ugly cut-outs. They’re just black, plastic, frames without a lens and I think it serves the prupose here. He also has his tactical backpack which has a few different accessories all pulled from the original series. There’s a set of goggles that come up and over the head as well as a little blaster that pops out. These just plug into the backpack if you wish to use them or you could have the backpack appear closed. The goggles don’t slot into anything on the face, so you basically have to position his head and the pack itself to get it to sit right. Even so, you’ll probably have a hard time getting him to look in any direction other than straight ahead with these on. Beast also has a little handheld device that served as a communicator in “The Phalanx Covenant – Part One” in conjunction with a radio inside the pack, but that would have been a little too ambitious to include the whole thing. If you don’t want him out in the field though, there’s also an included lab coat accessory which he actually comes packaged wearing. This necessitates the swapping of arms as it’s setup just like the coats that came with Logan and Cyclops. It looks nice when in place and there’s even a little pocket with optional tongue depressor on the left breast, something that showed up in both shows. Because the coat adds a little more bulk to the shoulder area, I’d say it actually casts the slightly better silhouette as a result which was also true of the Cyclops figure. Lastly, Beast also comes with his Howard the Duck shirt as seen during The Phoenix Saga episodes. Unfortunately, it’s just a lump of painted plastic meant to represent the shirt folded up and it’s not something he can actually wear. An actual soft goods one he could wear would have been the icing on the cake. Beast also has the typical Mondo display stand. Unfortunately, they didn’t deem him worthy of the flight stand which is what I’d prefer to see become the standard for the line as these doll stands are pretty poor. If you think it’s a matter of heft my counter to that would be the recently solicited Goliath from Gargoyles comes with a flight stand so if it can support him then it could likely support Beast.

Beast is ready to head out into the field.

Beast has a pretty standard array of articulation for Mondo, but to my surprise, it’s among the most well-executed. For joints, we get a double ball head, hinged shoulder pegs, bicep, single elbow, ball-jointed wrist, diaphragm, ball-jointed waist, ball socket hips with swivel, double-jointed knees, ankle hinge and rocker, and a toe hinge. The head is perhaps the most limited as his sloped posture and large head means his range is a bit subtle and it’s easy to pop the head off by mistake when posing him. The shoulders have terrific range for what they are and the elbow hinge is pretty deep so Beast has no issues bending his arm 90 degrees, be it sleeved or not. The diaphragm joint actually works and he can arch back and crunch forward a bit and the waist enhances both directions. Both spots swivel and provide for a little rock. Nothing outrageous, but better than other figures in the line. All of the joints are also firm, but smooth, out of the box so I’ve had more fun messing around with Beast than a lot of figures from Mondo. The heads and hands are pliable enough to easily swap and all of the pegs are nice and thick so there’s no durability concerns here. Still, without a neck or butterfly joint, Beast will be confined to mostly simple poses. He can’t quite get down into a three-point stance nor can he look up well enough to emulate his pose on the cover of X-Men #1. He can crouch down and I was able to do so without the aid of a stand. I probably wouldn’t trust him on a shelf without one in such a pose (and I did have him take a dive already), but it is doable.

“Open your mouth and say, ‘Ahh,'”
Like Nightcrawler, Beast can get into a crouch.

As a result, Beast is probably the most fun character to handle since Nightcrawler, with Nightcrawler being the only one that’s obviously superior to him in the articulation department. He fits in really well among his teammates and I do love the big splash of blue it adds to the shelf. Or rather I will when I find a way to fit him in. The Mondo shelf is getting extremely crowded and it only gets worse when figures are released. I’ll have to find a home for Storm as well at some point this summer and eventually there’s Jean. That’s all that’s been shown so far and with the release of Jean that essentially completes the default team from the ’92 show with the exception of Professor X. And honestly, I don’t know if I want a Professor X for this line given the likely size and cost of such a thing since he has to come with the hoverchair. I do absolutely feel that we need a Morph since he was in the first episode and is a full-time member in X-Men ’97. After that, there’s Bishop, Cable, and Archangel which would all be nice to have, but aren’t necessities for me. If Mondo thinks it can do Apocalypse justice without a massive price hike, then I’d certainly be interested in him as well. He is really the only villain I feel like I need. Juggernaut would be cool as well, but he really didn’t show up much in the original series and has yet to make an appearance in X-Men ’97.

That’s a lot of plastic.

