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Take 2!
Some fans were upset that Thanos, in Infinity War, took off his armor and wore more casual clothes while he was collecting the Infinity Stones. Well of course he did; after he got two of the stones and tested himself by beating up the Hulk, he knew he no longer needed it. Stripping that stuff off is the mad Titanian warlord equivalent of taking your bra off when you get home.
But hey, it is a cool design, so we're not about to complain that Hasbro has taken the opportunity to have a crack at it - even if it does mean we're probably never going to get a BAF Eitri.
"Warrior" Thanos (as he was called by the writers,
since violent, emotional 2014 Thanos was not as mellow and philosophical as 2018 Thanos) is the Build-A-Figure for the first series of Endgame figures. Buy six of the seven figures and you can assemble the whole dude - neither the standard nor exclusive Captains America come with any pieces, so you can ignore those if you want. The full figure stands nearly 8¼" tall, since he has more clothes on than the other BAF.
You can see a bit of that "more emotional" thing right there on the face: instead of being calm yet smug, this one is gritting his teeth in furious anger. Maybe his helmet pinches his head? Would Thanos have not gone around slaughtering whole populations [half populations --ed.] if only he'd bought a hat that fit him properly, instead of the one he thought was prettiest?
Only one part of this figure is shared with the previous one, and that's the left forearm - aka, the side that's wearing
the Infinity Gauntlet. It honestly would have been nice if they'd provided an alternate arm just wearing his normal armor, because then it could have stood in for a Guardians of the Galaxy version of Thanos and you could have him sit around and berate Ronan. And also because he never wore the Gauntlet and the armor together in the movie.
Thanos, in the comics, doesn't traditionally wear much armor - it's really just that big golden pad on his shoulders. Jim Cheung's Infinity redesign attempted to fix this by making the rest of the suit look like it's made from metal instead of cloth, but it still looked like the existing art. Passed the squint test. Movie Thanos does have big flared shoulder pads, but that's where the parallels end.
The armor is fairly impressive, you must admit. Lots of intricate, operlapping plates that were designed to fit the MCU's visual vocabulary, and have been sculpted accurately for this toy. It covers nearly all of his body,
as armor typically does, leaving only a little bit of skin on his arms exposed. It's all gold and brown, lacking the blue that's been his signature color for 40-some years. The actual GotG movie armor did have some blue to it (at least, judging by the Hot Toys release), so why change the design now? Was it related to the way they kept altering the purple of his skin over the years, trying to make him look right? Just turning most of the brown parts to blue would have helped things. Made him look more "Thanos-y."
Like a DC Direct figure, Thanos does not have a waist. All the other usual Marvel Legends articulation is present, which means our complaint about the articulation in the gloved hand is the same as it was last time: rather than putting a swivel/hinge at the wrist,
it should have had a swivel at the top of the glove and a hinge at the wrist. Or alternately, since the hand can pop out of the arm so easily, they should have given us something other than a reused fist; this would have been a perfect opportunity to release a "snapping" hand or a relaxed hand or a fist with no stones in the glove at all. Something other than what we already had.
One thing we didn't have for sure was Thanos' big double-sword thing. Its sharp sides face in opposite directions, so it can cut through his enemies in multiple directions as he spins it arou... wait a minute. Wait a minute. A long blade with the thinner edges on alternate sides, rather than both facing the same direction? Like a helicopter blade would be? Holy crap, did Endgame use Thanos' big scary weapon to reference the Thanoscopter!? That may be the wildest Easter egg ever.
Seeing this Build-A-Figure before Endgame opened, it wasn't a very interesting choice for BAF. But the Thanos in that movie is not the same character who was in Infinity War, so seeing the movie definitely made the toy more appealing. There were other choices for BAF available - an Outrider, a Chitauri, etc. - but it's not surprising Hasbro went with the big guy himself.
Ronin | Ebony Maw | Living Laser | Nighthawk | Citizen V | Hercules
-- 07/29/19
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