Cassandra Nova

Finally, an action figure of finger-licking, dead-inside pixie slab of third-rate dime-store nut milk! The twin sister of Charles Xavier, Cassandra Nova was banished by the Time Variance Authority. Now she's a "megalomaniacal psychopath hellbent on domination and pain." Technically that should be "a psychotic megalomaniacal asshole" etc etc. If you're going to go to the trouble of putting it in quotes, you're expected to quote it accurately. One of the less-stupid things introduced in Grant Morrison's New X-Men run, Cassandra Nova seems like one of the least-likely villains to show up in an X-Men movie, let alone their official introduction to the MCU. In the comics, she was not human or mutant, but an alien parasite native to the astral plane; sensing the conception of Charles Xavier, she manifested in his mother's womb, using her vast powers to copy his DNA and essentially become his "twin"; when they were both developed enough, she tried to strangle Charles in utero, and he used his baby mutant powers to kill her. Most of that is also true in the movie, though all she says about her fate is the TVA pruned her "before [she] could walk." Cassandra was played by Emma Corrin, who was apparently in the first season of that Pennyworth tv show that aired on some cable channel no one ever had or remembers, and also voiced Thessaly the Witch in Dirk Maggs' Sandman audio dramas. Emma seemed to be having an absolute blast in the role, one of those actors who can at least give the impression of having genuine fun doing their job rather than just being there because their agent told them it would be a good career move (cf. the difference between Sydney Sweeny and Dakota Johnson in Madame Webb). The toy's likeness is superb, with the usual neutral expression action figures often get perfectly suiting her general air of bored sociopathy. The Deadpool movies have always been less afraid of adapting comic looks than the mainline X-Men series, so Cassandra was easy to spot even in the first trailers: she wears a long tan coat over a white shirt, cream undershirt with X straps covering the upper chest, a brown sash belt and boots, and khaki pants. It's not the most colorful costume ever, but since she first appeared in the books while walking through the jungles of Ecuador, and was dressed like a British colonial explorer while doing so, that's become her default design. In addition to what was apparently the greatest bald cap in cinematic history, Corrin also wore prosthetic extensions to make Nova's fingers longer and slightly inhuman. You can't really tell at this scale whether the toy is trying to do that or not - like, is that finger supposed to be a few milimeters longer than usual, or is that just the way it came out of the mold? Couldn't say. She includes one fist, one pair of open "gesturing" hands, and one with two fingers extended. But the true gem of the set is the fifth hand. Unlike Charles, who could use his mental powers from a distance, Cassandra needed physical contact. Like, physical contact with the brain itself. Fortunately for her, her powers allowed her to actually slip her body inside people, which was a very disturbing and memorable visual. Well, this figure includes a hand doing that. How does a solid toy depict phasing through someone? By making the hand and head molded together! This head is the TVA's Mr. Paradox, aka Matthew Macfadyen, aka "the guy who played Mr. Darcy opposite Keira Knightley." The face is sculpted with a shocked look and a bandage over his nose, and has Cassandra's fingers poking out of his mouth, both nostrils, the corner of his right eye, and his temple. If you compare where the hand goes into the head (ccorner of the jaw) to where the fingers are sticking out, there's no way all five of them would be visible, but doing it this way is cooler than not. That hand still has a hinged wrist, so the toy doesn't lose any articulation when using it. She does lose some in the head, though, because Hasbro opted to make the head and neck one solid piece, with a balljoint at the base. That's an interesting choice. It's still a decent range of motion, better than just a balljoint or even a barbell joint at the top of the neck would provide (though not as good as a balljoint/hinge would be), but we wonder if it was done as an experiment: see, her shins swivel at the top of the boot, a joint the Marvel production team has famously been cheaping out on recently (which you know, because we keep harping on it in every review, and will continue to do so until they stop making inferior products); so now here's Cassandra Nova, with the shin joints, but without separate joints for the top and bottom of the neck. Are they trying this out, to see if it's better-received than the solid legs are? If so, mission accomplished! She can move her head around and she can turn her feet, that's good. Do it more. The rest of her joints are all standard things, ankles and knees and thighs and hips and waist and elbows and shoulders. If they'd wanted, they could have given her alternate bare arms, since there are points she doesn't wear her coat, but the Paradox head was probably already eating up the accessory budget. That said, there is an accessory for her, it's just not included here. Remember the Juggernaut helmet X-23 came with? That's really for Cassandra, not her. It's a little bit big for her head, since she's not as large as whatever stuntman they had replacing Vinnie Jones as Juggernaut, but if you tuck her collar inside when you're putting it on, it'll fit very nicely and stay in place with no trouble. That's certainly fun, isn't it! Comicbook Cassandra Nova was, let's be honest, pretty crap, and it's quite telling that "evil ghost twin who's secretly an alien" is what constitutes "less stupid" in New X-Men terms. The movie's Cassandra Nova was more of a James McAvoy twin than a Patrick Stewart twin, but unless they could find some esteemed elder British actress who was willing to shave her head for Disney money, that was probably a necessity. It would have been great to see some decrepit old biddy kicking Wolverine's ass, though! Plus, it would have allowed this figure to double as a 616 version of the character, which now it can't do. Still good work, though, and we hope her boot tops presage things to come. -- 07/01/26 Who would you have wanted to cameo as "old" Cassandra Nova? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.