X-Force Archangel, Warpath & X-23

One of the other things I noticed, looking through Google images, the way Clayton Crain drew him in this run, Warren had silver hands also. This guy comes with two pairs of black hands. I'm sure I could find a pair of silver fists, but I can't think of silver open hands with claws at the finger tips.
 
Received Laura and James today via BBTS. Not much to remark on. We’ve seen these bodies before, but they feel a little softer, rubbery. Warpath’s limited neck joint would piss me off more if his hair didn’t already block movement. X-23’s heads are excellent, and her double arms are welcome, but they don’t enhance her poses much either. The grey of their costumes is darker than that of Wolverine from the Wendigo wave, which is the only X-Force figure I want to display them with, so that’s unfortunate. Wonder if they’ll unnecessarily redo him too. I wish they’d just give us Wolfsbane, and not wait so long that she doesn’t feel like she fits with the group.
 
Now they're both in my PoL. I'll ship them sometime next week probably. Hoping to get a couple more SW figures in there first. If not I'll just ship it after payday lol.
 
I begrudgingly bought Warpath and X-23. I have so far held off on Archangel and likely will hope to find him discounted later. I finally just caved and bought the movie Colossus for 25% off retail just this weekend. I was hoping to do better than that but finally gave in.
 
I love figures with unique articulation schemes so I was looking forward to Archangel, and now that I have him I love the wings. They're somewhat similar to the previous wings but different enough to be a lot of fun. There's more range of motion with them than Angel's wings so they're more fun than those, although I though Angel was great on its own.

Medicom is working on a Mafex Archangel, but I have yet to see the import companies do decent articulated wings. Bandai made a Falcon for the Disney Plus series, but the wings were one big piece. So I'm expecting this to be my Archangel along with the previous one, and that's fine with me.
 
Last edited:
I didn't know how bad we needed upgrades to Laura and Warpath until I got the new ones and looked at the old ones. Warpath definitely is a huge improvement. And Laura is a bit better. I think the claws are more flimsy so I'm using the old ones. But the new legs help her not bow leg, and the double elbows help with better posing. The skin tone is also lighter. She doesn't look as tan. So the old heads wouldn't look the best on the new body.

Archangel is good. Kinda. I think this is the wing shape they used in alot of the XMen TAS episodes. Especially with the knives coming out. But uhh, they attach like shit. And the wings are too light. And not chromed. Plus they don't really pose well, most of the poses look dumb or awkward. Honestly the old ones didnt much either but at least they looked spectacular with the chrome and in neutral poses. These wings are just in the way most of the time. At least the body and heads are really good. Ill attempt to swap the old wings on this body at some point soon but I would have to move alot of stuff to get archangel from the back of the display so I'll do it when I replace him with the new one... at some point lol.

So all in all I like them. Archangels wings could be...different? But otherwise the figures are great.
 
Trunks3540 said:
And the wings are too light. And not chromed. Plus they don't really pose well, most of the poses look dumb or awkward. Honestly the old ones didnt much either but at least they looked spectacular with the chrome and in neutral poses.
Click to expand...

I'm neutral on the color because I didn't read most of the runs Archangel was in. Googling him most of the wings I see with the style of the figure don't look chrome, but they do look darker as you pointed out. I still bet there's plenty of reference art with the color they chose because that's how most of the designers at every toy company work--they pick a reference and stick to it and fans unfamiliar with that reference are going to say it's inaccurate because few of us are familiar with how every artist drew any given character.

But the posing I'll strongly disagree with. I do know what you mean about both figures because I also found the original difficult to pose, but there are plenty of posing options besides neutral that look great. And I would suggest that the design of these new wings lends themselves to far better poses than the old ones because they're curved. The curves give them an aesthetic far better than the old wings which would look unrealistically angular whenever you bent the hinge. But you could work around the angles, too, so I think they both pose pretty well.

Which winged figures do you think pose better than either Legends Archangel? I've got maybe a dozen winged characters such as McFarlane Wonder Woman 84, Mythic Legions Arethyr, both Archangels, Angel, every Legends Vulture and Falcon from 2015 on including all of the MCU versions, the Sauron BAF, King in Black Venom, and probably more I'm forgetting, and this new Archangel has my favorite wings among all of those with more posing possibilities and greater articulation range than them all.

I used to complain a lot about the old Archangel, but eventually I realized that wings are pretty hard to design in a toy. I rarely see the high-end Japanese companies attempt it at all due to the engineering challenges and when they do incorporate some articulation it's usually FAR more basic than either Archangel is. That's why I'm as high on the Legends wings as I am; at least they're trying whereas most designers avoid or greatly minimize wing articulation.
 
Last edited:
I don't hate the new Archangel's wings - I think they do a fantastic job of capturing the comic look in a few key poses, but I don't think they articulate super well. Maybe that's a necessary tradeoff - the large curved piece of the main wing would need to spread laterally for a full flight pose, which would only be achievable with a swappable piece at that joint. That's something I'd love to see incorporated for the classic Archangel release that we know is coming with these wings.

I actually like how the knives attach, but the curve of the wings means you're only ever getting him firing them straight down with this current setup. The color is the biggest bummer to me - waaaay too much of that ugly flat gray. It doesn't necessarily have to be chrome, but some color and depth would be a huge improvement.

