Since I didn’t buy the battle-damaged Iron Man, this will be my last Avengers review for the foreseeable future. It feels wrong. No Black Widow. No unmasked Cap. No Maria Hill. No Coulson. I could go on; this line shouldn’t be over. Anyway, let’s wrap things up, hopefully for now.
Initially, I wasn’t planning on buying any Avengers figures, but two things happened. One, the movie was insanely more awesome than I was expecting. Two, the figures came out much nicer than I was expecting. Well, most of ’em; as I mentioned I didn’t buy Iron Man because Hasbro decided against giving us a Mark VII update and opted for a battle-damaged version. The other figures though – most of the rest get by on their own merits. I bought Loki, Hawkeye, and Hulk because they’re great figures. I bought Thor because he seemed like a good update to last year’s figure that I unfortunately had to pass on. And then there’s Cap.
Honestly, it seems harsh to set this tone for Captain America. There’s a lot of things I like about the figure. And I’m happy to have an Avengers Cap. The comic character is one of my Marvel favorites and Chris Evans did a spectacular job in both movies to ensure the film version lived up to my expectations. And while I found myself enjoying this figure, it just doesn’t quite impress me like the others. I’m having a hard time separating if it the awesomeness of the others though, because the figure doesn’t seem lacking.
I think some of it may be from the film itself. Iron Man has the benefit of armor. Thor & Loki look regal & appropriately otherworldly. Widow, and Hawkeye to a lesser extent, are in stealthy “special ops” jumpsuits. But Cap doesn’t really have a workaround to being in a superhero costume. I’m not against superhero costumes in films, I wish more of these great movies could feature classic superhero costumes, but they just don’t always translate well. It’s basically the first obstacle to translate a comic into film, and for Cap it was no different.
I think the costume featured in the solo Captain America movie was fantastic. I liked the makeshift costume he makes using parts of his stage costume and regular gear (and, frankly, that stage costume showcased the problem on the nose) and I also really enjoyed the costume that the film wraps up with. I still kick myself for never getting around to buying that hard-to-find figure.
Anyway, the Cap costume seemingly took a few steps back in Avengers. I’ve only seen it once (don’t take my nerd card, please!), so I can’t really go back and get specific. It’d sound silly anyway. Was it the fabric? The layers? The bright colors (though I do love bright colors…). It could’ve been anything, the only I specifically remember liking was when he wasn’t wearing the cowl/helmet, so maybe it was even just that. Either way, I just don’t feel the costume upgraded well in the “seventy” years between films.
And then the figure, being in this awesome line, recreates that design pretty faithfully. No, that can’t be used as a knock against the figure. For the most part, we have a great 6″ Avengers Cap presented here, but I do think it falls short in one area. Namely, the head sculpt. It’s also in this weird grey area where I want to criticize it, but I do find a bit of Chris Evans in there.
But, whether it be a soft sculpt of thick gloopy skintone paint, it just doesn’t look sharp enough when I put him next to a Hawkeye that looks like Jeremy Renner, a Hulked-up version of Mark Ruffalo, a Tom Hiddleston Loki, and even the decent likeness of Chris Hemsworth as Thor. In that regard, this figure is outclassed by nearly every other head sculpt in the line. It’s just not up to par through that lens and it makes me that much more adamant that an unmasked Cap get released, particularly when we know that Hasbro’s did one for the first film and never released it. Continue to Page 2…
I bought all the available figures, but found the Thor and Iron-Man figure disgraceful – Essentially just repaints, and lacking the articulation that the “newly sculpted” heroes give us. Total disappointment. I find Thor and Iron-Man difficult to put into dynamic poses with their sub-par ankle articulation, and “battle damage” was a cop-out meaning “sloppy black splotches” on a perfectly good figure.
I’d like to see an all new Thor, and Iron-Man (with the new ankles) to go with a Black Widow (Nick Fury et-al) in the future. I doubt it’s EVER going to happen though.
