John F. Walker & Sentry

Between Fantastic Four, Superman, and Thunderbolts*, 2025 was a great year for comicbook movies, huh? Every single one a winner! All three of them. All three superhero movies released in 2025. If someone says there was a fourth, they're probably imagining it. If there'd been a fourth, we'd definitely have some reviews of toys from it, right? Yeah. Yeah! So only three superhero movies in 2025, and they were all three great. Case closed! After losing the title of Captain America, John F. Walker must face the sins of his past when a covert mission turns into something much more sinister. So this figure is the same as the existing one, just painted properly this time. And so right away we see why Hasbro is selling these Thunderbolts figures in two-packs instead of individually: with no Build-A-Figure piece to help him sell, a solo John Walker would have been a king-tier shelfwarmer. And all the people who feel okay swapping toys would have bought him, put the old one in the box, and returned it. The fact the stripes are painted the right colors on the chest this time is an improvement, but other than that, you may have this USAgent already. The one exception being the head. Wyatt Russell looked like less of a doofus in the helmet this time, which may just be because no one chose to shoot him from an angle that made him look like a toothless old prospector. He's got a bit of a beard, though that could have been done on the old head just via paint. We know this is new, however, because he no longer has a stylized A star on his forehead; it's entirely smooth now. And so we presume the rest of the head was resculpted as well (though obviously it could have just been a tweak to the digital file). He's got the same hands as before (two open, two fists), but also gets something new: his shield! It's not the homemade one he carried in the TV show, but it is a new mold: it has rings sculpted in it, not limited to only the ones that are painted red, and details that suggest attachment points for straps on the back, but there's no star in the center. It's a big disc with a hinged clip on the reverse that allows you to put it on his arm or his back, but you know from watching the movie another version they could have given him. Also, alternate heads would have rocked, since he got self-conscious when Widow commented on his "hat": one just unmasked, one wearing his beret. Like we said, this is a two-pack. And the second figure is the most desirable in the line. Beneath the surface, the seemingly ordinary yet mysterious Robert Reynolds holds the power to become the Sentry, the strongest hero the world has ever known. Sentry is not a character you'd ever expect to see in the MCU - power level beyond Superman when the former upper limit was Thor, the need to deal with his psychological issues, etc. - but they not only made it work, they did a terrific job with him. It was a small movie, very personal, despite the scope of Sentry's fantastic abilities, and he was written so well it made the comics version more understandable in retrospect. Like, the books always try to make him feel uneasy and off-kilter, but he usually comes across as mopey: MCU Sentry depicts him skillfully. Originally, Sentry was going to be played by Steven Yeun, but he had to drop out when the writers' and actors' strikes in 2023 pushed the movie back a year. His replacement, Lewis Pullman, looks enough like Yeun that it's easy to imagine what might have been; like, when they couldn't get the guy they wanted, they picked his less-famous white boy equivalent. His costume is a wonderful "MCU-ization" of his standard look: yellow suit, blue details, big belt buckle with a giant S shape on it, all that. But then for the big screen it's got that usual sort of highly-textured texture and lots of little thin lines running all over the place. It's very much in the style of every other hero... which makes sense when you learn in the film it's been specifically designed by committee to create a hero to take the place of the absent Avengers in the public's mind. Visual storytelling, baby! Given the way Hasbro does its paint these days, you probably won't be too terribly shocked to learn the lines are only painted on the front, not the back. The cape hides that, though. Sentry includes relaxed open hands and closed fists, with the former looking slightly large on the arm - possibly an effect of having the bright pink skin immediately next to the dark blue bracers. The wrists are swivel/hinges, joining double-hinged elbows, swivel biceps, swivel/hinge shoulders, a barbell head, balljointed chest, balljoint hips, swivel thighs, double-hinge knees, and swivel/hinge ankles. No shins, of course, but the shape of these boots wouldn't really be conducive to that, anyway. The cape's flexible, but still stiff enough that it will just jut out behind him when you pose the figure. There are only two Thunderbolts two-packs, but this is the better one - of the four figures Hasbro's made, Sentry is the only one who doesn't already have an MCU action figure. He'd be primed for a really simple repaint, too, if Hasbro wanted. The movie was great, but not so good that it made me excited to buy a bunch of characters I already had, I may pick up the Black Widow/Red Guardian set eventually, and I've already got a Ghost, Taskmaster, and Bucky, but Sentry is the biggest draw. Lucky for me USAgent is an upgrade over the older one, too. -- 12/01/25 Which of 2025's only three superhero movies was best? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.