There were a whole lot of characters in Avengers: Infinity War to make toys of.
A whole lot. And once you consider that every Marvel Legends wave throws in a few comic-based figures as well to keep costs down, you don’t have a ton of slots for all the figures you need. So one Infinity War wave wasn’t enough. Even two aren’t, as there are still store-exclusive multipacks coming to help you collect Vision, Scarlet Witch, Bucky, Falcon, and Doctor Strange. But the second wave adds two other highly important characters from summer’s big Marvel Movie: Ant-Man, and the Wasp.
Packaged in character-specific poses, these two come fully equipped. Both feature helmeted and unhelmeted heads, while Wasp includes an extra set of slap/chop hands, and two backpacks: wings-in and wings-out.
One of the fun aspects to Ant-Man and Wasp figures is that, like the Micronauts of yore, the characters are supposed to be toy-sized, so you can easily place them in real-world adventures.
The only flaw is that Ant-Man’s eyeholes aren’t see-through like Wasp’s are. That probably saves the sculptors some time, but it makes the Wasp figure much nicer. It also does allow you to pose Scott Lang holding his helmet, whereas Hope would look creepy doing so since there’s clearly a head in hers.
Meanwhile, from Infinity War, we get the mighty Thor, who’s been seen in plastic a lot lately due to having had a recent movie of his own. This one sports the classic costume with short hair and his new Stormbreaker, but the digital face-printing gets some great detail–check out the scar across his eye, and the difference in pupils between his real and fake one.
Oddly, he does not have a cut-waist joint as most Marvel Legends do–just a mid-torso ball joint like Star Wars black series. Maybe this is a test to see if nobody minds for future releases?
Next is Black Widow. Now, normally a Marvel Legends wave will pack the major female figure in with some massive Build-A-Figure torso piece, which has the unintended consequence of making the figure look not worth the price unless you’re collecting the BAF, which is why my Toys R Us right before it closed was still full of Misty Knight and White Tiger figures that came with a Rhino torso.
Not so with Black Widow. Yes, she comes with the BAF torso, but she’s also loaded with gear, including two batons that can combine, two clips that she can holster, and alternate hands. Fewer figures in this wave, plus reused comic-based figures, have allowed for much nicer bonuses all around. Not to mention the best Scarlett Johansson likeness Hasbro has ever done.
Now, if you’re saying to yourself, “shame it’s for the worst Black Widow costume ever,” then I have good news for you. Pop the figure’s head off, ease that green vest over the ball-joint, and…
…classic Widow costume underneath! Even the movie didn’t show that.
The two comic-based characters in this line have previously appeared in Comic-Con exclusive boxed sets, so they saved some tooling costs there. Black Knight, who heavily reuses the body of the last Green Goblin figure, comes with three heads, one of which is close enough for horseshoes to the Monty Python Black Knight. He’d better watch out for flesh wounds.
Also in the wave is Thor’s foe Malekith, who looks like a cosplayer competing on a reality show and forced to come up with something using only the supplies on hand. Yes, this still makes him look 100% better than the Christopher Eccleston movie version.
Cull Obsidian is the build-a-figure, and he is the biggest one in quite some time. Even He-Man would look puny in comparison.
This brings the Children of Thanos to three (if you count Thanos himself); here’s hoping the remaining two come next year.
The battle is starting to shape up nicely. (Please give us a Marvel Legends Shuri, Hasbro; the budget one is decent but she’s clearly not face-printed.)
This is the best Legends wave since Black Panther, making up for a slightly disappointing first Infinity War wave (only one shield for Cap, no extra appendages for Spidey, totally unrelated comics characters) with five solid movie figures (counting the build-a-figure) and only two obligatory comics characters, who are reasonably fun. Ant-Man and Wasp are both packed two per case, and you may want to pick up two each, to display both helmeted and not.
I guess a Hello Kitty Pez dispenser accessory was probably too costly to license as an accessory.
Images: Luke Y. Thompson
Luke Y. Thompson is Nerdist’s weekend editor and reigning figure finder. Talk toys with him on social media, or leave a comment down below.
