Gilgamesh

In those days, in those distant days... The strongest and kindest Eternal, Gilgamesh becomes Thena's de facto partner when the events of the past exile them from the other Eternals. Holy crap, we've done it again! For a brief time years ago, Hasbro included little printed pieces of info about their Build-A-Figures, but that didn't last long - that's why every BAF we've reviewed since has had a note in the review about where we found the bio text for it. (Usually trading cards or old ToyBiz releases of the same character; anything to avoid doing any work ourselves!) But after eight years of us complaining that even vastly obscure characters don't get any info telling fans who they are, the Eternals figures finally change that, printing that text up above in multiple languages on the back of every package. Change achieved! Gilgamesh is the Build-A-Figure for the Eternals movie series of Marvel Legends. There are seven figures in the series (nine if you count the store exclusives), but you only need to buy six to complete the BAF - Ikaris is apparently too important to need help selling, unlike the other half dozen characters. Get those, get the pieces, put them together, and you have a figure who's one-third man, two-thirds god. Izdubar! Gilgamesh is, of course, the oldest piece of human literature we currently have, dating back 4,000 years. It's a big adventure story, with a flawed hero, an enemy who's his equal, friendships forged in battle, and the need to team up to fight a worse foe. It's basically everything you'd find in a modern blockbuster, suggesting that humans have always loved the same kind of stuff in their stories. When he first appeared in the comics, he was a shunned Eternal known as "The Forgotten One," sentenced to live apart from the rest because he insisted on constantly interacting with humans. At the time, he wore a tattered loincloth and had wraps around his wrists and shins; Sprite created a costume for him, a head-to-toe silver suit with purple piping, and he operated under the simple name "Hero." He eventually joined the Avengers, whereupon he got a new god-awful costume featuring a gold-plated shirt and a helmet representing the Bull of Heaven. Yeesh. Thankfully he was written out of the book soon after. The movie costume keeps the gold, mixing it with a lot of green. There is no effort to make this costume look even a bit like the comic ones, unless you want to count the existence of a short loincloth. Given the things he's worn in the comics, that's probably for the best. The suit gets a bit thicker on the shoulders, like armor, and thinner around the knees because he needs flexibility. Like the rest of the characters, he's covered in the swirls and circles that seem to be this film's big visual signifier. Gil is played by Ma Dong-seok, the beef hammer himself. Yes, he's Korean, not Sumerian, but some things must change. The likeness is decent, though the head should probably be slightly rounder. And on that note, the body should be thicker, too. He's a huge guy, he should be swole AF. He's got the Photo Real face printing, including his little beard. The figure has the same articulation as the rest of the line: swivel/hinge ankles, double-hinged knees, swivel thighs, balljointed hips, balljointed chest, swivel/hinge wrists, double-hinged elbows, swivel biceps, swivel/hinge shoulders, and a barbell-jointed head. It's enough to get him into plenty of ass-beating poses, especially since you get your choice of fists or open hands for him. Is he going to grab someone, or just knuckle-slam them into paste? The first trailer for Eternals really did nothing to make the movie look interesting - the "Marvel Studios" name can sell a lot of things, but a bunch of pretty people standing in a field or sitting in a mud hut ain't it. The most recent previews look a lot better, but the toys are still rather uninspiring. The Black Widow toys came out way before their movie, leaving everyone scrambling to find Yelena Belova after she was long sold out; Target put the Shang-Chi series on clearance only a week or two after it shipped, and before anyone knew how much audiences were going to love it. So now we've got Eternals, the ultimate in untested properties, and we can't blame anyone who wants to wait to see the movie before dropping money on the figs, especially since the price has officially gone up 10% now. It's hard to justify $22.99 for characters you've never heard of. The quality's good, but they don't sell themselves. Makkari | Sprite | Sersi | Phastos | Kingo | Druig -- 11/01/21