I'm really impressed with the BNW Cap's wings. I bought him to steal the wings for comic Falcon-Cap and he's a ton of fun. I like the classic Angel from last year too. Neither set of wings are perfectly articulated, but I had more fun messing around with both than Archangel.

Warpath is great, and on a good body for him. The new X-23 is one of the rare ML releases that I find actively irritating - I get that rebuying stuff is part of the game, but getting another X-Force Laura with that terrible torso articulation is a real kick in the teeth.
 
hmmberto said:
I'm really impressed with the BNW Cap's wings. I bought him to steal the wings for comic Falcon-Cap and he's a ton of fun. I like the classic Angel from last year too. Neither set of wings are perfectly articulated, but I had more fun messing around with both than Archangel.
Click to expand...

I like Angel and BNW Cap's wings too, but they both have less articulation range than either Archangel. With the greater range comes greater possibility for posing, and that's why I prefer both Archangels because there are just so many more options for what to do with them as compared to recent wings like Angel and Cap.

Along a similar line I found that most collectors don't like really big, wired capes. Mafex Hush Batman has a GIANT cape, and I love it because you can get some of the insane cape poses with it that many artists over the years have drawn in depicting Batman with an insanely large cape. But most people hate it because it's such a challenge to pose. I find fun in that challenge so I prefer the larger cape.

I don't ALWAYS want a posing challenge, and it's easy enough to drape Batman Hush's cape behind him and scrunch down for a more vanilla look. Not trivially easy as most seem to prefer, but not hard at all.
 
EnigmaticClarity said:
I like Angel and BNW Cap's wings too, but they both have less articulation range than either Archangel. With the greater range comes greater possibility for posing, and that's why I prefer both Archangels because there are just so many more options for what to do with them as compared to recent wings like Angel and Cap.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure I agree that the new Archangel has more articulation/range than BNW Cap (I don't have Angel handy at the moment to compare). And maybe that's ok, because the joints in Cap's wings are easier to hide given the design, and I like the sleek, complete look of Archangel's curved wings. But Cap's wings can pull off a full spread and an "over the shoulder" firing pose with the fletchettes that I can't get with Archangel. Neither does a particuarly good "dive bomb" pose, which is the other major thing I'd want out of them.
 
hmmberto said:
But Cap's wings can pull off a full spread and an "over the shoulder" firing pose with the fletchettes that I can't get with Archangel. Neither does a particuarly good "dive bomb" pose, which is the other major thing I'd want out of them.
Click to expand...

I forgot Cap can fire those things. I remember him doing it in Brave New World at Red Hulk; did he do that in other films? Have you tried to use the Archangel blade firing effects with Cap yet? I never thought to try that until just now.

Archangel never fires his blades over his shoulder does he? We discussed that earlier in this thread; they always show him spinning around and firing those blades backwards in the comics presumably because the feathers of birds who fly always point backwards.
 
hmmberto said:
Warpath is great, and on a good body for him. The new X-23 is one of the rare ML releases that I find actively irritating - I get that rebuying stuff is part of the game, but getting another X-Force Laura with that terrible torso articulation is a real kick in the teeth.
Click to expand...
It's particularly irksome with B- and C-list characters. Who knows when we'll get our next X-23, let alone one in the X-Force getup. When redoing niche characters, they should prioritize the newest/best base bodies.
EnigmaticClarity said:
Along a similar line I found that most collectors don't like really big, wired capes. Mafex Hush Batman has a GIANT cape, and I love it because you can get some of the insane cape poses with it that many artists over the years have drawn in depicting Batman with an insanely large cape. But most people hate it because it's such a challenge to pose. I find fun in that challenge so I prefer the larger cape.
Click to expand...
I find MAFEX Hush Batman frustrating because his center of gravity is, like, in his crotch. He looks great on a stand, less so any other way.

As badass as I think capes are, I gravitate toward figures without them, especially on my desk. They're easier to pose. My cats are less likely to knock over figures without massive capes, too.
 
EnigmaticClarity said:
I forgot Cap can fire those things. I remember him doing it in Brave New World at Red Hulk; did he do that in other films? Have you tried to use the Archangel blade firing effects with Cap yet? I never thought to try that until just now.

Archangel never fires his blades over his shoulder does he? We discussed that earlier in this thread; they always show him spinning around and firing those blades backwards in the comics presumably because the feathers of birds who fly always point backwards.
Click to expand...
I don't think Cap fired blades before in the movies. At some point in BNW I think that new accessory was going to get a lot more explanation and/or be more important to the plot, but obviously a lot about that movie changed.

"Over the shoulder" but still firing out of the bottom tips of his wings. One of the promo pics actually has what I'm trying to describe, but it only works from certain angles and doesn't look as good in person in my opinion.

uZLS0dd.jpeg


BNW Cap's wings can achieve this pose, or do it with the actual figure squared up and facing forward with the wing coming directly over his shoulder. Not a huge deal by any means, but those extra joints do add a little something. Mine are frustratingly loose though - between that and breaking up the sculpt maybe how they handled Archangel is for the best.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top