For the most part I avoid Marvel Select
figures. They’re too big, they have weird articulation, and often
they don’t even look very good.
Why are they so big, anyway? Who at
Diamond Select Toys decided they wanted to make a line of figures
that was not compatible with any action figures that have come out in
the past… ever? It’s like DC Direct deciding their larger clothed
figures were going to be thirteen inches rather than a standard 1/6th
scale. What a stupid decision. I still think that’s why that line
failed. They were good figures (except for the females all having
massively oversized tits), they just looked too odd next to all the
other figures of that size.
So aside from the Marvel Zombies
figures, Uatu the Watcher, and an Ultimate Thor I got on clearance I
don’t have any Marvel Select.
A whole bunch of Marvel Select figures
of the various Avengers were on the front of the display and Black
Widow was one of them, only it looked like her suit had some sort of
purple sheen to it. I picked it up and sure enough, the whole suit
was this metallic purple color. It was awesome. I knew the thing was
going to be expensive, but the chances of another figure ever being
quite so perfectly suited to me were pretty slim. It looked like it
was a Disney Store Exclusive. I’m not sure why that would make
Black Widow purple, and as far as I know Black Widow has never been
purple. But I don’t care because if I ordered a custom-made action
figure it would be a redhead in a metallic purple catsuit. I guess if
she could be blue in Iron Man 2, she can be purple in the
Disney Store.
First Glance: At first
glance this is a pretty nice-looking figure. I guess that’s parts
of Ultron on the base and I like the little Ant-Man. I do think the
Marvel Select packaging is fairly ridiculous, but we’ll get to
that.
Sculpt: At a glance this
Black Widow looks very nice. The proportions are all good, the
articulation seems very smooth and blends into the figure. The
detailing is nice and all of the parts seem to be cut from a single
statue. What I mean is that no parts seem borrowed – they are all
obviously made just for this Black Widow. It’s like somebody
sculpted a statue and then cut joints into it, which might actually
be part of the problem.
Which is where we’ll start. DST has
some weird concepts of articulation. Not as weird as some of DC
Direct’s figures, but weird. It’s not the points themselves that
are weird (well, mostly), but how they relate to one another.
Double-jointed knees aren’t much use when the hips have a limited
range of movement. And the hips are kind of a big problem. They just
look weird. The tops of the thighs have a sort of ball joint, but the
opening that accommodates the legs is too large. And yet somehow, the
movement of the hip joint is restricted.
Okay, before we get any further here’s
the rundown of the articulation:
Black Widow has ball joints at the
neck, shoulders, hips, and ankles. There are swivel/pivots at the
elbows, swivels at the wrists and waist, and double-jointed knees.
That all sounds pretty good, right? Except for the hip restriction.
And the fact that the legs don’t swivel, leaving you with the
option of a pigeon-toed Russian assassin or misaligned boot seams if
you turn her feet out to look normal. But her knees are going to be
turned slightly inward no matter what.
What really kills me is that there are lines in the sculpt at the top of her thighs where it looks like they should swivel. Her head does have a fairly decent
range of movement given her sculpted hair and her arms move about as
much as you might want. The shoulders are a bit restricted due to
sculpting, but nothing too bad.
As far as the actual sculpting, the
figure looks pretty great. Details such as zippers, folds in her
suit, and clasps look awesome. Black Widow’s body shape is good –
not too busty or too skinny. Her belt is a separate piece that covers
up the waist joint. Her wrist blasters are a good size and look nice,
something I have noticed can be a challenge for this character. I’ve
seen plenty of Marvel-approved figures and art where her wrists look
ridiculous.
Ms. Romanov’s shoulders area bit too
squared-off and pointy.
The head and hair look great. Her face
has character and the hair hits that fine line between looking
sculpted and natural. They did a good job there.
I do have a problem with the fact that
Black Widow’s hands were sculpted to hold guns and this figure does
not come with guns. My best guess is that Disney didn’t want one of
their exclusives to be dual-wielding heat and DST just took the
pistols out without redoing the hands. I don’t think that’s quite
okay because now the figure looks kind of dumb, like Loki just made
her .45s disappear and she just doesn’t realize it yet. Some fists
or Judo hands would have been way better.
Design: The paint on
Black Widow is great. The metallic purple of the jumpsuit is
obviously fantastic, and all the detailing really makes the figure
look fancy. The flat black of the boots is great, particularly when
paired with the silver of the zippers on the sides. I like the pewter
color of the wrist blasters and the belt a lot.
The head looks good, as well. Widow’s
hair is a vibrant shade of red that looks great against the skin tone
and the jumpsuit. The makeup on her face is very subtle. Her right
eye is just a tad off-center, but not really enough to bother me.
Nothing like Thunder Punch He-Man, anyway.
Accessories: Black Widow
comes with a base and a tiny little Ant-Man. The base features what I
think are various dismembered Ultron parts and looks great. I am not
a fan of stands or bases of any kind, so I’ll be throwing this in a
drawer. But they did a good job with it. It does not feature any kind
of foot pegs for Black Widow, so don’t expect her to stand on it
anyway.
Ant-Man kind of looks like crap. I
mean, he looks like Ant-Man, but he has little balls for fists and
his paint job was all jacked up right out of the box. He has odd little
pegs on his feet that let you plug him into a couple of holes on top
of the base. I was going to stick him with my Marvel Legends
Avengers, but honestly he looks too crappy.
Packaging: I find the
Marvel Select packaging ridiculous and unwieldy. However, I suppose
it’s a standardized box so they can fit figures like Hulk and
Colossus into the same kinds of boxes as Spider-Man and Deadpool.
Along with their gigantic bases. These are still better than
clamshells, though.
Overall: If it wasn’t
for this Black Widow’s paint scheme I wouldn’t be happy with her
at all. I think the larger scale is stupid, the articulation is oddly
executed, and those hands just are not okay.
(barely) 3 out of 5
There are too many decisions that I
consider poor for me to rate this toy well. I originally wasn’t
going to penalize the figure for the scale, as that’s just a
manufacturing decision for the line and not a flaw with the figure,
but I think it is a bad choice and is part of the reason I don’t
collect Marvel Select. Still, I will put this Black Widow on my
purple stuff shelf and be glad she’s there. As a one-off figure
she’s actually pretty neat, but if you’re trying to fit her into
a collection of anything other than Marvel Select she isn’t going
to work.
I guess what I’m saying is if you
collect DST’s Marvel toys, you’re probably going to be pretty
happy with this Natasha Romanov. If not, unless you’ve got a purple
fetish, you’re going to want to pass.
-Phantom
I made a custom Catwoman figure from this toy that I got a few days ago. It looks nice with brown hair and brown eyes. It almost resembles a human wire twin from Hellraiser.
ReplyDeleteCool! I miss having the time to customize figures.
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