Groot & the Guardians!

It's been a while since I bought all the figures in a Marvel Legends series for a Build-a-Figure, but I thought this one was worth it.  How do you buy ANY Guardian figures without building Groot?!?

 

Groot measures in at 9" tall, which puts him 50% taller than the other Marvel Legends.  He's skinny, but VERY tall...kind of like my cousin, Bret.

Groot is an excellent figure.  He could have used a bit more detail on his paint apps, but for Hasbro, this is going all out.  Great sculpt, good posability (for a tree), and great size.

And, of course, wherever you find Groot, you'll find his little buddy, Rocket Racoon.

Here's a bonus shot I had to take.  Remember in Lord of the Rings when Treebeard is sad about losing the Entwives and the little Entings?  I think he just found one!

Last but not least, I give you the Guardians of the Galaxy (and friends)!

Guardians of the Galaxy: Iron Man

One of the last figures I'm in the market for is another Iron Man and if there wasn't a BAF involved that I really wanted, I would have probably passed on this one.  That being said, this Iron Man shares a scuplt with the previously released "Bleeding Edge Armor" figure and I kind of wanted that one.  After I opened the package, I was happy to have him.

As the most recent Guardians of the Galaxy series started, Tony Stark had wanted a break from the Avengers, and the Earth, and had joined up with the Guardians for some interstellar adventuring.  This figure shows off Tony's latest deep space-ready armor.

Unlike the other Marvel Legends Iron Man figures since about the middle of the Toybiz run, this Iron Man is a good size.  They have seemed undersized for a while now, which is not what you want from a figure that is supposed to be a regular sized guy inside a larger suit. Below you can see how this new figure matches up to the original Marvel Legends Series 1 suit and with the Hulkbuster armor from a later Toybiz series.  He's just a tad smaller, but I would expect Tony's armor to have become more sleek since his earlier designs.  I think the new suit fits in great with my Stark armory.

Check back soon for a post featuring the Guardians of the Galaxy series Build-a-Figure: Groot!

Guardians of the Galaxy: Gamora

I saw this figure a few times on the shelves before finally buying it.  I wanted her Groot BAF piece and I like this character, but she's just not very pleasant to look at.  That being said, once I got her out of the package, I immediately liked her better.  She's well-sculpted and can pull off some cool poses. 

 

This is a pretty cool figure. I'm glad I went ahead and bought her instead of buying her BAF piece on ebay, like I did with Drax (I like his previous ML figure better).

Check out my other GotG Marvel Legends posts, leading up to the BAF post for Groot!

Guardians of the Galaxy: Nova

This is one of the figures I was most looking forward to in the Marvel Legends Guardians of the Galaxy series.  He's got a cool uniform, a great sculpt, and a super-shiny paint job!

As cool as he is, there's not much to this figure, so I didn't take too many pics.  Check him out!

 

This Nova figure blows away the previous ML Nova produced by Hasbro.  I passed on that one even when it was on the clearance aisle!  The only downside to this figure is that mine has very loose joints. I was able to make him stand up, but I'm not going to push it with any crazy poses.

Check my other posts for other GotG figure pix leading up to the BAF Groot!

Guardians Assemble!!!

At long last the Guardians of the Galaxy Marvel Legends have arrived!  Of the 6 GotG figures, I'm only planning on buying 3 (okay, maybe 4) of them.  I found StarLord and Racket Racoon at my local comic shop (shoutout Bedrock City!).  Let's check 'em out!

Let's start out with the man himself, Peter Quill, a.k.a...StarLord.  Who?  StarLord man....legendary outlaw??? .... Forget it.

Mr. Quill comes with an alternate, unmasked head, one of Groot's build-a-figure arms, his blasters,  removable backpack, his headphones, walkman, and the shiny orb he steals in the trailer.  This is a LOT of accessories in today's toy market.

And here's his little buddy, Rocket!

Rocket comes with the head & torso of Groot, his rifle, and a big chest harness laser canon thing for StarLord.  I couldn't get StarLord to hold it very well, so you're not getting any pictures of that.

Rocket stands about 3" high.  They could have done a better job on his articulation, especially with his head/neck, but the sculpt is good.

Just for fun, I thought we should see Rocket team up with Green Lantern B'dg against that evil Red Lantern cat thing (that I meant to sell on ebay).  I think that cat is in trouble.

