Marvel Legends The Raft Review SDCC

Marvel Legends SDCC Exclusive The Raft Review

These sets just keep getting bigger and bigger, don’t they? The six-inch Marvel Legends box set has become a staple San Diego Comic Convention exclusive. We as collectors expect it, and as the con gets closer we start drooling in anticipation of the reveal. This year’s exclusive set a new record for the number of included figures with six characters: Spider-Man, Purple Man, Abomination, Sandman, Dreadknight, and Enchantress. The box is modeled after The Raft, a super-villain prison located near Ryker’s Island.

Marvel Legends The Raft Review SDCC

I remember receiving the Thunderbolts set and marveling over how long the box was. Thanks for topping yourself, Hasbro, and making this one almost three feet long! It really is a beautiful box too, and I want to hold onto it like I did with last year’s Book of Vishanti. The artwork on the front flap is beautiful, depicting all the characters that come in the box set including Spider-Man crawling across the enclosed jail cells. When you flip the box open there is additional art of Electro, Eel, and Hobgoblin (all Marvel Legends characters recently released as well) broken out of their cells on the level above. It’s a great presentation, but do I really want to put an empty box in storage? Yeah, I do.

Marvel Legends The Raft Review SDCC

An interesting tangent on this set is that a bunch of the characters included will be seen in upcoming waves. This is quite a departure from past years where most of the figures in a set would only be found there. A lighter colored Abomination is the build-a-figure for the third Captain America: Civil War wave that is shipping right now. Enchantress will be slightly recolored and appear in the Dr. Strange Legends wave in October. Spider-Man is the “Pizza Spidey” mold with a darker McFarlane deco and new Spider-Man logos painted on his chest and back. I’m going to go out on a limb, and say that Sandman will most likely be the build-a-figure for the next Spider-Man wave.

Marvel Legends The Raft Sandman Review SDCC

That leaves us with two guys who will probably stay exclusive to this box set, Purple Man and Dreadknight. They both take advantage of heavy reuse. Purple Man is a recolored Chameleon with a new head, and Dreadknight’s body is 90% Hobgoblin from the current Spider-Man wave. Could these guys hold their own as a single release? I suppose. We have had characters like Eel and Blizzard so anything is possible, however, I wouldn’t hold my breath for these two.

Purple Man:

Ah, the star of Jessica Jones finally gets his first Marvel Legends figure! Now this isn’t Netflix based, so we actually get a purple Purple Man. Not that Scottish ninny from the show. As I previously mentioned, Purple Man dons the Chameleon body and includes a new head. If you are lucky, maybe yours won’t show up with as much outward warping as mine had. That’s two suited guys in a row I’ve had with badly warped legs, sad!

Abomination:

I got my hands on this box set prior to building the Civil War wave’s build-a-figure, so dark green Abomination was my first look at the mold. I really had my heart set on loving the Toy Biz Abomination (from the crab-Onslaught series) and never having to replace it, but here we are. I like the look and more streamlined body of this Abomination mold better. It’s hard to look past the eyesore of those giant ball hips and the lack of an ab-crunch on the old figure. The dark green is really nice too, however, I’m a bigger fan of the light green detailing on the build-a-figure version.

Spider-Man:

If you like Pizza Spidey, you’ll probably dig this one. The only downside is that they didn’t include any extra hands or pizza slices. This isn’t a problem if you are like me and have six or seven extra Pizza Spideys lying around to swap hands with … but most normal people don’t.

I’ve read some contention towards this Spider-Man as being filler in the box set. I get that, however, consider this – would you want a single carded release of such a minor repaint? I think this actually works better as part of a box set release than people give it credit.

Sandman:

Here’s the second build-a-figure sized character in the box set. Sandman had a really fun Toy Biz release that came with all types of arm attachments and a neat textured body.

You aren’t getting any accessories or sand-like texture here, unfortunately. He’s almost entirely a reuse of the Absorbing Man mold from earlier this year, with a new and absolutely fantastic head. His entire body is painted in a brown “sand” color scheme, which leads me to the conclusion that next year’s Spider-Man wave will include a green shirt, regular colored build-a-figure. His arms are easily removable, so hopefully the proper release will include some fun alternate appendages.

Dreadknight:

The Dreadknight is fun because I don’t know all that much about him, but regardless I love getting those obscure Marvel villains! His body is the Space Venom wave’s Hobgoblin with some new parts like the head, belt, and cape. He’s also one of the few figures in this wave to include accessories! He comes packed with a sword and his lance.

Enchantress:

Check another “most wanted” off the list this year! As I mentioned earlier, if you missed this set, don’t yet fret as she’ll be available single carded with a slightly different color scheme in the Dr. Strange Legends set dropping in October. My first concern after freeing Enchantress from her Raft prison was if she would have trouble standing in those heels. I’m happy to report that she stands a lot better than I expected! She’s not going to hit those more athletic, Spider-Man poses, but she stands on my desk just fine. In fact she’s been standing there for weeks now … the only time she did fall was when I kicked my desk by mistake, but literally everything on there fell then. Including my monitor, crap …

My final thoughts are that this is a fantastic set! It has a whole load of first time villains to the line along with a Spider-Man that, while probably not necessary, is quite welcome. While past SDCC box sets contained a majority of “exclusive” figures, this one only has a couple. This could be a good thing for those fans that may have missed it at the convention or the after-convention sale at Hasbrotoyshop. Prices of the set will probably settle at a reasonable price eventually, and if you don’t want the entire box set the subsequent single releases shouldn’t be hard to track down either.

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