Other than that, what a MARVELOUS Hulk figure we got, huh? I bought two of them because I was so impressed. My next “great hope” is that the Legends line will produce something that may fit in with these movie series figs.
Tks for the review!
agreed on Hulk! It is a very well executed figure..looks like most of the movie figure budget was spent on him and Hawkeye
Isn’t Widow supposed to be a lot taller than that 😉
Though she will keep all the Avengers happy at that height
Oh man, series 2 of Avengers (4″ guys) will never come out here – at least that’s what the pegs are telling me in stores. I hope to see a BW someday.
his face looks to chubby.
I’m still not a fan of the floating chest joint. It may look better at some angles, but I just prefer the ab crunch. That being said, this figure is pretty cool. You have a real way to have him stash his shield on his back, and it looks a lot better than just a peg back there. He also comes with the awesome ankle joints all figures need going forward.
One thing I noticed is this looks more like Cap than Cap did in the film because in the film his entire back was just blue (at least in the Helicarrier scenes, I can’t recall during the New York city scenes). This figure at least has a look closer to his comics counterpart.
yeah, i hae to say, the development of the ball torso, and it’s slow phase out of the ab crunch & waist twist, is one of the sadder developments of toys for me. the ball torso is, on VERY few figures i own, adequate to replicate that range of motion. and it doesn’t look any better, as the torso appears to hover over the trunk. admittedly, not ever ab crunch was created equal, but by and large, that, for me, was a more satisfying bit of articulation for posing.
Not into the movie lines myself but I am waiting to see the Marvel Legends Miles fig. Digging the costume and hoping to find him in both scales.
That Hulk is cool looking though but, not seen it here.
I do agree that this is a great sculpt…of a bad/gaudy costume. I didn’t like this costume from the day I saw the first trailer, preferring the superior “real world” take of what we saw in the Cap movie. The segmented chest is too busy; the texture feels wrong, mixing body armor and cloth; and one thing that really bugged me about the film: mask on = helmet, mask off = cloth. ARRGGHHH!
The boots and gloves look like they belong on Iron Man, and like I said in the other review, just putzing around, I put Loki’s helmet on this guy and went “ANT MAN!”, or at least, a close approximation of what we could get in his movie if you trim off the helmet horns and torso stars.
TBH, I didn’t even realize the gloves were a solid piece and he basically has two elbow joints. I do agree the head sculpt is “soft”, especially compared to the detail of the rest of the body. the helmet wings, otoh, feel more like thick paint than sculpted on?
One other thing I did notice is that in the movie, the costume is blue for the section covering his spine, while on the figure, we get the comic version of red/white stripes all the way around his waist. (and I do believe the comic version is supposed to have 13 stripes? this figure has 10.)
I tossed the shield with those straps. I replaced it with the ML version, the main differences being the movie’s segmented star and rounder curve to the shield, and a slight size difference (ML is maybe 1/8″ taller?).
Add me to the chorus hoping for more movie figures in ML, but I already have the Fury from last year’s Cap/Thor wave, so he’s not a priority for me. Maybe Hasbro will kitbash the Sam head onto the Steve Rogers body for Nick III or Sam Fury or whoever that’s supposed to be in the current books? (I know Nick Jr became Scorpio, so…?) Just give me ScarJo Widow, sleeveless Thor, and son of Coul, maybe Robin Hill, and I’ll be happy. I’d have to see that unmasked head sculpt before I decide if I want it or not. Too bad the F4 figures aren’t in the same scale so we could head swap. (or pretend they exist in the same movie-verse like we can with Avengers and the X-movies and Blade.)
So yeah, great adaptation of the costume, but a few quibbles bring it down. On my Marvel movie shelf, this guy is getting tucked behind helmeted Hemsworth in the back and the other versions will be out front. that includes the custom movie Ant-Man made from this figure.
That last pic with the 4 inch BW kills me
Just remember–Coulson said he had input in designing Cap’s modern costume, so if you don’t like it, BLAME THE FANBOY!
And for the record, I saw “Avengers” six times in theaters, twice in 3D.