Marvel Legends Guardians
of the Galaxy Rocket & Gamora Review

NoisyDvL5

The paintwork was similarly well done on both figures. I have a few chips and scratches on my Rocket, but nothing terrible. The costume details are well represented. I think Gamora is missing an app on her belt, but the blue sheen on her outfit is done well as are the fishnet covered areas and the ombre look to her hair. Good marks on paint overall.

Articulation though, is where it largely falls apart. As is to be expected, Rocket is very limited. I do and don’t mind. On the one hand, I get it, but on the other, there are Star Wars figures this small with tiny hinge-jointed limbs. Why can’t we do that here? The head, waist, tail, and wrists swivel and we’ve got ball-jointed shoulders & elbows, so it would be nice to get a little something more in the legs. Particularly because, if he didn’t have a tail to lean on, he wouldn’t be able to stand.

Gamora is better articulated, but ends in the same boat. Mine falls over constantly. There’s a lot of good artic: ball-joints at the neck (limited by hair), shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, & ankles; double-hinge knees, and a limited ball-joint in the torso. All of that should make the figure good to go, but the hips, strangely, have very little range and the ankle joints are hard to use with the small feet. Mine falls over in a vanilla position and it’s difficult to find a balance for her in deeper poses too.

In addition to the Groot pieces (Rocket/Torso, Gamora/Left Leg), these two had three accessories split across them. Gamora included her sword from the film. It probably won’t get much display at my house. I’m glad that it was included, but she didn’t use it a ton in the movie and the piece itself is kinda flimsy and hard for her to hold. Also, no scabbard for it. Boo.

Rocket came with two guns from the movie. The basic rifle that he carried personally and then the big chest-mounted gun used towards the film’s climax. Both look great. The sculpt detail and light paint work on both look sharp. The plastic is still a little flimsier then I would like here too, but they’re nicely done, Rocket can hold his gun and either Drax or Star-Lord (or just about any ML I imagine) can carry the big gun.

Overall, both of these figures are decent. The sculpt work is solid – I would like to see more expression on the movie-based MLs; they need to be a little more realistic, but the overall sculpt for both is good. Paintwork is sharp and I enjoyed the accessories even if they’re a little too soft. Articulation does drag the score down – having to always balance Rocket on his tail and steadying Gamora up to another figure kinda blows, but not enough to distract me from the rest of the figure.

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24 thoughts on “Marvel Legends Guardians
of the Galaxy Rocket & Gamora Review”

  1. Rocket and Gamora by far are the worst as far as being unable to capture the character in the head sculpt. Star Lord kind of gets away with it since he has the masked head. Drax and Groot are almost dead on.

    Rocket needs to be expressive, he spends the whole damn movie being expressive! He doesn’t have the dead eyes of Gamora but he just looks like an unnassuming Raccoon and that’s no fun!

    Great review, with all the Hot Toys hoopla I kind of forgot about these guys.

      1. That’s why I said he said he can fudge it because of the masked head. The other head looks nothing like Chris Pratt.

        1. I want to believe that somewhere under that super thick paint they dunked the face in that there’s a serviceable Chris Pratt sculpt.

  2. Fantastic review. It dawned on me while reading through it that the ENTIRE line is made up of “docile” faces. I found myself storing away Movie Rocket in favor of the actually vastly superior ML Rocket based solely on personality in the figure itself. Drax has the most expressive face in the line, but Rocket needed that far more. That revelation really just knocked the whole line down a peg for me. That said, the figures are still fantastic and would look good even next to the Star Wars Black series, even if that line is filled with “docile” faces, too. I hope Hasbro addresses the mold limitations of their recent female figures given the articulation restrictions they’ve all had as far back as the revamped female mold used in the SDCC Thunderbolts line.

  3. Boy, hopes that talked about GotG 5 pack is a great update. Still I’ll buy and display say post battle. Rocket really does need something even a hinged jaw like the comic.

