Névé

Buying Mythic Legions is like sending a present to your own future self. Because when you place a pre-order in January of 2024, you'll have completely forgotten what specific things you ordered by the time the toys ship in March of 2026. The Frost Elf named Névé was one of the menagerie of exotic warriors who fought in the Mercurian Coliseum. A star attraction due to her strength and race, Névé was treated like a celebrity by her Mercurian hosts. When the Coliseum fell, Névé lost everything. The Frost Elf followed Attlus to Bjorngar, where she intended to kill him for what his rebellion had cost her. Visited in a dream by the Great Wolf whom Frost Elves believe protects those from the North, she was told that her destiny was to one day save the life of the barbarian king. When Attlus formed the House of the Noble Bear, Névé was amongst the first to join, ready to fulfill her destiny. The "Rising Sons" set was the culmination of the first phase of the Mythic Legions story - it followed after the Arethyr, Illythia, Poxxus, and Necronominus waves all pit their titular villain against the heroic faction that opposed them, so naturally this one had to feature the two remaining unaffiliated groups. You know, in general, ethnicities from cultures nearer the poles have smaller noses than ones from cultures near the equator. It's not because one looks better than the other (in either direction), but purely because of evolution: cold, dry air needs to be warmed and humidified before moving into the actual respiratory tract, and it's easier for a narrower nose to do that; go outside on a cold day and take a deep breath through your nose, and it'll always sting, but the size of your nose determines how much. Anyway, if cold weather can cause physical changes in the real world, there's no reason the same can't be true on Mythoss. That would explain why Neve, a Frost Elf, would not have the large, pointed ears of the Wood Elves: cold air would probably wreak havok on exposed skin, so smaller ears like Neve's would be less susceptible to frostbite. Neve gets a new body, which is always something rare in a line that's built on modularity like Mythic Legions. It's not drastically different from the existing unarmored female, seen on figures like Queen Urkzaa, but it's subtly broader, more muscular, and more cheesesteaky. Her clothing, such as it is, has an outstanding sculpt, with a layered leather bra with a wolf talisman in the center, fur-trimmed boots, bracelets of different styles on each arm, an armored butt, short plates over the hips, and a fancy belt that folds over itself, has a giant buckle, and a pouch hanging on one side. A small wolf skull hangs right over her belly, and the draping loincloth she wears has a rough texture. Also, she's sculpted with some wildly intricate braids of various thickness and style, because clearly the Horsemen had been watching Vikings on Amazon Prime. The colors definitely give her a "northern" vibe: it's all gray and blue and brown, and she's got pale skin. Her eyes are solid blue, and there are three stripes of blue paint streaked diagonally over her right eye. They even did all the hardware on her belts with crisp silver paint apps, plus two different shades of tan for the pouch she wears, beige with shading for the little loop of rope, a wash on the skull... beautiful work for something that is ostensibly almost a mass-market figure. The Mythic Legions articulation is getting upgraded, slowly, but Neve's new swole self still movies mostly the same as the old figures: balljointed head, hined neck, swivel/hinge shoulders and elbows, swivel/hinge wrists, a balljointed torso, balljointed waist, swivel/hinge hips, swivel/hinge knees, swivels at the boot tops, and swivel/hinge/swivel ankles. Her hair is so long and so thick that you can barely move the head at all, even moreso (less-so?) when you put on the big pauldrons, which have a hammered texture, large, short, square spikes, and raised edges with leather bindings that press right up against the braids. Fittingly for a viking lady, she's armed with a viking sword, a double-headed axe with a squarish handle and detailed leather wraps binding it all together, a wooden shield with a bear emblem in the center, and a "belt trinket." What's a belt trinket? It's a large golden disk with a hook at the top so it can hang on her belt. Yay? There's a second head, a knight's bucket helmet with flat horns that plug into the sides. Which is neat, but where does all her hair go when she's wearing it? You can't give a character an absolute mane of foot-thick hair and then have us believe she's just tucking it perfectly under a baseball cap, you know? She also includes seven arrows, which seems pointless for a character who doesn't include a bow; what is she supposed to do, just throw them at the enemy? Well, remember what we said about this figure taking more than two full years to go from solicitation to availability, and how easy it is to forget things in that time: there are holes in the body of the shield where the arrows can plug in, like she's been catching them all fight long. The promo photos made it clear that's what the arrows were for, I just literally forgot when I opened the figure and started playing around with her. Oddly, the shield has eight holes, so it feels like we're missing an arrow; plus, there are two blue arrows, two red arrows, two silver arrows, and one gold arrow; doesn't it feel like there should be one more in the set? Neve's story feels like the opposite of Jjuno's - she hated Attlus but ended up joining him, while Jjuno was raised by Attlus and ended up hating him. We're not getting full stories featuring all these people, so you're free to craft your own and create whatever rivalries you want among these secondary characters. Maybe Jjuno is the threat Neve had to save Attlus from? After all, with all the stock tropes Mythic Legions leans on, there's sure to be a Designated Girl Fight . But even as a standalone figure, the icy viking lady is a cool thing to have on her own, and the Horsemen have really done a terrific job on her. -- 03/21/26 What other physical differences do you think the elves have? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.