Most Customized Character on our Marvel Shelves

Schizm

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As of today, Generation X is complete in my collection! Synch and Skin are done and join my previous Jubilee and Emma on my shelf.

I'm definitely not the first to customize these characters and it made me think: how many of us have customized the same characters, or the same look for a character? And I wonder who is the most customized Marvel character on our shelves? A lot of sculpting, parts swapping or a simple headswap - who have we made most? Throw in your lists and we can figure this out. :)

Characters I've added to my collection that Hasbro hasn't gotten to:

Comic:
Synch
Skin
Gen X Jubilation
Gen X Emma
Blue & Gold Cannonball
Perez Justice
Perez Firestar
Classic Moondragon
Green Sersi
Wiccan
America Chavez

MCU:
AoU Wanda
Pierce
Agent 13
IM2 Black Widow
Business Pepper
Gamora GOTGv3
High Evolutionary
Tbolts Bucky
Tbolts Ghost
Infinity War Red Skull
Selvig
Renslayer

In agonizingly slow progress: Darcy

And just cuz - here is my completed Gen X: the joy of a complete team! :)
Gen-X.jpg
 
Man I think it’s a three way tie between Wolverine, Spider-Man and Venom.

I’ve customized pretty much every single tigerstripe Wolverine figures I’ve ever had dating back to the early 90’s with the second edition Wolverine. Usually with every figure I’ve customized I usually lengthen the ears, add an x insignia in places where there wasn’t one and in some instances lengthen the claws. With the more current Wolverine figures I usually touch up the paint or try to add bone claws (the love triangle set always seemed too diminutive to me) Oddly enough, the current Gamerverse Wolverine is perfect out of the box and doesn’t need any extra work whatsoever.

For venom with pretty much every edition I’m always adding blue highlights to the body. I’ve gotten better at it over the years opting for metallic blue paint over regular acrylics.

And lastly there is spider-man. And he’s only on the list because I’m a huge clone saga fan from the early days up to the present and in the 90’s when the 5” line was coming out, I’d always buy a couple extra spider-man figures and transform them into the scarlet spider and Ben Reilly’s sensational costume. Eventually I wound up acquiring the legitimate figures from Toy Biz and all that work stopped on a dime. Though my mom would occasionally volunteer and whip up a torn hoodie for Ben every now and again.

These days I still paint up a Ben Reilly figure or two but that has been so reductive considering the glut of clone figures we’ve been getting lately. It’s almost more rare just to see a plain old Peter Parker in the classic suit. Who would have thought that the trajectory of this particular pendulum would completely swing completely the other way in the span of 30 years? I don’t even think my fellow Reilly-Stans could have seen this kind of momentum coming from where we started.


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The customs currently in my collection:

MCU: Echo, Misty Knight, Frigga, Ruth Bat-Seraph, Captain Marvel (Multiverse of Madness), Captain Carter (Multiverse of Madness), Elektra (Deadpool & Wolverine), Yon-Rogg, Korath, Karen Page, Foggy Nelson, Elsa Bloodstone

FOX-Men/Sony Spider-Man: Jean Grey, X-23, Storm, Mary Jane, Gwen Stacy

Comics: Madelyne Pryor (80s), Psylocke (80s), Marvel Girl (X-Factor red costume), Yukio, Iceman (X-Factor), Revanche, Cecilia Reyes, Emma Frost (Generation X), Rachel Summers (Dark Phoenix costume), Sage, Magik (Utopia), Husk (Krakoa), Synch (Krakoa), Psylocke (Krakoa), Emma Frost (Krakoa), Monet (Krakoa), Storm (Krakoa), Scarlet Witch (Dauterman), Colleen Wing, America Chavez
 
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I don’t do much customizing anymore, but knowing what I’ve done in the past, I’ve made at least three or four versions of the Immortal Iron Fist. Possibly just as many modern Luke Cage. I have Yellowjacket in three different sizes (6”, 4”, 12”). I have maybe two or three Wasp customs. I don’t think many of these are common to anyone else’s collections.
 
During the Toy Biz days I had a few wrestler figures that were converted to modern Luke Cage with minimal effort/paint. The Defenders release was pretty decent for a while scratching that itch... but the 2 pack Iron Fist release was what I'd wanted since the New Avengers days in 2005. I had a few different head swaps for a long haired Sentry with wrestling figures until I landed on using an extra SDCC Kazaar head.

I was using an extra Ben Reilly head for my flamed off Johnny Storm for a while on a Reed body, until the white box retro release.

With all of the Hasbro releases and ease in ability to swap heads, I've had to do less and less customizing and more kitbashing. I think the only ones I have still on the shelves are a Norman Osborn head on a green Xavier suit, an unmasked Bullseye head on a modern Hawkeye, one of the Xavier heads on a NWH Matt Murdock body for my wheelchair Chuck, the unmasked Matt Murdock head on either an MCU Tony Stark or Ross body (skin color was annoying to find a match with a suited body)...

I do have so so many Spider-Man and Wolverine Legends that have different belt and head combos. I got a bunch of the first retro card brown/tan Wolverines and they all have different combinations of the neutral and bared teeth heads, X and regular belt buckles... some have been converted to the thicker X-Force claws. Did the same with the Love Triangle Wolverine, because I loved that yellow. What else... oh yeah I do have a comic release head on both the costumed X-Men '97 Wolverines. Gotta have pinless Wolverines and the '97 claws are better than the first iterations of the Hasbro claws. Have a Love Triangle Wolverine head on the 1st Appearance body for my default classic Wolverine who stands with the Giant Size team. I put a neutral unmasked Logan head from the blue/yellow team relwase on the Xtreme body and I really like it.

For Spider-Man - I've mixed and matched almost every head that works for each body (coloring and web pattern spacing), and all the different versions are still on the shelves. The RAFT head was really cool, so I have a few on the first Retro Spidey, the last Sensational Ben Reilly (which I really want to see done on the Maximum body). I've got 4 RYV Spider-Men and each have a different head. Have a bunch of Peter Parkers to go along with the retro release... I put a de-glasses retro head on an MCU Bruce Banner (from the 4 pack) for my Horizon/Parker Industries era, and a RYV Peter head on the Animated Series 2 pack body, which is hands down my favorite and default comic Peter Parker. There are a ton of options for black costume head swaps across the different releases, most recently I put the narrow eye Dark Avengers head on the retro body and it makes an awesome regular 2 arm Dark Avenger Spider-Man.

Now that I'm listing them, I still have a ton. Regular '97 Morph head on The Hood... massive improvement.

I guess I have and still do this a lot.
 
I mostly do very, very simple customs, but I have done:

Magneto (Bendis era)
Mastermind (60s)
Omega Sentinel (just, you know, corrected her ethnicity)
Reese, Cole, and Macon (Reavers)

I have been considering doing a Magma to match the old Walgreens Dani Moonstar, and it could potentially now be pretty damn easy to also put together a Magik to match that line-up, just by kitbashing a Dani and the teen Magik they revealed today, so that's on my list.
 
Ahhh yeah I do have that one extra Reaver head on a GI Joe body. It's excellent.
I picked up two extra heads, and painted the hair on one, and the hair and skin on the other, then dyed all the skin parts from the third Gung Ho body, to put together all three. It ain't perfect, but it does the trick.
 
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