    Was a good review and as always great pics.

    1. Any word on who is supposed to be in that 5pk? All I’ve heard is “comic style Guardians”?
      I’m guessing all the unsold comic Drax’s? LOL

      Serious guess: comic Peter, Drax, BAF Rocket(?), F buck for Gamora? and maybe the blue suit Groot using the AIM/StarLord torso/body?
      (kitbashed movie+comic Groot figures?)

      I’d freaking plotz if it turned out to be Vance, Stakar, Yondu, Charlie-27, and (not!Iceman!) Martinex!

      1. From report will be a new tooled Drax, comic Gamora (looked like the outfit she wore holding a nova skull), lighter blue Starlord outfit. Pics were shown for them but that was it.

        You would think Yondu would since was in the film. Dunno if same but maybe one of his race.

        1. I heard Drax was being built on a larger stock body (people are assuming the Hyperion body), Starlord was going to be a reuse of the SDCC mold (which is 90% the AIM soldier), Gamora will be in her classic (unikini. Ugh) outfit, Rocket will be a reuse of the BAF. I’ve not heard anything about Groot, but if he’s built on the AIM/Starlord body, that would make two figures in the same box set that use mostly the same (fairly unique) tooling.

  4. Gamora first:
    I do agree with you the face looks kinda bored, but it also looks puffy to me, like she has pancake make-up on? I’m not sure else how to describe it? It’s less noticeable in the film, but it is there. I wouldn’t be surprised if they did use a 3d scanner for the initial sculpts. The sword can be tucked into her belt, with the side blade(?) holding it up…as long as she doesn’t fall over or other gravitational effects happen. I can’t get her to hold it for squat, otherwise.

    that red-tinged hair still bugs me, tho. I get they changed it so people wouldn’t go “Hey, it’s She-Hulk!”
    and you know what I think it’s really that the hair sits too far back. what do you think?

    –

    Rocket:
    Okay, he’s slightly taller and leaner than the comic BAF from last year, but I can’t turn his head for anything. I’m surprised to see you got yours to turn that much in pics. Nice to have, but face it: He’s as much a pack-in as Howard was to the original ML Surfer. great sculpt, but it doesn’t balance the limited artic.
    Pack-in cannon bigger than him? check. limited artic? check. biggest BAF piece? I AM GROOT.
    Is his head as easy to pop as most recent MLs? tempted to put BAF Rocket’s head on there…?

    –

    random musings:
    I *SO* wanted a Nebula, Rhomann Dey/Movie Nova (Darth Sidious joke ensues!), and Ronan in this line. or at least a classic comic Gamora and Nebula. I know the latter is available in MU form with the Infinity Gauntlet set, but….she’s not going to work with ML. Did we really need *another* IM? NO.

    I also think this Gamora body could have been used for DoFP Blink (or Kitty?). new head and deco and bam: CLARICE! heck, that “blade” could almost be her teleport spikes!
    (btw, have you heard the growing brouhaha over the TRU Jubilee wave this week? YIKES.)

    Great that you got a comparison shot of both Rockets, but…no animal Lanterns? 🙁
    Rocket would surely have a few choice words about them! 😉
    speaking of, what if they had given us Cosmo instead of that cannon? hmmm……
    also, no Oreo jokes? nary a one in the house? is it just the cupcakes with you two?

    btw, I think you nailed Batista’s Drax there. 😉

    1. What’s going on with the Jubilee wave? I managed to get all the pieces here in Canada, but it wasn’t the easiest of tasks.

      2. TRU was sending out emails to pre-orderers that there are “insufficient quantities of stock” and “orders may be cancelled”, now BBTS is also saying they oversold and are only getting ~50% of their order, so there will be allocations.

        check out the “Marvel Legends Collectors” FB page. there were numerous posts about it from various complainers.
        also, someone posted a 20% off TRU purchase e-coupon there.