All that is to say there’s a light at the end of the tunnel for this line, but also not. I just listed out probably a couple grand in “maybe” figures not to mention shelf real estate so I guess we may not be as close as I would like to think. With San Diego Comic Con on the horizon, I am sure we’ll see a new figure or two in this line, though it would not shock me if Mondo prioritizes Spider-Man a bit more since that line has only put out three characters so far. Then again, X-Men ’97 returns to Disney+ in just two weeks so they’ll want to strike while the iron is hot with some new reveals. For now, Beast is a clear enhancement to the collection and one of Mondo’s best. I feel like I say that a lot with new releases in the line, but Beast really does vault up to the top or near top of my personal rankings for the line. He’s definitely one to get whether you’re cherry-picking the line or looking to assemble a full squad. And best of all, this limited edition version is still available on Mondo’s website. He is not cheap coming in at $255 and Mondo charges a lot for shipping these days. He is also still listed as coming with a tariff surcharge even though they’ve been reduced dramatically. That’s probably to not enrage the customers who preordered and paid that upfront. With the limited edition of 1,500 units not selling out, it’s possible that a standard version is not inbound either and there’s no indication on the listing what is part of the limited version and what would not be in a hypothetical standard edition. I’m not sure if any of these figures are truly worth what they cost, but if any are then Beast is among them as he’s very well executed. I am certainly happy to have him in my collection.

For more Mondo X-Men figures, check out the below:

Mondo X-Men ’97 1/6 Scale Nightcrawler

Yes, I’m afraid this is another toy review that needs to begin with a word about tariffs. It was the talk of 2025 in the toy collecting community because it caused considerable delays, disruptions, and worst of all, increased prices across the board. One line impacted by the introduction of these new costs more than…

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by Joe

Mondo 1/6 X-Men ’97 Wolverine – Limited Edition

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…

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by Joe

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Comics, Television, toys

May 4, 2026

Medicom MAFEX 287 Gambit (Comic Variant Ver.)

By Joe
Everyone can relax…

When I think of 90s comic book characters, there are quite a few who come to mind, but first and foremost is Gambit. I attribute that largely to the X-Men animated series as that was my first real introduction to the character. Prior to that show’s premiere, I had seen images of the character and had a vague understanding of what made him a superhero, but he wasn’t someone I paid much attention to. Created by writer Chris Claremont and artist Jim Lee, he is quite a bit different from the classic superhero when it comes to his appearance. He’s been around so long and is so popular now that it’s easy to lose sight of how a guy in a trench coat and hot pink shirt might not read as a superhero right away. His role as a bit of a scoundrel and unique power set have certainly helped make Gambit a memorable member of the X-Men, but I do think that very popular cartoon in ’92 really helped cement the character as one of the most popular X-Men of all time.

This figure is a costly, but obvious, upgrade over the Legends figure. It does make me want to talk myself into the MAFEX Rogue though.

If you have followed any of my previous X-Men figure reviews, then you know that a big part of my goal as an action figure collector is to assemble that animated team on my shelf. The only issue with that goal is the only game in town when it comes to something in a 1:12 scale the only game in town in a lot of respects has been Hasbro. They did their own take on some of the animated team and have since moved on to X-Men ’97 based figures, but a lot of them have been not great. In particular, the dedicated ’92 series of figures was pretty bad. The line was only 8 figures and yet I’ve already replaced 3 of them in some form or another. And all of them have been replaced with other Marvel Legends offerings or a kit-bash approach, but this new Gambit figure marks my first time attempting to replace one with another company’s offering.

For some, this might be the ideal Capcom Gambit.

Gambit was released in the first wave of X-Men ’97 figures by Hasbro. It was basically just a straight re-release of a prior Gambit, but with an updated portrait that’s more evocative of the new show’s style. It’s an okay release. The articulation is dated and the card-throwing accessory is worthless, but visually it’s passable. Certainly not good enough to not be at risk of replacement. Enter Medicom and their new MAFEX-branded release of Gambit. This is an update on an older figure that has proven to be one of the more popular releases in the line. Just perusing the toy community online it sure seems like Gambit, Magneto, and the brown-costumed Wolverine are often cited as being among Medicom’s best efforts. And one look at Gambit and it’s easy to see why. The proportions and sculpt look nice, the soft goods coat turned out well, and there’s a bunch of stuff included in the box – so why did I never pick it up? Well, it’s expensive. MAFEX figures for those sitting outside Asia will routinely cost around $100 when all is said and done. That figure looked good, but it wasn’t $100 good for me. Medicom went with a metallic paint job, something they seem quite fond of with their X-Men figures, which just isn’t my thing. I want my figures to resemble their source material as close as possible and nothing about a metallic paint job on Gambit really screams that for me. Then last summer, Medicom unveiled a new variant Gambit which they referred to as their comic variant. Basically, it’s a more straight-forward paint job with a different color applied to the coat and effect parts and suddenly I was in. Well, almost. I still waited for the figure to actually release before I finally gave in (and a nice bonus at work helped give me a nudge) and once I was satisfied with how it turned out I laid my money down.

