Scarlet Witch

So, did they wait this long because of spoilers? Wanda Maximoff, one of the strongest Avengers, discovers the mystical side of her powers after the events of WandaVision. Multiverse of Madness was a great film, one of the best Marvel's done since Endgame. Yes, it picked up existing threads, but it told its own story instead of just being an ad for the next thing, and it was allowed to exist in a genre beyond "action." You get a director with a distinctive style, who has experience with both horror and comicbook films, and set him free to do a horror comicbook film? You're gonna get a winner. Sure, it's a little cheesy at times, but so is everything else Sam Raimi has made - it's part of why you're there. And then, on top of all that, yo've got Elizabeth Olsen acting her butt off. It's hard to tell, but it seems like the same May Thamtarana head sculpt as the Wandavision figure - her hair is different, but that's a separate piece anyway, and any other differences can be chalked up to the design of the paint apps. It's a great likeness, and absolutely looks like a 1:12 version of the real woman. Her lighter hair contrasts with the costume well. Other than the arms, the body is the same as before - it's just been given darker paint apps to make it look different. And part of that are dark splotches all over the front of her coat, because Multiverse of Madness was the goriest Marvel film to date (even if they found ways to cheat it to keep things PG-13). This time her coat has sleeves, rather than leaving the arms bare, and there's a sculpted texture on them that lets us know these aren't just the same molds repainted red, like we get where the arms go into the chest. No worries, that area's hidden by the new hair, anyway. We were wrong about the articulation last time, sort of. Her neck is a barbell joint, but not the way we expected: there's one balljoint at the top, in the head, and another balljoint at the bottom, in the chest. So overall they act like a barbell, just one that happens to have a very thick, neck-shaped post. Not that it's of much use with this hair. The new arms get double elbows instead of a single swivel/hinge, but the rest is all the same. Scarlet Witch comes with energy swirls, which makes sense since she's the character they were introduced for. They're a dark magenta, rather than light pink, and while she doesn't get alternate energy hands this time, the ones we do get have the dark magic stains on the fingertips like they should. She does get something new though, new and unique. It's the Darkhold, the book of evil magic. It's dark and tattered, and is open to the page about her - you can recognize the iconography on the righthand page. And all those overlapping circles on the left page? Why, that's a representation of the Incursions that are messing up so many worlds! Hey, we said MoM wasn't just an ad for the next thing, not that it didn't have any elements of the future. Unfortunately, they seem to have gotten the pages upside down in the book; I'm not sure how, given how distinctive the shape of the cover is, but it's definitely incorrect on this toy. That's just a very weird thing to get so specifically wrong. I didn't know this figure was coming. It's been a year and a half since the last Doctor Strange 2 figure came out (you remember, it was Bindlesproink Cobblestone and his pointy hole), so it certainly didn't seem like we'd be getting any more. Like that toy, this one is a Target exclusive, which I just found randomly in-stock when I was checking their site for something else. There really isn't enough here to warrant the price-hike Target gives all its exclusives - like, the Tracksuit Draculas at least had a bunch of accessories and alternate heads, and even that felt like a ripoff; new hair, new biceps, and a new book do not $28 warrant. It's nice to get her, well after the fact, but Target is really taking advantage of customers with that price. -- 10/16/23

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