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A threat emerged from the cosmos as Thanos,
a ruthless warrior, plans to collect all of the Infinity Stones. Joined by his formidable allies, he will be near-unstoppable at achieving his goal. The Avengers, the Guardians of the Galaxy, Doctor Strange, and Spider-Man must join forces and fight side by side to stop Thanos while the fate of the Earth and the universe lays in the balance.
This is going to be an interesting review - in that we've already covered all of these figures!
After being an integral part of the Avengers team from the start, Tony Stark finds himself divided from Earth's mightiest heroes. But now, faced with an imminent deadly threat unlike any he has ever encountered,
Stark will be forced to call upon some familiar faces and battle alongside some new allies.
This Iron Man is the Mark 50 armor, and makes me kick myself for buying that toy. It didn't even have a BAF part! If I hadn't already thrown the packaging away, I'd have returned it. Nobody needs two of this, especially when it still doesn't come with any cool nano-weapon accessories - just the palm blast effects - and the limb colors still don't match right. This is interesting from a historical perspective, because it's the first Marvel Legend to have an action feature: press a segment of his armor, and the Arc Reactor in the chest lights up a bright blue. Move the switch on his back to the left, and pressing the button turns the light on for three seconds; move it to the right, and the light stays on for 15 seconds; hold the button in for three seconds, and the light will stay on for 15 minutes. It's not a bad feature, but we absolutely would have traded it away in an instant to get better accessories.
The Avengers are brought face to face with
the cunning, intelligent, and fierce warlord Thanos, a ruthless cosmic threat consumed with saving the universe from itself. To stop him, the Avengers must join forces to bring down this villain who will stop at nothing to collect the six Infinity stones.
Speaking of annoying double-dips, this is the Build-A-Figure with a few changes. Talk about frustrating! We just bought six $20 figures to complete a BAF, and then it almost immediately shows up in this three-pack for half as much? Thanks a &%#*@ing lot, Hasbro. At least the differences are noticable: his paint is better (lighter purple on the skin, stronger gold on the clothes), new head sculpts, and a new left hand. No, it's still not a "snap" hand, but at least this time the fingers are open rather being a fist.
So, those heads. The BAF had the world's stupidest smirk, which desperately needed to be replaced. Thankfully, that's not included
here, so this version is already better. What do we get instead? One head that's calm and stoic, and one that's got his teeth bared in a giant grimace. [Hey, maybe you don't want to use the word "Grimace" when talking about the giant purple guy? --ed.] Both fit the character better than the old head. Don't expect to share them with the BAF, though, since ths skintones are so different.
As Doctor Stephen Strange gets accustomed to his new role as a guardian of the Sanctum Sanctorum and sworn protector of
the Eye of Agamotto, this Master of the Mystic Arts will soon discover how much further his universe will expand when the cosmos are in jeopardy.
Wait, "cosmos" isn't a plural word. There's no such thing as "one single cosmo." In fact, the very idea of "the cosmos" - which was popularized as the English equivalent of the German Kosmos in translations of Alexander von Humboldt's treatise on the nature of the universe - is about the entire clockwork-like interaction of everything as one complicated whole, not as a collection of separate items. So that bio should say "when the cosmos is in jeopardy," not "are in." Of course, if we're going get that upset about it, then by rights we should go back through our archives and correct every single instance where we've said "bicep" instead of "biceps," shouldn't we?
This figure, at least, is the only way to get an Infinity War Dr. Strange - Iron Man and Thanos might have been otherwise available, but not Stephen!
However, it really is just his movie figure with a couple new pieces; for instance, the head. The Doctor Strange movie line pre-dated the Photo Real printing for the faces, but that toy still had a wonderful Dindlebert Zindledack likeness. This one... eh. The head was molded too narrow or something - there are angles where it looks fine, but it seems wrong from the front. Wonder if it would have been possible to just apply the new paint process to the existing mold? It has to be; that's what they did with Scarlet Witch, right?
Other than the head, the only new molds
on the figure are his right hand and forearm. Those have both been redone with added rings of translucent green energy sculpted on, depicting the way he uses the powers of the Time Stone. It's a neat effect, even if it does mean the figure will permanently have that mint frisbee stuck to the fingers. Still, this is probably the least clumsy way they could have done that.
The toy also has the same yellow shield effect as before, and the Eye of Agamotto necklace, but his Cloak of Levitation is a new mold. How unexpected! This one doesn't have the cord at the neck, the golden
clasps are the proper shape now, and it doesn't fall as far over his left shoulder or drag on the ground. Those are changes Hasbro didn't need to make, but the fact they did is definitely welcome, and is yet another thing that makes this version of the character more desirable than the first.
Iron Man makes me angry at myself for buying the solo version. Thanos at least fixes a few of the problems with the Build-A-Figure, but still doesn't make me happy about past-me's purchasing decisions. Doctor Strange may not look as much like Rinkydink Splishnsplash as he could/should, and has permanently attached accessories, but at least that means he doesn't feel as much like a rehash as the other two. For some reason, this set was even more overpriced than the rest of the already-overpriced the Marvel Studios: The First 10 Years line - like, Target initially put it out at $99.99. What? That's not right. GameStop was the "reasonable" option, at just $79.99, but that was still way too much to pay for a bunch of rereleases and one new forearm. Target eventually dropped their price, and surprisingly GameStop did too - but it still took a further sale before I bought in. Unless you don't have any of the figures offered, this set is absolutely not worth what Hasbro was trying to get for it.
-- 10/07/19
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