If so, he’s not going to make the SHF Cyclops look tall.

Gambit comes in the standard Medicom MAFEX box which is designed to mimic a comic book with a snippet of art from the books and a bunch of product shots. I will say, it immediately made me chuckle that the comic book art doesn’t match the look of this supposed comic book variant of the figure (and we’ll get more into that shortly), but that’s not something that truly bothers me. Out of the box, Gambit stands a little over 6″ with his poofy hair taking him up to around the 6.5″ mark making him true 1:12 scale. He possesses the typical, MAFEX, proportioning as his legs are fairly long and the build is more on the slender side than the bulked-up type. It works for Gambit and the coat helps to add more of a presence to the figure’s form. The pink of the shirt is a nice, bright, shade with some light purple shading added which helps create texture. The blue…whatever this thing is…around the base of his neck is sculpted as I remember it from the comics and is shaded with dark blue which really helps to make it pop. The paints and the cowl are a nice, matte, black and the pink rectangles on the thighs are present and painted well. The blue of the belt and boots matches to each other and there’s some nice black linework in both areas. The face is really well done and the hair has some black or very dark brown wash applied. There’s also a hint of stubble on his chin and the trademark red eyes glow brightly. Most of the paint is clean. There is a white spot on the right thigh of my figure and some of the black lines on the boots could have been applied in a neater fashion. The hands, which feature Gambit’s traditional fingerless portions, could have been painted cleaner as well. If it sounds like I’m nitpicking know that I am, but we’re also talking about a $100 action figure and standards should be exceptionally high.

The sculpt is pretty freakin’ nice.

The presentation of the sculpt and paint works very well for me. This is a sharp figure. What’s been a bit more divisive is the coat. In pictures, the coat has a real touch of red to the brown. It’s a far more saturated shade compared with the original release which is much closer to the comic image on the box in terms of color. In hand, it’s still noticeably red, but not to the same degree. It’s indeed a brown coat and I think it plays off of the hot pink shirt very well, but if you’re looking for pure comic book accuracy this shade probably isn’t it. Now, we are talking about a character who debuted in 1990 and in the ensuing decades he’s had a lot of looks and variations and if you scour the pages of Marvel Comics I don’t doubt that someone could turn up an image of Gambit where he looks like this, but is it what people think of first? Probably not. For me, I personally think the figure looks great. I get a lot of Toy Biz vibes out of the figure as far as the colors go stretching back to the first Gambit released in that line (with the karate kick action!). I’ve seen people online doing a coat swap with the first release and being quite happy with the result, but that’s a lot of money to shell out for the ideal Gambit.

He has two arc effects, one with more of a fire texture and another that’s smoother.

Another area where this color discrepancy rears its head is with the accessories. Gambit gets the usual vast assortment of hand options including fists, gripping, relaxed, open, open with an effect peg, and a set of card holding hands that are not mirrored. The right hand is the classic two-finger Gambit pose while the left is designed to hold two cards. The alternate head features a gritted teeth expression while utilizing the same sculpt for the hair. Gambit has his staff which is a light brown with some black linework painted onto it. The “controversial” part are the effects. Gambit has a solo card with a trailing effect on it, a two-card piece that’s more stationary and flaming, and then there are two flame effects for the ends of his staff. For all, Medicom went with a yellow and orange coloration like actual fire. On the previous figure, they went with the pink/magenta the character is more known for when he activates his powers in the comic. Like the coat, you can find images of Gambit’s powers taking on this color, but they’re definitely the minority (and originally his powers were green which is just weird to think about). His power effects were similar to this color in the original cartoon series, but in that show they also used an animation effect that gave it a different texture. In X-Men ’97, his powers were altered to resemble the comic. I think we got this set because Medicom just wanted to differentiate the figure further from the first release, but in doing so it does lessen the whole notion of this being the true comic variant. For me personally, while I would have preferred the pink, it doesn’t really move the needle at all. I think the effects look good, they’re just not in the color that first comes to mind for when I think of Gambit.

He also has his staff and even some flame effects for the ends.

