Guess Blackheart wasn't the last ToyBiz figure that needed to be redone.
A mysterious gem transforms astronaut
Colonel John Jameson into the Man-Wolf and draws him to the Other Realm, where Man-Wolf is treated as the all-powerful Stargod.
Man-Wolf is an example of character creation by committee. Stan Lee decided that if Marvel could have both a real vampire in Dracula and a sci-fi vampire in Morbius, then they could also have a real lycanthrope in Werwolf by Night and a sci-fi lycanthrope as well. He decreed this new character should be called "Man-Wolf," and told his writers to get busy creating it. Roy Thomas came up with the idea that the character should be powered by a moon rock, and Gerry Conway suggested they make the character J. Jonah Jameson's son, since he was already an astronaut and therefore would have a reason to come in contact with moon rocks. And thus the character we know today finally coalesced.
When ToyBiz did their Man-Wolf, it was him in his "villain" mode, wearing the tattered remains of John Jameson's astronaut uniform containment suit and having no real accessories
(just a backpack to hold the batteries that make his light-up action feature work). This figure isn't an update of that, but rather a later look. A few years after getting empowered, John Jameson swung from sci-fi to fantasy when he learned the stone that turned him into the Man-Wolf was actually the crystallized lifeforce of a god from another dimension, who had transported himself to Earth's moon to peacefully die. With the Stargod's absence, evil forces were free to rise to power in Other Realm, so natives of that world came looking for the stone. Since it had bonded with John, they brought him there and he became the world's new champion. They gave him armor and weapons, and he became the new Stargod.
Looking at photos when this figure was first revealed, I thought it was going to reuse the Jack O'Lantern molds, for that scalemail torso if nothing else, but I was wrong: this is new stuff!
For one thing, the Godstone is sculpted right onto the chest, so that would have required new tooling anyway. The small golden pauldrons don't match anything anyone's worn before, and although the thin band around his right bicep is separate, the ornate bracers he wears aren't. Plus, he has sculpted fur, which you won't notice until you see him in person. His folded boots look like they could have come from a Captain America, but they're new, too. And certainly no one's ever worn golden foot-straps that let their big, furry claws poke out the front!
The colors on this figure are much better than the 2006 one. Man-Wolf's fur has generally been agreed to be white (there are a few
books where the colorist didn't know what they were doing and erroneously made him brown), but ToyBiz's made him gray with darker shadows, perhaps in an effort to copy the limited comicbook coloring. Hasbro's is pure white, contrasting agsinst the dark green and the golden accents of his armor. His eyes are red with gold pupils, have black fur immediately around them, and the interior of his mouth is pink. When ToyBiz tried to paint Man-Wolf's nose black, the paint somehow missed and ended up as a dark smudge on top of the snout; no such issue here!
Articulation is mostly good, but as usual these days Hasbro has dropped the shin joints for no good reason. The way the feet are designed makes them look like the toes would be hinged, but they're not. The
sholder armor sits very close to the arm, but is still designed to move with the articulation very nicely. His neck is a long barbell with a ruff of fur concealing it, but I can't really tell which direction the piece is supposed to go; having the "duck tail" curve either in the front or the back both seem to work (or not work) equally well. The wolf head gets an articulated jaw, but the moveable piece can fall out of the head too easily.
In addition to new clothing, the residents of Other Realm gave Man-Wolf new weapons. He gets an existing bow and arrow, but his quiver is new and specific to him, then
a set of five arrows all molded together on a sprue that can be folded in half and fit into the quiver. It's an unusual way of doing things, but not awful. Then he gets what is supposed to be "the sacred sword of Stargod," but it's not: this is just the same mold as Baron Zemo's sword. Which is close enough, sure, but not perfect. The one in the comics had a wolf's head pommel and a wolf emblem on the blade, and this one doesn't. This is Hasbro - the company that's done perfectly comic-accurate versions of Dracula's sword, Excalibur, the Ebony Blade, Dragonfang... lots of things! And yet not the sword included with this extra-priced figure.
Yes, extra price. Even above the already inflated Marvel Legends cost, because it's a Magic the Gathering release and
apparently Hasbro thinks a single Magic card is worth $20? I haven't played Magic in years, but I have friends who do, and I'm pretty sure they're not paying $20 per card to do it. You know, when Marvel wanted to promote its collectible card game, ToyBiz just included a free Vs. card in the Marvel Legends packaging along with all the regular accessories and extras. Just sayin'.
There are four figures in this first ML MtG set, all related to Spider-Man, and all but one get some pretty substantial new molds. Man-Wolf was the one I was most excited about about, preordering him as soon as he went up. I'm disappointed in the price, but not in the figure itself. Who knows, maybe you'll get lucky and they'll re-release this mold again later in a line that doesn't justify nearly doubling its pricetag because it's got a 3" cardboard rectangle with it.
-- 10/20/25
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