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Thanos

Avengers: Infinity War
by yo go re

Oh snap!

The Avengers are brought face to face with the cunning, intelligent, and fierce warlord, Thanos, a ruthless cosmic threat consumed with saving the universe from itself. To stop him, the Avengers must join forces with the Guardians of the Galaxy, Doctor Strange, and Spider-Man to bring down this villain who will stop at nothing to collect the Infinity Stones.

In the comics, Thanos first appeared in an issue of Iron Man in the '70s, before working his way up to be one of the top threats to the entire universe. Somewhere in between the two, he piloted a helicopter with his own name painted on the side, was defeated by the earth-shattering team of Spider-Man, Tigra, and a kid who likes ice cream, and was arrested by plain NYPD officers (which, judging by later appearances, would be the equivalent of sending mundane cops to arrest a forest fire, but hey, no one ever said comics had to make sense). Now he's a major movie star!

Thanos is the Build-A-Figure for the first series of Infnity War figures. Buy six of the seven of them - feeling free to ignore Iron Man - and you can assemble the Mad Titan. The pieces fit together with no trouble, leaving us with a figure that stands 8" tall, big enough to look Hulk in the eye.

In his previous MCU appearances (and even at the start of this movie), Thanos wore a cinematic equivalent of his comic-art armor, but as he collected more of the Infinity Stones, he realized he didn't need it any more, leaving us with a more casual look. Neighborhood Cookout Thanos! He has huge boots, some fairly plain pants, and a sleeveless blue shirt with a tail that hangs down over his butt. There's still a minor bit of armor on the knees, the top of the shoulders, and the belt, but definitely not as much as he'd normally wear. The shirt has a honeycomb-ish texture, the pants are sculpted with seams, and the boots look like they've actually been constructed from separate panels that wrap together to enclose the foot. Good stuff.

The head is less good. His appearance has changed quite a bit since first popping up in the mid-credits scene of Avengers 1, but this is absolutely the worst he's looked. For some horrible reason, they've sculpted him with the sort of smug, a-holish look that makes you just want to punch his goddamn face in like Punisher War Zone. If nothing else, at least he'll be appropriately hated. The wrinkles on his chin are matched by similar lines on his shoulders and elbows.

He's wearing the Infinity Gauntlet, which is detailed lovingly to look like the real thing - there are all the small armor details, plus the six gems. An Infinity Gauntlet famously appeared in Thor, but it was later declared fake - but was it? Think about it: in Ragnarok, Hela was angry that her father had given up his world-conquering ways; but what would have made him do that? Odin clearly knows about the Infinity Stones, since he has a glove all ready for them. Figure he was going through the process of collecting them, but when he found the Soul Stone, he wasn't willing to make the same sacrifice Thanos was; the experience changed Odin, mellowing him out somewhat, but he never told Hela what happened and so she felt betrayed.

Thanos moves at the ankles, knees, thighs, hips, waist, chest, neck, head, shoulders, biceps, elbows, and wrists. The fact that the left wrist (the one inside the gauntlet) moves in the same way as the right wrist is disappointing. You've worn large gloves before, haven't you? An oven mitt or some such? And when you turn your hand, does the upper part of the glove stay in place, or does it turn along with the hand? It turns with the hand, of course! Putting a swivel/hinge in the wrist for this toy doesn't work right. They should have just put a simple hinge in the wrist, and a swivel at the top of the glove; it would have been a lot better.

Of course, they also should have included an alternate "snap" hand, to compete with Figuarts'.

Thanos isn't a great BAF, but all the figures required to build him are nice new offerings, so you might end up with him anyway.

Captain America | Iron Spider | Proxima Midnight | Taskmaster | Songbird | Cobra

-- 07/19/19


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