Maggott

Wow, he blue! Maggott's mutant power is his two giant slugs, Eanie and Meanie, that serve as his digestive system. Of all the X-characters to get an action figure, Maggott has to be one of the most improbable. By the time he was introduced in 1997's Uncanny X-Men #345, ToyBiz's tendency to make literally anyone into a toy had slowed considerably, so he never got a figure released back then; and since he failed to catch on as a character (yet another generically cocky/moody guy with a mysterious past, he was gone from the team within a year), the only merch he's ever had was a HeroClix in 2020. But hey, Hasbro makes it all the way to a tenth series of X-Men Legends, they're going to need some unexpected characters to fill the boxes. Maggott was created by Scott Lobdell and Joe Madureira, but they left the X-books soon after, leaving the character unndefined. Like, Joe Kelly eventually revealed that Maggott was South African, but if you read those early appearances, he's clearly meant to be Australian. Subsequent artists weren't even consistent on making his skin periwinkle! There was no indication in those early issues that Maggott's size was anything but normal; it was only after the creative team left that we learned he bulked up like this when his powers were active (and that's another thing no one was ever consistent on). This figure is mostly made from Hercules' molds, with new arms and a new coat. Joe Mad's anime influences are showing in the giant shoulder pads with their inexplicable raised discs, a feature lightly echoed by the studded kneepads. The pauldrons only connect at the top, not all the way around, so they won't prevent his arms from moving very far. Perhaps the thing that most obviously marks Maggott as a late-90s creation, even more than having a misspelt word as a name or his weird powers, is his colorscheme. Blue and yellow and purple? That just screams "1997." If he'd been created five years earlier, he'd have looked like a Sweetheart "Jazz" cup. Since this torso was originally bare, his white shirt is simply painted on the torso, meaning it's tight enough to reveal his belly button; maybe it's what he was wearing when he was still in his Bruce Banner size? His accessories are his robotic slugs, Eanie and Meanie. Or Eany and Meany. Or Eeny and Meeny. Or-- Look, the spelling of their names has been as inconsistent as everything else about Maggott. They are impressively detailed, with their little metal bodies supported by numerous tiny legs, and three red eyes on the front of their faces. They're unarticulated, but one is posed to sit on his shoulder, and the other to curl around his arm - in other words, exactly the way the three of them were posed in their first on-panel appearance. Neat! This series' Build-A-Figure is Bonebreaker, and Maggott includes the head and a gun. If Lobdell and Madureira had stayed on the book, would Maggott have been as reviled as he was? They were the ones who created him, so theoretically they would have treated him with more care. Fans didn't like him because he looked goofy and his personality was grating - exactly the same reasons fans in the 1970s were writing letters to the book every month pleading for Wolverine to be removed from the team. It takes the right creative team to make a character good, and in the floundering end-of-decade X-books, Maggott never got that chance. Attitudes have softened over the years, so now instead of being hated and mocked, he's just considered weird and a bit silly. Still one of the most outlandish choices for a Marvel Legend ever, but not one that's unwelcome. -- 09/12/22