Angel

The highflying Angel assists in the fight against Dark Phoenix and other threats to the X-Men, using his wings to take the battles to the sky. Huh. What an odd choice of story to reference. Like, I know Angel is a nothing character with no personality or memorable moments (keeping in mind that sentence said "Angel" and not "Archangel"), but why out of all the stories he's ever been in would you pick "Dark Phoenix" to reference? He had left the team by the time The Phoenix Saga started; not only is he not involved in the fight against her, he's not even in the same timezone where the fight is taking place! He just shows up at the end to be taken to the moon by the Shi'ar. At which point he fails to account for the lesser gravity and immediately flaps himself into the pure vacuum of space. Good job, Angel, this is why no one ever wants you on their team. Hasbro continues its trend of changing things that don't need to be changed. You know why every Google product eventually starts to suck? It's because, in order to get promoted in the company, you have to demonstrate that you led a substantial development project; and while actually creating anything new is hard, pushing a god-awful new interface for Gmail or mucking with Reader until it's so unusable it has to be shut down is easy. So you've got managers making change for change's sake, which is never good, and we have to wonder if Hasbro has the same kind of situation going on? There have been three previous Warren Kenneth Worthington the Thirds, and they all used the same body. Good, that's how it should be. And now here's the fourth, mostly using this newer body, suggesting that the person it represents has grown several inches and somehow managed to deform his thigh muscles. That said, we do get some good innovation, as well. The previous Warrens all had their wings attach vis a little backpack piece - something that worked fine when we were talking Archangel, but did not work as well for Insignificant Angel (in case you didn't realize: the "arch" in "archangel" is the same as the "arch" in "arch-enemy," meaning "superseding others in importance or status"). This figure changes that by molding his a new upper torso piece, which has two large holes on the shoulderblades for the wings to plug into. And wow, what wings they are! The last time there was a plain Angel, his wings were solid, unarticulated pieces, which wasn't even as good as ToyBiz had managed a decade prior - at least theirs could flap! This new Angel, though, has the best wings we've ever seen on an action figure. The usual plan, whether from good or bad companies, is to have some sort of joint where the wings meet the body, and then a single swivel in the middle to allow them to spread awkwardly. Whoever designed these wings, however, has really upped the game! They still have a swivel/hinge where they go into the body, and they still only have a single swivel where they can spread. However, in an example of "so simple, yet so clever and so effective," each wing has a third piece in the middle, allowing them to spread even farther out without needing to sacrifice the shape or leaving a weird gap in the center. It's beautiful work, and really helps this figure's $35 pricetag not feel as egregious. Plus, even when the pieces are plugged in firmly, the hinge sits far enough away from the body that you can slightly fold the wings around him in a somewhat natural manner. Outstanding! The costume Angel is wearing is a blend of a couple different looks. It's a red suit wite a white stripe down the center, and white gloves and boots. When he first got this costume, in Champions #8, its boots and gloves were yellow, and they stayed that way while he was with the X-Men; they were white when he was with the Defenders (appearing on the cover of issue #124, but not in the actual book until a month later), but at that point the stripe didn't continue down onto his legs, or onto his back. So consider this a "greatest hits" version. This figure comes with two heads: one staid, the other flashing his winning smile. Remember, Angel is canonically one of the most beautiful men in the world (at least, Callisto thought so), so it makes sense he'd beat Gambit to the "open-scalped cowl with fully exposed face" punch by 21 years. I guess in addition to the wings, Warren also has the mutant power of super vanity! The mask on the smiling head comes all the way down onto the nose, instead of stopping at his eyebrows like the other one does. Angel himself is a fine toy, but it's the introduction of these wings that's the real excitement here. Just think of all the characters they could use these to make, like... like, uh... well, they could at least make our first figure of Mimic, either in his "original X-Men" or "Exiles" or "Dark X-Men" incarnations (though that first one would also require Beast-sized hands and feet, which Hasbro doesn't have yet). -- 06/03/24

Tweet