And those aren’t even the only effects. Gambit also has two, large, throwing effects. Each one features three cards and an arc of flame behind them. They’re designed to peg onto the effect hands and the peg hole is at the end so we don’t end up with a Hasbro situation where the arc makes no sense. All of the cards, including the other two effects, are just yellow like they’re glowing and there’s no visible suit or number. One of the arc effects is thinner and sharper looking while the other has textured flames. It’s heavier as a result, not that the slimmer profiled one isn’t heavy, and to counter that Medicom included a stand for the effects. It’s just a clear, plastic, base and post with two options for a “Y” shaped top to help prop it up. Without it, the wrist joint won’t be able to support the weight and it will turn towards the ground. Certain poses, like a vertical toss, can work, but if you want a horizontal sweep type of throw you’ll need the post. Also included is the usual MAFEX stand that works just as well as it always does.

It can be tricky to pose, but these effects are pretty damn fun to mess around with, though they do add heft.

The articulation for Gambit is pretty typical for MAFEX which is to say it’s quite good. There’s a double-ball peg head, ball-jointed neck, butterfly shoulders, shoulder hinges, bicep swivel, double elbows, ball-hinge wrists, diaphragm, ball-jointed waist, drop-down hips, thigh swivel at the hips joint, double-jointed knees, ball-hinged ankles, toe hinge. Range at pretty much all spots is a plus. The torso gets nice arch back and crunch forward, the head can be posed with a great deal of freedom, and the hips allow for high kicks and the like. The ankles are the only area I’m not in love with. The ball hinge can be tough to get a good ankle rocker out of it. It works, it’s just a bit more fickle than I’d like. The coat is wired all along the hem including the collar so it can pose very well. It will bunch up on the arms and that’s just the nature of soft goods – you’re always sacrificing something when they cover limbs. The coat can come off, if you so desire, which will free up the range of the arms, but your Gambit will look far less cool. To probably get the most out of the arms, you will have to remove the coat to pose him, then try to carefully get it back as manipulating the bicep swivel and even the elbow joint can get really cumbersome with the coat on.

The big effects are flashy, but sometimes the simpler ones work just as well.

This Gambit from Medicom is expensive, but it is a terrific action figure. There’s not a whole lot to complain about. I think the paint could have been a little sharper in places and I really think we should have got a third portrait with a smirk on it. Two heads where one is stoic and the other angry just isn’t ideal for a character like Gambit. People are going to want to pose him with Rogue and he’s never not smiling when he’s around Rogue. This reissue would have been a great opportunity to add an extra head, but Medicom opted not to. Still, what is here is pretty substantial when it comes to hands and effects and the end result is something special. This is only my fourth MAFEX figure, but it quickly became my favorite. If all of their X-Men figures turned out this well I’d have a whole lot less money to my name, but one Hell of a collection. This is the rare $100 figure at this scale that I have no regrets whatsoever about picking up. If you dig it and want one of your own, the import sites will probably be a better deal than some of the US-based retailers which are charging upwards of $130 for this one. That’s pretty rich, but if you shop around you should be able to get him for less so long as he’s in stock. And I would guess this one will sell out eventually so don’t put it off for too long.

For more premium action figure offerings check these out:

S.H.Figuarts Marvel Gamerverse Cyclops

A funny thing happened in 2025 where two companies revealed they were going to be making action figures based on the hit video game series Marvel vs Capcom only for neither company to actually mention the words Marvel vs Capcom. It would seem that neither Hasbro nor Bandai wanted to compensate the Capcom portion of…

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S.H.Figuarts Across the Spider-Verse Scarlet Spider

In the two reviews I did of Scarlet Spider action figures I shared the origins of my love for the character’s design. To make it short, I found the appearance of him on a cover of a Spider-Man comic intriguing, but more is as a young artist I much preferred to doodle him in my…

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MAFEX No. 117 – Superman (Batman: Hush Ver.)

They finally wore me down. It was nearly five years ago that I reviewed the Medicom MAFEX Batman (Hush Ver.) action figure and concluded that it would probably be the only figure I’d get. Then along came Superman. As a kid, I liked Superman well enough. I think the first pair of superhero themed pajamas…

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April 22, 2026

Manipple Studio S.H.Figuarts Wolverine Arm Upgrade (Deadpool & Wolverine)

By Joe
Wolverine got himself some new arms.

