Marvel Legends Gamerverse

I didn't really notice it last night, but this guys upper arms can't pass his chest - this is not a butterfly joint. Which mean's he's less poseable than his predecessors, except at the waist.
 
I think I’ve just encountered one of the most surreal experiences that I have ever seen. So I was doing a search for Captain America on eBay and instagram because usually when I get new figures in hand, I like to go on this little trip down memory lane and compare the latest release to past figures of said character. So when I was perusing around the internet looking for Captain America toys, I’d just see random images of Venom intermixed within my search results. And it wasn’t just limited to the Gamerverse assortment but there were past releases as well. And then I did a search for Venom and I got the same results but vice versa. I just find it kind of hilarious that thanks to these Gamerverse figures, Venom and Captain America are now inexplicably intertwined and that could very well remain the case for as long as these figures are in circulation.


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Stoopid_Sandwich said:
So it’s a universal joint like McFarlane’s figures but it’s not recessed enough to be functional. Hmmm that’s not what I was expecting. This begs the question if Hasbro maybe tried to reverse engineer a McFarlane figure and just fumbled the ball? Or can toy companies make specific patents for their action figure technology depending on who developed them? Because Todd seems to use universal joints exclusively and I’ve never seen them used elsewhere except this Wolverine, which is almost the off brand version. And McFarlane does seem like the type to copyright claim action figure joint technology.


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I think you're right, it's not recessed as much as McFarlane and it looks like Hasbro tried to preserve the sculpt and outline of the chest. This Mafex with a similar setup has more chest cut away. The joint also moves in and out of the chest, the left shoulder is pushed in, right shoulder pulled out. Almost like a shoulder version of drop-down hips.

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Ball peg shoulders provide extra range vs a more common ball-hinge, but aren’t a substitute for a true butterfly joint. It is largely a matter of aesthetics. I don’t mind trading the cuts in the chest for less range in this instance. He can still get his claws in front of his face if you like that pose. I get why some don’t care about the cut-away to the chest area in favor of articulation. It’s certainly possible to do, but I’ve never seen Hasbro invest in the sort of joint that pulls out first and then comes across the chest like a Bandai figure might incorporate.
 
I guess from an engineering standpoint if they had used a traditional butterfly joint there was a chance that the shoulder pads would warp? Also maybe the ball jointed shoulder wouldn’t be able to function as properly on on both the X and y axis since a butterfly joint doesn’t lend itself to that kind of mobility because they can only move laterally?


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I think it’s simply just a choice to not carve out anything from the chest. The shoulder pad could stay right where it is with a butterfly joint, but if they were concerned about it warping then they would just peg it into the shoulder. Bandai and Medicom combine ball-jointed shoulders with butterfly joints all of the time, it just means putting the socket on a hinge inside the torso. That’s not something Hasbro has ever done as far as I know. This solution with Wolverine is just the most simple and cheapest way to do it. It gives the figure a little extra range at the shoulder despite the lack of a butterfly joint. I hope they do it more for figures that don’t necessarily need a butterfly joint or would look bad with one cut into it as it’s better than just the old hinged ball peg.
 
I miss the forward and backward butterfly range but I prefer these ball-socket shoulders to pure horizontal butterfly shoulders. With butterfly shoulders you're generally stuck with the "low shoulders" ML look. With the ball joint shoulders you get a lot of range, often without even knowing it. Even neutral poses can benefit a lot from raising or lowering the shoulders. To say these shoulders have less range than butterfly joints is thinking on a 2D plane instead of 3D. Less forward and backwards range, more upward and downward range.
 
Savage Crucible butterflies are the way of the future.

No chest cut, but a car door hinge that swings way out. It can use refining,. but I like it for it's utility and the way it disassembles so easy.
 
Now that I have Psylocke, she's okay. I'm not putting her up against the Mafex because those are two different shelf continuities and I don't mix them.

Judging solely off of Hasbro Product:

Those thigh cuts are gross, because they butcher the form. LooseCollector (and y'all know I got problems with them) has a more subtle cut higher up that preserves the sculpt. The shape of the thigh really works against the cut. Technically with this logic I don't know why you wouldn't throw a calf swivel in either, because you're surely can't be claiming aesthetic.

I don't really care about the ab crunch because once again the way they execute it, it's so minimal. I have never found it to really serve my Widow or other figures with it and I don't see that changing here. Also the sculpted belt sucks. At least if it was floating it would have hidden it. We could do this with a Miss Marvel and Widow so I rebuke it. The X is also sculpted so I guess they have to do a new mold for the inevitable Elektra.

Also don't know what was going on with the hair being purple on one side, black on the other. My MvC art collection always has it purple. The black to purple on the back doesn't sell the MvCness, and comes across like a compromise to get her in your comic shelf, where we can have her hair colour debate again. As I strictly wanted this for Capcom shenanigans, the hair is whatever.

If I really wanted to be an MvC nerd, the face is just a miss. I might not care, but with Wolverine there's so much discussion about the stylistic choices and scaling and proportions to make him match the game art... But it seems like every other character outside of Wolverine and Captain America didn't really get the same treatment. Especially considering this is a brand new Psylocke.

