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Logan and Sabretooth

Wolverine 50th Anniversary
by yo go re

As regenerative mutants involved in the Weapon X program, Sabretooth and Logan's feud continues long after Logan's escape.

Not only is 2024 the 50th Anniversary of Wolverine's introduction, it's also the 30th anniversary of his first "civilian" action figure. Series 6 of ToyBiz's X-Men line featured characters like Rogue, Bonebreaker, Ch'od, and also the only off-duty Logan they made prior to Marvel Legends. Oh, it was repainted and rereleased a few times, but it was always the same basic figure, and we wouldn't see another until the X-Men movie line in 2000. There wasn't another comic version until 2005! So it's awfully thoughtful of Hasbro to give us one now.

Honestly, it hasn't been too long since they gave us the last one, though: remember, one of the "Ultimate Riders" sets was Logan in jeans and a tank top. But worry not, this is far from being a double-dip! Against all odds, Logan does own more than one set of clothes. This figure uses the same legs as that 2019 release, meaning the same jeans and the same boots. He's ready for cooler weather this time, wearing a red button-up. It may have the sleeves pushed up to the elbows and the buttons undone down to chest level, but it is in fact a shirt and not a sleeveless men's halter top. The shirt is dark red, with silver buttons, and there's hair printed on his arms and chest. The claws are the movie type, coming out between his knuckles instead of out of the backs of his hands, and his alternates (hands, not claws) are designed for holding: a wider left hand that looks deseperate to hold a beer bottle, not that there is such a thing in the 6" scale; and a narrower right hand meant to hold the included hand of playing cards, which I assumed was from Bullseye or Gambit or some similar source, but instead appear to be new? How about that!

The heads on this Logan are better than last time, too. Both are wearing cowboy hats, which is perfectly on-brand for Logan, and they've got subtle expressions: one sour, one smirking. If that's how you look when you're playing cards, man, you'd better work on your poker face! The hats are permanently attached, because there's no way to fit one over his hair, so the best you can do is swap heads from one of the many compatible releases if you want a different look for him. They could at least have been swappable among themselves, since they're two different styles: one brown with a dented crown, the other black with dimpled sides.

This set is ostensibly based on the famous Wolverine #10, the issue that first hinted both at Logan's longevity and his mysterious connection to Sabretooth. Its specialness has been diluted a bit over the years, but it's still a classic. And it also has jack all to do with this set.

Yes, the issue features Wolverine and Sabretooth, but it does not feature this Wolverine and this Sabretooth. This is a new version of the Jim Lee Sabretooth, a costume design that wouldn't even exist for two more years after Wolverine #10 was released. We've already had a figure of this look, and it was fine, but that was six years ago, so it's not like a new version is entirely unwelcome. It still would have been better to get the "Civilian Sabretooth" that was seen in the issue, since that would be something new, but you play the cards you're dealt.

Weirdly, this is a new mold - and it's gigantic! Like, the old figure was made on the biggest body available at the time, and that was a good choice: sizeable, big enough to loom over Wolverine,but not cartoonishly huge. This time, for no clear reason, they've made him on an extra-large body. "Size creep" is bad when it happens to the heroes, and it's bad when it happens to the villains, too. Making this Sabretooth too big in no way corrects for making the last Sabretooth too small - you don't get to average out your mistakes and pretend you did it right. (But credit where credit's due: at 7¼", this is still smaller than AoA Sabretooth, somehow?) In addition to the same clawed hands Venom had, he also gets a new pair in different poses. The entire forearm is new, in fact, because this time they've put his elbow-spikes on the gloves instead of on the actual elbow.

The figure includes two heads, one smiling sinisterly, and the other snarling angrily. They're nice, but imagine a world in which Hasbro's Sabretooths (Sabreteeth?) were even half as consistent as its Wolverines are, where every single one of them wasn't built on a different body at a different scale and you could trade heads around however you like. A world where competent art direction kept inconsistencies like this from happening in the first place. Also, rather than two heads with the same hair, it could have potentially been cool to get one from when later artists took over drawing this costume and gave him longer, straighter hair that hung down around the mask a bit. That would have been something different!

This set has even less to do with the comic that "inspired" it than the Lilandra set did, and that's saying something! This would have been a better set with nealy any other Sabretooth in it. The version seen in the inspiring comic? Better. A new version of his original costume? Better. "Ultimate" costume? Better. Some costume we haven't had before? Better. The existing toy version of this costume was fine, and less in-need of an improved release like this than others were. This is a quite good Sabretooth, especially for the fans who don't have any other Sabretooths, but it's not the best Hasbro could have made at this time and in this format.

-- 01/13/25


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