Marvel Legends Hulkbuster wave

Let's get this clear. I've not blogged about any ML figures since God knows when. If I recalled correctly, my last succesfully assembled BAF was either the Ultimate Green Goblin or that SHIELD Mandroid (ugh, yea I know I haven't finished building Odin yet...what a bummer).

Getting my BAF Hulkbuster complete was quite a challenge too. You see, when most 'smart' collectors chose to buy the whole wave at one go through specialty toy stores, I opted for the challenge of finding it myself out in the open. I almost gave up to find The Vision and the gold Iron Man when a good samaritan posted his extras on a Marvel Legends collector community page. I got them within 7 working days which was amazing considering that the items had to cross about 8,000 miles worth of land and water to reach me. But that's another story.

Right. Let's get straight into the figures. I love the window packaging. They're somewhat similar to what we've seen on the Star Wars 6" Black Series line. Great for those of you thinking to insert the figures back into their packagings for safekeeping or for re-sale...but why the heck would you wanna do that for?

As far as choice of figures go, I kinda like the mix. You get and updated versions of The Vision and Dr Strange, a gigantic woman -warrior, Valkyrie (gotta be my favourite in the wave!), a gold-black Iron Man, movie War Machine and an obscure 90s Iron Man villain (I'm always up for new characters you know!)

1)Marvel NOW The Vision

I truly feel that my Toybiz era Vision still holds up today. Nothing against this latest version of the Wanda-loving android but I somehow prefer the classic look and colour scheme. Those who like metallic looking suits will take a liking to this figure almost immediately. You could say that I would not have picked this up hadn't it been for the much needed torso BAF part as I am quite content with my Toybiz figure. I think I would've preferred to have a 'movie' Vision instead but that's just me.

2)Marvel NOW Dr Strange

If there's one thing about Dr Strange is that many prefer to have him in his classic garb as opposed to the modern metallic look of the suit. Nothing much you can do about it since the corporate execs at Hasbro have decided against it. The good news is that he also comes with two magic effects that you can gleefully place on each hands to mimick his spell casting mode. We've seen this particular effect accessories before with Scarlet Witch though those were red instead of the lime green that came with Dr Strange. He looks good amongst the modern Avengers line-up but I still prefer my Toybiz Dr Strange when it comes to display options. Nevertheless I'm happy to have a modern Dr Strange in my collection.

For kicks, here is the modern Dr Strange with the cape from the Toybiz version. I think he looks pretty awesome!! 
Doncha' think?

3)Thundra

Ok. Truth be told. I know nuts about the character. I know that Hasbro was supposed to produce a figure of her daughter (Lyra or Lycra....or something?). I didn't give much attention to the Kazaa/Shanna characters and I can see Thundra here falling into the same category...*shucks*. It's great to have a giant lady for the shelf but I think I'm much more familiar with Giganta from DC Comics than this female behemoth. Again, this figure would not have ended in my collection had it not been for the BAF part.

4) Valkyrie

I've always wanted a Valkyrie figure since I laid  my eyes on the Hulk-Valkyrie 2-pack some years ago. That Valkyrie was a bit small in size and many collectors were left fuming that the figure wasn't that imposing enough to justify her Asgardian goddess stature. It was nice of Hasbro to give us Valkyrie 2.0. I like her sharp face sculpt. It makes people think twice about crossing her. She also now has a bigger body buck and should stand in nicely in between your Thor and Odin figures. Can we also get a Sif next perhaps?

5) Marvel NOW Iron Man

So gold-black isn't everybody's cup of tea, I know. Some even dissed this Iron Man figure as the worst in the Hulkbuster wave. Really?  Because I think the gold and black breaks the monotoneous repetitive red/gold color schemes present in almost every Iron Man suit there is. A welcome addition to my Iron Man hall of armour. Now if I can just find a Tony Stark head sculpt...

6) Movie War Machine

This one's straight from the Age of Ultron movie. For the love of God, I can't even tell the difference between this one and the first action figure from Iron Man:2. But the real winner of this War Machines the extra head that depicts a half-opened helmet with the headsculpt of Don Cheadle as Rhodey. So that's 2 movie War Machines thus far. What about movie Falcon or Vision eh Hasbro?

7) Blizzard

This action figure will surely invoke memories of reading Iron Man comics in the 90s. The 90s gave us heaps of colorful and flamboyant characters so it was nice of Hasbro to produce them for us albeit slowly. This super simple action figure (heck he doesn't come with any accessories) will add a zest of blue/white onto your display shelf ao whatever you might think of him, he will pop out on your shelves. I am personally looking forward to more obscure characters from the ML line.

And here's the BAF......Hulkbuster!!!

I've blogged about my successful custom paint job earlier. So what you're seeing here is the 'pimped' up version of the BAF Hulkbuster rather than that bland plasticky looking toy.

May I just gently remind everyone that this Hulkbuster is based on the 2nd Avengers movie and not the comics. I had to say this because apparently some idiot had written how different this toy is from the ones which appeared in the comic pages. Glad we got this issue out of the way.

The sheer size and weight of the Hulkbuster alone is worth the money you splashed for the seven figures for the BAF parts.  One might encounter a minor problem while assembling the torso part onto the upper body part (the squarish connector seemed a bit mis-aligned....but several forced turns later I was good to go!). Once you get over this minor glitch, assembling the rest of the parts is a walk in the park.

The Hulkbuster is pretty well articulated for a large figure. You can pose him in almost every imaginable position that you can think of. Almost. You mileage may vary. The joints are tight and should endure the most gruesome articulation tests you may perform on him.

One thing I miss from the old Toybiz ML Hulkbuster figure is the open hatch/helmet feature. You get to see Tony's head protruding at top of the armour when you flip his hatch/helmet to the back. I guess the sleek design and superb articulation of this new Hulkbuster more than made up for the missing feature.

I know a lot of people are eagerly waiting for the Marvel Select version of 'Buster but I was told that this ML version is better and bigger even though the MS version has a kick a** paint job. Let's wait and see. But for now let's just sit back and marvel ( pardon the pun) the beauty and  great aesthetics of the ML Hulkbuster.