For a Legend, she's what I expect these days. She will hang with the 97 blue team. I just can't help but feel that the Legends bar gets jerked around so much, sometimes things get more praise or acceptance when we're seeing innovations elsewhere. Sunk cost fallacy?

It's a step forward. But Widow makes me wonder if we ever see that step normalized to continue refining it, because that never became a standard.

I do like that they pushed Betsy's proportions and made stylistic exaggerated commitments with overall figure (as in, human figure). Let's do more of that in a comic book line.
 
I'm really not a big fan of her and I think it has to do with the headsculpts - neither look right to me, and the hair on the blank face just looks weird. And as just mentioned, the paint choices on the hair are baffling.

I tried the Nimrod three-pack head on this body earlier and the skintones are wildly different and the neck is too long, but I might try a hair swap and see if that helps.
 
All the headsculpts of this subline have been really strange in general, and I'm not a fan. We can get animation accurate headsculpts for the sublines for X-Men '97, and Spider-Man The Animated Series... but not Marvel vs. Capcom 2? I really don't get it. This subline is primarily just rereleases with new colors, and new comic style headsculpts that have maybe one quirk from the game's designs that just make it look uncanny. Not a fan of Thanos either, and I'm pissed, I would have killed for a smiling head to put on my comic Thanos.
 
I got my Wolverine from Amazon yesterday and while others have pointed out some very valid issues with the figure: I love him, he’s my perfect Wolverine figure!

I can to Marvel through the VS games, I didn’t read the comics or watch the cartoons, I was all Ninja Turtles (and Gargoyles when it’s brief flame flickered) and the occasional Batman animated series, my first exposure to anything with these characters was walking around a Q-Zar during my little brother’s birthday party, seeing a shiny new arcade cabinet “Who Vs Street Fighter?! Well the tag team gimmick looks pretty fun…” and that’s where I fell in love with these wacky super guys!

Wolverine looks just like the one on the side of the cabinet! This is the Wolverine that pops into my head when you say “Think of a non-Hugh Jackman Wolverine!” If they were going to only make one of the Gamerverse Not-MvC2 figures as close to on model as they possibly could, I’m glad they made it this one (though I really really wish Psylocke’s face looked more like the sprite too, and that Venom was the mid-tone blue not highlight blue, would have helped a lot…)

Could it have been better engineered? Yes! Could it be a little smaller? Absolutely! Is it the best Wolverine Hasbro will ever make?! To me, probably!
 
Opened up Cap/Venom and Wolverine/Samurai tonight and man, what a mixed bag.

Cap? I've got literally no notes. I can't stop playing with this guy. Is he groundbreaking? No. Fancy? No. Engineering-wise impressive? NOPE. But he scales right, his colors pop, he's fun to pose, nice head sculpt... The anniversary cap has been my favorite for along time but I just put this guy on the same tier as him. One is my more gritty, detailed Cap and the other is the less detailed, smoother, simpler one. Love him.

Venom: I'm REALLY not a Venom fan, but every single time I buy a Venom I just really like the figure from a toy/posing/play perspective. There's literally nothing other than color in this Venom we haven't seen before. But he's just FUN. My only complaint? I thought the weird pale blue in the marketing photos looked better. He's a darker, flatter blue in hand. But I like him! Like Cap, he's just fun.

Wolverine: I can honestly say this is the first Wolverine in years, maybe ever, I regret paying for. It'a a cumulative bunch of little problems individually I'd be happy to overlook, though. Too big? Yeah, but not enormous, he's half a head taller than X-Force Wolverine. I actually LIKE the single elbows, they've got really nice depth. But I've got garbage paint apps on the face and his head fins--and I LIKE the silly huge head fins from the game!--wrarped in the package so one fin is flat against the side of his head and the other is normal. His hips aren't aligned well, so one leg is loose and sloppy. Just a bad figure overall. And worst is all of these problems weren't visible in the package so I had the whole thing busted out before I saw them. I have arguably TOO many Wolverines, and this is the only one that let me down.

Silver Samurai is just flat out unimpressive. If I didn't have a version of him already he'd be fine! But he's just not up to modern standards. DEEPLY visible peg holes, shoulder pads that float around like a toddler who has to pee, his waist armor inhibits his waist twist, the plastic has that weird smooth quality their pearlescent plastics often do.

Anyway. I was super looking forward to he new Logan so I'm bummed he's a hot mess. But the other two pack was really fun to crack open.
 
Without getting too far into reviewing the Cap/Venom set, I just want to say, getting a palette swap Venom is a dream come true. I've always wanted weird MvC2 palette swaps, it's in my head every time I think about dream ML figures. This guy's just so cool. I love the electric/neon blue body and orange-red tongue. His colors are closer to v4 Snake Eyes than the Classified version. I still would have loved Venom in the lighter blue, too.
 
This wave seems to have pretty widespread QC issues - from the plastic itself creating "cracks" and slashes in similar areas, to excess plastic left on the figures. My Cap's stern face has a raised curve around his head in the sculpt that can't be fixed. Plus, Psylocke's skin paint issues. I've seen some Thanos with weird marks on the legs.

Wonder if this was a new factory. Seems there's always a wave each year that gets wonky like this.
 
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