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A "retro" figure from 2016.
(Look, we'll stop hammering this joke into the ground when Hasbro stops trying to sell normal Marvel Legends on a Retro Collection card. If you're tired of seeing this? It's on them.)
When Francine Frye absorbs the powers of Electro, she uses the ability to manipulate electricity to transform from accomplice to supervillain.
Oh, so it turns out this isn't Max Dillon after HRT him him like a bus. You know, Titty Skittles. Breastmints. Femtanyl. Chicklets. Anticistamines. Tit-Tacs. Femme&M's. Antiboyotics. Francine was originally just a supervillain groupie - she'd sometimes hench for them, and sometimes make out with them. That's what she was doing with Max (during his blue face tattoos era) when his powers flared up and killed her. Whoops! [whoopsie! --ed.] She was eventually brought back to life, but being killed by Electro electrocuting her meant she was now attuned to his powers and was able to steal them from him. Sure, why not?
Fran was thrilled to finally be a real part of the supervillain community, rather than just a hireling, and took to her new role with gusto. So it makes sense that this Electro (they couldn't call her "Electra," because that name is already taken) would have a look of glee on her face behind that goofy mask. The face and the lightning bolts are molded separately, then glued together, for the best appearance of realistic depth achievable. It really does beat the alternative.
Her costume is not the same Electro wore,
but it does keep the general vibe: green suit, yellow lightning bolts, some black to break things up. She doesn't get any bolts on her gloves, and the ones on her boots are just a pattern, not something that actually sticks off the leg. Adding black sections around the knee and elbow areas really makes this costume feel uniquely hers, rather than just putting on Max's old clothes. The yellow paint for the "suspenders" is too thin to adequately cover te green plastic she's molded from, so the color there doesn't match the shoulders right next to it.
Although this looks like it could be nothing more than a reused body, that's not entirely the case. The arms and legs may be,
and even the chest, but those little pockets and belt section on her hips are molded onto the body, meaning that part at least had to be new. In an ideal world, the edges of every color in her costume would get an etched line - or at bare minimum the lightning on her chest - but we'll take what we can get. This costume is based on Marvel Puzzle Quest more than the comics, because that's the only time she's had both black and yellow on her legs - it's usually one or the other.
Although we know Hasbro has
"female hands shooting electricity" in its parts library, we don't get them here. Despite the fact Storm's powers don't work that way, but Electro's do. Instead, we get open hands, fists, and big actual bolts of blue lightning. New ones, molded from translucent plastic. They're pretty neat (even if they don't have any specific way to attach to the figure), but you could have done the electric hands too, Hasbro.
She-lectro's civilian last name, Frye, could be a reference to how she got fried to death in her first appearance, or to now-defunct big box store Fry's Electronics (she didn't have a last name until she got brought back, so it's available to be a reference to something). She eventually joined a villain team alongside Beetle and a couple other legacy names (plus White Rabbit for some reason, but somehow not Lady Stilt-Man?). And like them, she got demoted to "superfluous" status once the original version came back to life. So Francine Frye may not be much of a character, but that doesn't preclude her from being a good action figure.
-- 04/28/25
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