Winter Soldier

Желание. Ржaвый. Семнадцать. Рассвет. Печь. Девять. Добросердечный. Возвращение на родину. Один. Грузовой вагон. Good morning, soldier. Ready to review? Winter Soldier is a fierce combatant and an asset in battle, no matter which team he fights for. Cap. He fights for Team Cap. Just ask the weirdos on Tumblr who think that Steve and Bucky are a couple. Imagine the utter mind-screw if Civil War had somehow put Buck on Tony's side. Or anyone at all who wasn't directly indebted to Iron Man for their existence/working on their own agendas. Everyone on Captain America's side in the fight seemed to be there for actual ideological reasons; most of the heroes on Iron Man's side were there because he was their ride. No surprise there was a Winter Soldier toy in the Winter Soldier line - the movie was kind of named after him, you know? This figure uses most of the same molds as the 2014 toy, allowing Hasbro to get a little more mileage out of some rather specific tooling. Exactly how much re-use are we talking? The arms, legs and pelvis. So again we get the intricately textured pants with the big kneepads, the large, chunky boots, and the various bits of gear sculpted on his right sleeve. Plus, the metal arm still looks very cool. So if the limbs are reused, that means the torso must be new! When the Winter Bucky wasn't wearing civilian clothes, he wore a zippered jacket that conveniently only had one sleeve (because why would you give a character a metal arm and then not show it off?), and this toy follows suit. It does add a chest harness with a sculpted, non-functional holster, but the underlying design is accurate. He has a free-floating belt, too. Also new? The head. You'll recall that the last figure had two heads: one wearing his James Franco Green Goblin mask, and the other with his "post-breakup-cry mascara" look. This one gets our first plain Sebastian Stan face, unadorned by anything other than some painted stubble. The likeness is surprisingly good, though somehow still generically plain. The new Winter Soldier is less colorful than the last one, which is really saying something! His jacket and boots are the same shade of dark brownish-grey, while his pants are black. There are no individual apps for his knees or the bullets on his sleeve. The seams on his left arm have a light wash to help bring them out, and he still has the big red star on his shoulder. You know you could wipe that off, right Buck? A little paint remover and you're no longer sporting enemy colors? The articulation is unchanged from before: Winter Soldier moves like a Marvel Legend should. The torso hinge actually comes surprisingly far forward - so far forward, you can see inside his back if you want to. It doesn't flex as far backwards, but that makes anatomical sense. It's not like human spines bend very far back, do they? It's not unlimited, but it's enough. Since this figure is an exclusive, it doesn't come with any Build-A-Figure pieces. It does, however, come with better accessories than the Captain America 2 Winter Soldier did. Yes, it's just a knife and a pistol, both pieces we've seen before with other Legends, but they're appropriate for the character and serve him better than a sci-fi rifle molded in dog-dick red. Of the two Walmart-exclusive Civil War figures, Winter Soldier is definitely the afterthought - he's 80% repaint, and said paint isn't even very good. But he's different enough from the last one to not feel like a duplicate, and (just like Black Panther) is close enough to his comic roots that he could be a 616 stand-in for your collection. -- 09/12/16

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