My Review:

These figures have great sculpts and I'm super excited to have them on the shelf...that being said, I think Hasbro is WAY overpricing these toys.  I paid $25 each of these figures.  You can find them as cheap as $19.99 at Walmart or Target.  While the sculpt and accessories are great, the plastic quality feels very cheap.  When I bend StarLord's arm, I feel like it could just fall apart.  The plastic feels more like rubber and is not hard or sturdy (that's what she said).  The old ToyBiz Legends were very sturdy and looked great AND cost 1/3 as much.  I know plastic prices have gone up, but I don't understand the downgrade in plastic.  StarLord's jacket is supposed to be softer, so maybe his arms feel like that to match his jacket.  Whatever.  It feels cheap.

Overpriced though they are, I'm planning on getting Nova as soon as I can find him and probably space armor IronMan as well.  I already have a Legends Drax that I prefer (see top graphic) and Gamora just looks awful, so I'm planning on buying those Groot pieces on ebay.  I'll post pics of him as soon as I have him complete!

Lastly, I like to let Space Ghost end every post...take it away SG!

Sassy, Space Ghost, verrry sassy.  You better lighten up or I'll have to replace you with a Jimmy Fallon figure.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - Marvel Legends Movie Figure Review

As I was walking around my local comic book store (Bedrock City Comics in Houston, TX  #shamelessplug) this week I was excited to see the latest Marvel Legends series from Hasbro.  Marvel Legends has gone through a few marketing directions since Hasbro took over the line from Toybiz (R.I.P.) and now I hear that the Legends will be used soley as movie tie-ins.  Being that Marvel movies rock my face off, I don't find this disturbing news in the least.  What IS a bit distrurbing is the $25 PRICE TAG! What the what?!?  When Legends started (around 2003, i think), they were only $7 a piece and you got a reprinted comic to go with it!  You MAY be able to find them cheaper in the big box stores as compared to a specialty comic shop, but usually Bedrock City has comparable prices.  Luckily I had a $25 gift card burning a hole in my wallet from Christmas. Even without the gift card, THIS figure is worth it.  I can't speak for the others in the set though.

Spider-man is my favorite comic book hero, and thus I have owned many Spidey figures in my lifetime.  In college I sported an "all Spidey" collection, but as the movies took off it became clear that I would never be able to keep up and I sold all but my favorites.  Lately, the high quality of my Marvel Collection has gotten so high that I didn't have any Spider-man figures that I felt were good enough to display with the rest of them.  They either were too skinny, had questionable paint jobs, had a weird sculpt, or just fell over too much.  I had one really good Spidey, but he's wearing his new b&w costume and I wanted a classic costume figure for my Avengers shelf.  I am happy to announce that I have found the Spidey that the hole in my collection was waiting for!

The Marvel Legends Amazing Spider-Man 2 action figure stand 6" tall, right in line with previous Legends.  Sometimes some characters (cough, Ironman, cough cough) come out looking under-sized.  Not so with Spidey.  Mr. Parker fits right in beside Cap and Hawkeye in my Avengers lineup.  Since my Hulk, IronMan, Nick Fury, Hawkeye, and Spidey are all based on movie likenesses, this is the closest I'll get to seeing Spidey in the movie crew until Sony's rights finally revert back to Disney/Marvel...and I'll probably be long dead from old age by then...but I digress.

Spidey has a crisp paint job, comic-accurate colors, great sculpt, amazing poseability, light texture on the blue parts of his costume, and best of all (if I had to pick one thing) big, shiny eyes!  I obviously love this figure, based on the amount of words I've typed, so let's move on to the pictures, eh?

The new Marvel Legends boxes are a cool, new clamshell type package with slick graphics and nice matte background/glossy detail print effect.

 

Spidey comes with a set of fists and a set of webbing-ready hands you can interchange as well as the right arm of an Ultimate Green Goblin Build-A-Figure.

As with all classy Spidey figures these days, his webs are etched into the sculpt with a light black inset.  This beats the pants of painting the lines onto a flat figure.  

Now I'm going to show off his amazing posing abilities, mostly while interacting with a bunch of my other figures, because Spidey's cool like that.

One of my few complaints is the red pegs in his elbow joints (see the pics above and below).  I know they wanted the red to show up on the outside of his arm, but could they not create pegs that were red on one side and blue on the other?  Or find a paint that wouldn't peel off with wear?  Oh well, that's a small problem on an otherwise excellent figure.

And he wouldn't be Spidey without some whitty banter.  Banter away, Spidey!

Here's a couple more shots of Spidey taking his place on my Avengers (& friends) shelf.

And last, but not least, the Space Ghost interview...