  6. i’m truly stunned that we’ve not got a ronan on tap for this lot to fight, yet we got on iron man who’s not in the gd movie… friggin assbro.

    it’s also worth note that i kinda, sorta, a little bit, figured when we saw the thanos BAF at comic con, that that would be what movie thanos looked like… SPOILER ALERT!

    it’s not.

      1. That Nova is fantastic and Hasbro even talked up how well he in particular was selling at SDCC. They done right with him and our armchair hindsight can’t tackle it.

        Iron Man, I’ll give ya. He probably sells fine, but he’s a cheap repaint. The only thing that would make Nova better is being that good and in the classic “groovy” 70s costume – but I’d still want this one too.

        1. movie only line, I’d take Nebula in a heartbeat, even as a swap/running change.
          the IM is from the GotG comics, and you know they had to include him as an “anchor” to sell it to retailers.

          Had there been a second series, aside from the 5pk, I’d like:

          Nebula: 50/50 – movie/comic (MU look, not the bald one Karen was based on)
          Quasar: prefer classic comic (StarBrand cape), would accept 50/50 with Annihilation/ChrisChross makeover reluctantly
          Yondu – comic, alt.Rooker head
          Starhawk/Aleta – again, 50/50 because they did share the same body for a while
          Adam Warlock – Infinity Gauntlet look, SWAPPABLE GLOVE because the Rulk version didn’t
          Vance Astro – with Cap’s shield. (Major Victory?) black suit with alt.unmasked head.
          BAF: Charlie-27

        2. I’ve heard that Hasbro is claiming Nova is selling spectacularly, but unless they produce some real numbers, I’m calling BS. Not because I don’t think he’s selling well, but because I don’t think Hasbro has any way to track sales of individual figures. Stores order by the caseload, and don’t track their inventory on a figure-by-figure basis. This is evident if you ever find a figure on a store’s website and go to that location looking for that figure. Ask any employee to help you find that one figure you’re looking for, and they’ll tell you that their inventory is just saying they have quantity of the line that figure is from. They don’t have two Black Widows, for example, like their website says, they have two units of the Cap Legends line, and in all likelihood they’re both WW2 Cap.

          From all evidence, the entire Guardians line was under-ordered/produced, so the entire line is selling out pretty much everywhere. Since Nova was only produced in the same ratios as Rocket, Gamora, and Drax, it can’t really be said that he’s any hotter than they are. Anecdotal evidence is clear that Star Lord and Iron Man are not selling out as fast as the others, but they were produced in double the amounts.

          So, unless Hasbro can produce data to back up their claim that Nova is somehow a hotter seller than the rest of his line-mates, I’m not buying it. I’m also not buying the Nova figure, because I can’t find it at retail, just like Rocket and Drax.

          1. I’m not disparaging you when I say this, but I’m so glad I don’t see conspiracy theories or have instant skepticism ingrained in my collecting habits. I’m happier for it.

            As for their “claims”, if I recall they based on online retailers where the figures are sold individually. That said, the company I work for uses SKUs for general tracking, but is still capable of tracking using the barcodes, which are still individual.

            1. I don’t see asking for any kind of data to back up what, on the surface, sounds like a rather dubious claim (really? Nova’s one of the best-selling ML of all time? Really?) as paranoia or overly skeptical. Skeptical, sure, because the claim being made sounds a bit far-fetched (really? Nova? Not Spider-Man, not Captain America or Iron Man, not Hulk or Thor or Wolverine? Hasbro’s going to try to tell me Nova’s their top guy, when he doesn’t seem to be selling any better or worse than the rest of his under-produced line?).

  7. Well got mine today. Hid a Rocjet two weeks ago and found in that spot today. Had a $5 off and a 10% off coupon and got for under $14. Still no Nova sightings :(. Have to figure how to pose him with te gun but still with no below waist articulation still a fun fig. The Groot piece can work as is untill get more pieces.

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