Exposure to the Terrigen Mists granted Black Bolt the power to shatter mountains whenever he speaks, so he rules Attilan as a silent king with the help of fellow Inhuman Triton whose transformation from Terrigenesis allows him to breathe underwater.
Did we really need another Black Bolt? Well, I want to say "no," but the last one was eight years ago (and blue for some reason), so realistically "yes," though I don't think Blue Bolt was exactly commanding high prices on the secondary market, and thus getting one if you wanted one would not have been hard. So we're back to "no."
The one thing we can say in this figure's favor is that it's not the same body as before. It is, unfortunately, the one that's not as good: too tall, proportioned weird, and already tedious in a way the other one never was. The pectoral hinges line up exactly with the silver stripes on his chest, so that's neat, at least?
Also, this is the first time Hasbro's given us removable wings for the arms, meaning we get to choose between a set that's fully expanded, or ones that are folded down. No longer does he have to have his arms up at all times! Sounds good, right? Well, it might have been,
except they managed to mess up somehow, and now the "open" wings in no way line up with the actual sculpt of the arm or the body, just leaving big stupid gaps no matter how you try to pose them. Am I missing something? Am I just failing to get the pieces lined up, like a total rube? Seriously, it's like they sculpted it, approved it, and manufactured it without checking to see if it actually worked at all the way they intended. Thank god for the folded wings, so we at least have one option that doesn't make him look like an idiot. Or make us feel like idiots for buying him.
We do get an alternate "shouting" head, which is good, even if it
doesn't have any Kirby dots trailing off the forehead tuning fork. That was one of the cooler features of the "Blue Bolt" release, so it's a shame it's not carried over here. Still, getting the head at all is what's important: there have been too many Blackagar Boltagons that didn't get anything at all. You get your choice of fists or flat hands, presumably so you can help him pick between fight or flight respsonses, plus a more relaxed open pair of hands.
We've already ridiculed talked about Triton before, in the Karnak review: Triton's Terrigenesis left him so screwed up that their parents opted to not make Karnak go through it, which is why Karnak' powers are based on study rather than magic moon-smoke. So, yes, the fact Triton looks like the Creature from the Black Lagoon is entirely accidental. Also, it's not so much that he has the power to breathe underwater, it's that he can only breathe underwater: when Jack Kirby introduced the Inhumans, Triton had to wear a bag of water that covered his entire body. Which was probably fine when Attilan was on an island, but got increasingly less-so when Black Bolt moved the entire city first to the Himalayas and then to the moon - two environments that are totally known for their abundance of deep, swimmable water.
While Black Bolt is a boring reused body, Triton gets to be entirely new. Well, the boots and gloves may be existing molds,
but the important stuff is original: every bit of green you see on him - his chest, limbs, and head - has been sculpted completely covered in scales. Plus, the lines of purple that run down his arms and legs are raised elements, with a pointed, layered texture, rather than just being flat painted lines. This is way better than a plain body, even if it had had painted scales. And frankly, it's way better than we've come to expect from Marvel Legends in these days of "cut every corner... and steal every penny."
Like his... (research research research) cousin Black Bolt, Triton gets two heads. The first, the one he's wearing in the package, is the way he's looked for most of his existence: pointy ears and a Savage Dragon fin on top of his head, like a male version of Komodo. The mouth is done in a sneer, and while they've tried to capture the look of his weird eyebrows, it's not quite right.
The second head is more modern. The art shows him with thicker
scales, longer ears, and a different style of head-fin, but the major difference is that he wears a mask covering his nose and mouth, obviously some kind of rebreather to help him exist outside of water for longer. Unfortunately, that look (circa Civil War II) also goes with a different costume, one that covers everything except his arms and kind of looks like something Beast Boy would wear. Given the choice between the "classic" Triton we get and the more modern one... eh, I don't care enough about Triton either way to have an opinion. All the other Inhumans figures are wearing old suits, so just making Triton newer would be weird.
Triton gets no accessories, just alternate flat hands (for swimming, persumably). Most of his articulation is the normal stuff - balljoint head, hinged neck, swivel biceps, double-hinged elbows, swivel/hinge wrists, hinged torso, swivel waist, balljoint hips, swivel thighs,
double-hinged knees, swivel boots, and swivel/hinge ankles - but the shoulders are unique: he doesn't get pectoral hinges, possibly because the detailed sculpt wouldn't play well with them, but the equivalent range of motion is still partially alluded to by making the shoulders balljoint/hinges; that is, instead of going into the torso with a regular swivel joint, the arm is on a balljoint, with the connection concealed by a ring of plastic, the same way McFarlane Toys tends to do things. That is not a common choice for Marvel Legends!
Black Bolt is an exceedingly uninteresting figure, getting his fourth release in this scale from Hasbro alone! But Triton hasn't had a 6" figure before, only a 4" Marvel Universe release, and then a 5" figure back in the ToyBiz days (which, depending on how they were feeling that day, may have been closer to 6" scale anyway). The fishman is absolutely the one carrying this set, but Black Bolt isn't the total waste of plastic he appears to be.
-- 03/09/26
Is there some way to make the wings work? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.
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