Monday 7 February 2022

Toybox REVIEW: Marvel Legends Retro Invisible Woman

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Release Date:
November 2021
RRP: $22.99/£21.99

And the four were changed forever, in some most fantastic ways! This quartet of Fantastic February reviews continues with the Marvel Legends retro Invisible Woman figure! Given the powers of invisibility and force field projection by the cosmic rays that hit their spacecraft, Susan Richards (nee Storm) formed the Fantastic Four alongside her husband-to-be Reed Richards, brother Johnny Storm and friend Ben Grimm. This entry in Hasbro's ever-growing range of retro-figures is based about the character's appearance in the 1994-96 animated series, where she battled against the likes of Doctor Doom, Galactus, Annihilus, Blastaar, the Skrulls, Psycho-Man and many more. While this figure was a general retail release, it was also accompanied by an "invisible" Hasbro Pulse exclusive variant moulded entirely in clear plastic.

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"After receiving superpowers, Sue Storm Richards co-founds the Fantastic Four and emerges as the single most-powerful member of the group."

Like the rest of her teammates (as well as villains Psycho-Man and the High Evolutionary), the Marvel Legends retro Invisible Woman figure comes in packaging reminiscent of the Fantastic Four animated series figures released by Toy Biz in the 90s. From the front the card backs are identical for each character in the assortment, with the unique identifier (other than the figure itself that is) being the card slotted inside the bubble – featuring both their name and character artwork. This artwork is repeated on the box of the box alongside a short character bio, simple instructions on how the swappable parts/accessories and images of the other figures in the assortment. How great these figures look in their packaging really can't be understated, and it’s a crying shame that there's no (easy) way to open them without damaging it. But the show must go on, and after tearing through that plastic bubble you'll find the figure and accessories neatly laid out on a moulded plastic tray.

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As was the case with this assortment's Mr. Fantastic, the retro Invisible Woman figure is a repaint of the previous 2018 Walgreens exclusive and 2020 Super Skrull BAF wave iterations of the character done up in the uniform the team wore in the animated series. Technically it's closer to the (inferior) first season of the series, as the second's retools saw them adopt the heavy shading present in the comics that made the costumes appear more black than blue. Still, it's a great look and easily one of the most iconic for Marvel's first family. It does however have a brand new head sculpt, however I'm not sure how much of a positive that is in this case because it's not very good at all. While the thicker, blonder hair sculpt feels like an improvement for the Sue Richards of this era, the (presumably) focused expression they've chosen for the face is one that only really works in the most specific of action poses. For anything neutral the whole shape just looks completely off. But while the face might be off, whoever did the original body for the figure clearly knew what they wanted from it as that skin-tight body suit clings to the body in all the places you'd expect it to. Rather bizarrely Sue has two plug sockets moulded into her back - one very visible circular one between her shoulder blades and then another one just below her neck. The latter one is covered by the hair most of the time, but oddly neither are present on Reed nor do they serve any function. The paint apps for the figure (not that there are many) are generally very good though, with the white sections of the suit and the 4 logo on the chest neatly applied.

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Sue's articulation is fairly standard for Hasbro collector-orientated figure, overall featuring; 
- Ball jointed head, upper torso and hips 
- Swivel hinge shoulders, elbows, wrists and ankles 
- Double hinge knees 
- Single hinge neck 
- Thigh swivels
There's a curious mix of this release being both a slightly older mould and a female body figure, both of which bring some unfortunate flaws. Hasbro's decision to give their female figures swivel hinge elbows never fails to baffle me, and simply doesn't offer the same range of movement as male figures' combination of double hinged elbows and a bicep swivel. The arms may be thinner, but I refuse to believe they're so thin that Hasbro simply can't implement the same articulation on both bodies. That said the use of a ball jointed upper torso definitely beats the boys' hinged ab crunch, but the lack of a waist joint is particularly frustrating. Even if it was a really basic swivel like the one that's on Mr. Fantastic, it'd still add quite a bit when it comes to getting those forcefield projecting poses just right. Finally, as you can probably see from the hair sculpt the overall head movement on this figure isn't the best. It can move a little bit to either side before the hair gets in the way, and up/down motion is fairly minimal too. Admittedly it's not a terrible range of articulation overall, but maybe if Hasbro had spent as much time tweaking that as they did on her bust and butt then it would probably be a better figure.

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Compared to Mr. Fantastic's reasonably good selection of accessories (some of which were exclusive to the retro version), the Invisible Woman comes with the rather paltry offering of an alternate pair of closed fists and an invisible forcefield shield effect part – all of which were previously included with the 2020 figure. The effect part is made of translucent plastic and fits onto the posed right hand, although the connection isn't the most secure and it really doesn't take much to knock it out. Even though Hasbro released the clear plastic variant at the same time to fully convey her invisibility powers (which comes with exactly the same accessories at this), once again seeing how good the 2018 figure's accessories were in comparison really lets this release down. While the H.E.R.B.I.E. might not have fitted this version and could have easily been omitted, something like the partially translucent right arm that figure has would have been perfect. Forcefields are cool, but Sue really needs something to represent her main superpower as well.

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Considering that the bio on the box correctly acknowledges her as the most powerful member of the Fantastic Four, it's a little frustrating that the Marvel Legends retro Invisible Woman is the most disappointing of them in figure form. While the subpar head sculpt will likely be the biggest issue with the figure for many collectors, the combination of the slightly outdated articulation combined with Hasbro's frustrating practices when it comes to female-body figures makes for a rather notable cocktail of flaws. Sue certainly isn't awful by any stretch, it's just the knowledge that Hasbro could (and should) have done better. Still, a passable figure is still better than a horrible one and hopefully being posed alongside the rest of the family might help to elevate this figure somewhat.

1 comment:

Oar said...

I'm tempted to say something about the proportions across the whole body seems off but that might just be just cartoon shape in effect.

If Reed got stretchy hands, it only seemed fair the Sue would get transparent hands! Ah well, the wavy shield is decent.