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Time for some space-ladies!
Though each chose their own path in the wake of their father's rise to power, these skilled assassins forever share a familial bond.
Aww, innithat cute? Sisterly love and whatnot! Of course, in the comics, Nebula isn't Thanos' daughter. At a point when he was dead ["He got better!" --ed.], she was a space pirate who commandeered a spaceship that had once belonged to him, using it to attack Xandar, the Skrulls, and the Avengers. She claimed to be Thanos' granddaughter, but when he came back to life, he scoffed at this, and used the Infinity Gauntlet to trap her in a state between life and death. ["She got better!" --ed.] Taken to prison for her crimes, she was turned into a half-cyborg by a guy named Doctor Mandibus because... it beat spending all day lifting weights and smoking? See, the movies can take everything that's cool in the comics, and strip away the dumber stuff. "Thanos did it to make her a better fighter" makes a bunch more sense.
Nebula is played by Karen Gillan, and this figure has an outstanding likeness - take that, Amy Pond! Even under the blue and purple makeup, and the silver prosthesis around her left eye, it's perfectly clear who this is meant to be. She doesn't use that new face paint-printing
technology, because her eyes are just solid black - hard to mess up.
Karen Gillan is 5'11", so Nebula wears flats instead of heels. Her outfit is all shades of purple, and covers everything except her right upper arm and her fingertips. There's a fine texture running over the entire body, before we even begin discussing the panels, straps, and wrinkles that make this look like a small version of a real garment and not just a painted body. Her double-belt and the pads on her hips are a separate piece dangling around the waist, and she's molded with thick elbow pads.
Her cybernetic parts get their own intricate textures, so that it's clear they're something different from her clothes. The figure includes an alternate left forearm that, instead of a blue hand in a purple glove, has a mean-looking little clamp. Like she should be dispensing stuffed toys from a glass cabinet in the arcade. That kind of clamp. The arm swaps out at the elbow, popping in and out easily, so clearly Hasbro learned their lesson from Nico Minoru. You will lose a wrist joint in the process, but all the other joints remain.
The purple on her suit is mostly a dark shade, though there are some lighter and shinier accents, like the pads, the gloves, and the straps over her shoulders. Her skin is a pale blue that contrasts against that purple really well, and the thin black lines on her head and right arm are applied crisply. Her boots are dark, matched by some splotches on her pants, and there are clean silver accents that seem to be some sort of buckles or latches for her suit.
Other than the pinchy arm, Nebula's only accessory is a small pistol that can be held in either hand (or claw, as the case may be). It would have been completely unnecessary, but slightly fun, if they'd given her a yaro root with a bite out of it. Just one bite. Because it wasn't ripe yet. You could probably make your own
She does have a Build-A-Figure piece: the left leg of Mantis. It's not a big piece, but it does have a lot of sculpted detail.
For a movie about fathers, the sisterhood of Gamora and Nebula is a pretty key factor in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. They alone show more growth as characters than most films manage in their entire casts, and together they demonstrate more bravery in a single embrace than an entire league of heroes fighting some generic villain over boxes. Hasbro absolutely knocked it out of the park, quality-wise! And it'll be interesting to look back, two years from now, and be amazed at how much better the GotG3 toys are.
-- 02/26/18
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