I believe it’s fair to say that we’ve been a little spoiled this year with our X-Men Marvel Legends releases. The past two years we’ve gotten one dedicated build-a-figure wave, with maybe an exclusive peppered in at one point or another. This year’s official wave hasn’t even hit stores yet, but the wait has been alleviated a bit with Deadpool getting his own series. If you can cut around all of the Deadpool fat, his waves almost feel like X-Men expansion packs since they include additional mutants to add to the collection like Cable, Bishop, and Omega Red.
While Deadpool is a nice distraction, it’s time to take a look at the real mutant wave for 2018, the X-Men Marvel Legends Apocalypse build-a-figure wave! We’re going to rank these bad boys and girls from worst to first in a two part series. So sit back and enjoy part one:
8. Gladiator
It’s never a good omen when I have to look on the back of the box in order to recall that Gladiator was the one figure I was missing from this list.
Gladiator as a figure is fine. The problem is that as a long-time collector I already have him from the 2014 San Diego Comic Convention Exclusive ‘Thanos Imperative’ box set. Interestingly enough, we’ve actually seen a reissue of ever character in that set (Star-Lord, Medusa, Black Bolt, and Gladiator) except for Blastaar. Hasbro has been making it a pretty common occurrence to repurpose a SDCC figure for an exclusive or cheap fill-in for a wave. Sadly, they tend to ignore the 2012 ‘Uncanny X-Force’ set when making these plans.
As you can see above, sculpt-wise there is no difference between the two. The SDCC Gladiator has a much more shiny paint finish and the plastic is glossy. New Gladiator has a more matte finish both with the paint and the plastic. I really couldn’t tell you which one is better because I don’t think I care enough. Ultimately, I imagine that the new one will join the ranks of Paladin and King Cobra in being very easy to find. So if you are in need of a Gladiator, this new one will likely be the more affordable option.
As I mentioned above, Gladiator is fine. But as far as I’m concerned, I already had him and didn’t really need another.
7. Sabretooth
Rating this one so low hurts me a bit because I’ve wanted a good Jim Lee Sabretooth for a LONG ASS TIME.
And that isn’t to say that this figure is bad. Nothing in this wave is truly bad, but there certainly are characters that did not live up to my expectations. I have two glaring issues with Sabretooth that I’ve found any amount of posing or maneuvering can’t really hide: the head sits a little too high on the neck and I wish they’d used something besides the Hyperion body.
The Hyperion body mold needs to be retired. I don’t like it at all, and it’s really hard to find any great poses with it. It’s no coincidence that the bottom two figures on this list use it. However, I am really interested in the upcoming Omega Red body, which is an all new bulky body. Would it be a better fit for Sabretooth? And well … that sure would be disappointing if it is, seeing as we won’t likely get a redo any time soon.
Sabertooth also doesn’t come with any accessories or alternate parts. I honestly wouldn’t have minded some fists, at least. Perhaps a more smug, closed-mouth head would have been a great extra as well. Nevertheless!
6. Multiple Man
Multiple Man, Multiple Man, doing the things a multiple can …
I’ve wanted a Jamie Madrox figure ever since Hasbro mocked one up for the fan vote back in 2009. On one hand I’m sad because we didn’t get that modern version. On the other hand I’m elated they chose not to use the Ultimate Nick Fury body he was originally mocked up on … even if we still got the coat. That coat is almost ten years old now! The Bucky Cap base body that Multiple Man uses isn’t even that old.
There is a lot to like about Multiple Man. He comes with three heads that reflect the different personalities he may have when he replicates himself. While they are the only accessories, I will always give extra heads a higher “value weight” than stuff like guns or weapons.
Overall, I’m thrilled to have Multiple Man, but he’s not really lighting my world on fire. He’s going to make a great addition to my shelf, but I don’t think I’m going to be getting multiple Multiple Men unless they hit a serious discount.
5. Psylocke
Shouldn’t Betsy have purple hair?
Psylocke is one of those characters that was really ready for a modern update. Her Toy Biz release is one of their better female figures, but it looks like hot crap compared to anything on the current Hasbro female body. There is, of course, the SDCC X-Force version that uses an acceptable, but outdated Hasbro mold. On top of that, for the price it fetches on the secondary market, if you don’t already own that figure you probably never will.
While the figure is good, it’s the accessories that really make her. She includes her telepathic mask, psychic knife, telekinetic katana, and an energy “smoke” effect. I actually REALLY like the smoke effect because it can be removed from the katana to be used elsewhere. For instance, if you pop off her fist you can slide the effect around her wrist, which makes it look like the psychic knife is permeating energy. Sadly, she doesn’t come with alternate hands so the knife can only be used with her left hand and the sword her right.
The mask easily slides onto her face and holds well. I’m just not entirely sure that I love it.
One more thing about the hair. It’s entirely possible that when these hit wide release we could see a running change to the color of her hair, similar to how Mysterio’s head went from green to white. This wave is allegedly going to start showing up around August of 2018, so only time till tell.
Well that brings us to the end of Part One of X-Men Apocalypse Build-A-Figure’s Worst to First. Check back soon (maybe tomorrow? maybe not?) as I rate the top four from this Marvel Legends wave!
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Asian Psylocke was at least originally intended to have black hair. Colorists would add some purple highlights to uninked areas since, well, it looks better than plain white. This, of course, eventually evolved into her actually having purple hair, but it still tends to depend on the specific artists.
If you can cut around all of the Deadpool fat, his waves almost feel like X-Men expansion packs since they include additional mutants to add to the collection like Cable, Bishop, and Omega Red
Which is sad, because it would have been nice to get a true Deadpool wave rather than a thinly-veiled X-Men one.
Interesting, what other Deadpools would you put in the wave over stuff like Cable/Domino/X-23? More like that 3.75″ Taco Truck they did a while back?
I’d like to see a reworked version of the Cable & Deadpool Deadpool that Hasbro released way back when in a two-pack with Warpath, rather than the somewhat inexplicable boxer shorts version they’re going with, and the short-sleeved black-and-red “Weapon X” costume that Hasbro apparently produced a 12” version of recently would also be fun.
More to the point, though, I would have liked to see more of Deadpool’s specific supporting cast, like T-Ray, Weasel, Bob, Agent of Hydra, Agent X (and not the morbidly obese, “f**** you Gail Simone!” version from Fabian Nicieza) or Zoe Culloden, or at least characters who have had some memorable interactions with Deadpool rather than obvious X-Men filler like Bishop and Omega Red (not that I’m not looking forward to these, child of the 90s that I am).
Sasquatch sort of counts in that sense, since he was the sort-of antagonist of the first issue of the first stand-alone Deadpool ongoing comic, and a 90s version of the Hulk, green high-and-tight coiffure and all, would certainly work as well. Domino has a long history with Deadpool, but they kind of screwed the pooch with her by just repainting/slightly retooling the Mockingbird body and hoping that no one would notice that it doesn’t really look like any of the generously-unzipped generic black catsuits she seems to favour nowadays, rather than putting in a little more effort for a complimentary 90s look or an updated version of the blue-and-black costume from Cable & Deadpool that they failed horribly at several years ago.
X-23 I would put in a dumpster fire.