WWII Wolverine/Final Battle Deadpool

While the fanboys were busy bitching about all the things (they felt) X-Men Origins: Wolverine did wrong, they conveniently managed to gloss over all the things the movie did right. After the traumatic manifestation of his bone claws, James Howlett and his half-brother Victor traveled the world and found themselves in the middle of the Civil War, World War I, World War II and even Vietnam. Love it or hate it, the stated goal of Paul Jenkins' Origin series was to tell Logan's backstory before the movies decided to make one up, and at that it succeeded. Succeeded so well, in fact, that when the movies finally did get around to his story, they just lifted what Origin had done and called it a day. We also got to see some of the history the comics have always hinted at, such as his service in WWII. This figure, WWII Wolverine, was a Toys Я Us exclusive, though the majority of the mold was used for the Series 29 variant - it just had a lighter olive drab color. Logan is unmasked, of course, and his face is painted with the movie-style stubble. His hair was originally used with Series 26's Special Ops Wolverine, but it fits the old-timey 'do seen in the movie. You have your choice of two ways to display Logan. There's the stripped-down, plain Minimate body, which has been painted to look like a normal uniform complete with open collar, undershirt and chest hair; the second choice is a soldier in full battle rattle, wearing a heavy coat, weapons belt, bandolier and backpack. There's even a helmet you can give him, if you want, and there's hair painted on the head so he doesn't look bald wearing it. You get your choice of plain or clawed hands, of course, but while this is clearly pre-adamantium Wolvie (the claws are painted like bone, rather than metal), the sculpt is not the bony version seen before. His final accessory is a Tommy gun that first came with Sgt. Rock. Created with DNA from multiple mutants captured by William Stryker, the assassin formerly known as Deadpool utilized advanced teleportation, regeneration, optic blasts and even Adamantium wrist-blades in his unsuccessful attempt to destroy Wolverine. As we've mentioned before, in the comics Deadpool's origin was that the Weapon X program was trying to artificially re-create Logan's healing ability. The movie did the same thing - it just added a few other mutants' powers into the mix. That's not a substantial change by any stretch of the imagination. But oh no, he looked different, so bitchy fanboys just whined and whined. Granted, Wade's new look is pretty extreme. He's bare-chested, which shows off all the surgical guide marks drawn on his body to control the placement of the adamantium injections. He's wearing red pants and black shoes, a nod to his comic colors (which is more than any of the X-Men ever got). This figure is missing the bandages all over his forearms, but is that really so terrible? One thing that did seem wrong about Deadpool was the length of the swords in his arms: there's no way he'd ever be able to bend them. This figure skirts that issue by giving him the same hands as Wolverine. Seriously, this is just one of the bladed Wolverine hands, with the two outside claws removed - you can tell by looking at the backs of his hands. You can just imagine some poor factory worker sitting there snipping off claws all day long. The head is good. Deadpool is appropriately bald, and Art Asylum gave him a head without one of the peg-holes in the top. The wounds around his eyes suggest the shapes on his (comicbook) mask, and his mouth is appropriately absent - there are just some thin lines painted there, to suggest slightly wrinkled skin used to seal his lips. There isn't much of a Ryan Reynolds likeness, since all we get are eyes. As store-exclusives go, this one is pretty good. You get two new characters that aren't available anywhere else. Wolverine has neat accessories, and this is the only way to get "final battle" Deadpool. Don't listen to the nitwits - the movie characters are true to the comics, and these figures are true to the movie. -- 12/27/10

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