When Marvel got rolling on the film Deadpool & Wolverine I think it did so with a veil of secrecy. This was going to be the first Marvel movie where Wolverine would be in a costume similar to what he’s worn in the comics for years. When X-Men first arrived back in 2000, the thought process back then with most superhero movies was that you couldn’t get a casual audience to take seriously a bunch of people running around in yellow spandex. Even Batman couldn’t be in gray and blue he had to go full black. As it would turn out, the whole notion of superhero squads in uniforms is a pretty far-fetched idea all by itself so who really cares how loud those threads get? The downside of this secrecy though meant that companies looking to produce merch for the movie may have had their hands tied. Or maybe they’re just cheap? When Wolverine did show up in plastic it was somewhat incomplete. The Hasbro figure came with a masked and unmasked portrait, but the truth of the matter is the masked portrait never really worked well because he never wore the mask with the sleeves in the movie. Other companies seemed reluctant to pay Hugh Jackman for his likeness which is how we got the S.H.Figuarts release that only had masked portraits plus the sleeved look. Where could someone go who wanted something more all-encompassing? Diamond Select appeared poised to release such a figure, but they went belly-up before that could happen. Enter the third parties!

I think Hasbro Logan is jealous.

Wolverine had a lot of looks in Deadpool & Wolverine with the vast majority of them being a fun sequence of cameos early in the film. For the most part though, he had three distinct looks: unmasked, unmasked without sleeves, and masked without sleeves. He also did end up completely shirtless with the mask in place, but for an action figure that’s a little more involved. For a company wanting to hit those three main looks though you basically need two heads in the box plus two sets of arms. Throw in some clawed and unclawed hands and you have yourself a pretty complete release. Unfortunately, that’s been hard to come by and while I love the unmasked portrait of the Legends release, the figure itself is pretty mediocre. It is being re-released this spring with bare arms, but that just solves one problem. The far better figure release was the S.H.Figuarts one, but as I noted already, it only had masked portraits and featured sleeves. In other words, this is a Wolverine we never saw on film. And if Bandai came back around with an updated one, how eager would I be to spend $80-$100 on an all new figure when it’s really the arms I take issue with?

They were able to match the gloves pretty well.

When it comes to third parties, I’m often reluctant to purchase. Many are essentially bootlegs of someone else’s work. They may be good quality, but it’s still essentially stolen property. Manipple Studios has come onto my radar a few times and with them it’s usually parts sold on their own that are intended to work with an official release. They’re filling a void the official companies don’t want to and as far as I know they’re sculpting their own parts. I could be wrong and the arms I purchased off of AliExpress could be cast from an official release, but if so I’m not aware of it. These things are available though and for around $20 shipped to the US. Sure, that seems like a lot for two plastic arms, but considering the actual figure retails for $85 maybe it’s not so bad? I also got my Wolverine figure on steep discount so there’s some surplus value here that I could spend on an extra set of arms and after getting them in over the weekend how do I feel about them?

Show off them guns, Wolverine!

Pretty damn good. The arms are just that – arms. The gloves are part of the sculpt and painted while the flesh is bare plastic. It has some warmth to it though and isn’t waxy or shiny and works with the figure considering it too is a lot of bare plastic. And they are straight replacements so swapping them is fairly easy. Bandai uses a shoulder ball peg which can be popped out without the need for heat – maybe. My figure’s right arm came out just fine while the left was more stubborn. It first came apart on me at the bicep, and then when I did try heat the black portion popped out. Once I did get the arm itself extracted it wasn’t particularly trying to get the new arm in place, it just took slightly more effort than the right arm. The hands pop onto the new wrist pegs effortlessly and they may even have slightly better range than the stock ball hinges. The elbows are double-jointed and there’s a bicep swivel so you’re not losing any functionality and the paint between the forearms and the gloves appears to be pretty spot-on. It gets this figure to where I want it to be and now I have a Wolverine that looks like he did onscreen, minus the grime and battle damage. If you prefer a more comic inspired look, Manipple also includes extra shoulder parts with a peg hole in them in case you want to use the shoulder pads from the stock figure. I don’t so I didn’t bother, but it’s a fun thought.

This just feels right.

And that’s all there really is to it. If you want, for about twenty bucks you can get the arms the figure probably should have come with to start and improve the look of your $85 Wolverine figure, or whatever you paid for it. It’s still available in some places and often for less than MSRP while the arms on AliExpress seem to fluctuate in price from about $18-$22. The quality on the new parts is good and the look hopefully speaks for itself. Obviously if you’re happy with the sleeved look of the figure then this isn’t for you, but if you wanted something more evocative of what was in the movie then this gets the job done and is cheaper than buying a whole new figure.

For my original review of this SHF Wolverine see below as well as some other Deadpool & Wolverine figure reviews:

S.H.Figuarts Deadpool & Wolverine Wolverine

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…

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S.H.Figuarts Deadpool & Wolverine Deadpool

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…

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Marvel Legends Deadpool & Wolverine Wolverine

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…

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