Marvel Legends

[evenflow]

Glad to hear they will be available after the show at the hasbro toy shop. I really want both of them. Possibly even 2 Stan Lee figures, one as him and one ot have as Peter Parker.

[Brian]

Just a quick question for you guys....as we have been preparing for the new baby (in the next couple weeks most likely), we've been paring down/getting rid of things throughout the house, and re-organizing to maximize space, etc.  That's also trickled down to me looking at what I have on display in our office as well, and what things might need to be packed away eventually.  Anyways, although I have no intentions to do it anytime soon (hopefully), I was looking at my Marvel Legends shelf and seeing that there really isn't a whole lot of room left there for more figures.  With me buying fewer figures per wave, there's probably enough to finish out the year, but beyond that who knows.

Anyways, it got me to thinking, if you had a more limited display space for your Classics/Legends, which characters (or figures) would you display to represent the "Marvel Universe"?  Who do you consider the "main ones" to have on display, and how many figures would that be?  I was just curious what some of your opinions were on who would be left of your heroes and villains if you wanted a good representation of the main Marvel U.  Kind of off topic, but I was just wondering what some of you thought about this.

[DarkKnight2k4]

I have stuck to X-men... just because of space... I then did the New Avengers... but that was mute. lol.

[JediJman]

I've kept my dipslay of ML to two shelves, both about 18" wide and 18" deep.  The main shelf is all Avengers from Iron Man/Giant Man/Hulk/Thor/Wasp to the West Coast branch to some of the New Avengers. 

For my display, I'm only using one of each character.  So if you could bring all of the Avengers together, this is how it might look, but you wouldn't have a phasing vision and a regular one or two versions of Wonderman, 6 versions of Iron Man, etc.  You take your favorite of each character and put them in the scene.  My "extras" of each character (Extra Thors, Iron Man, etc.) go on the second, less prominent shelf.

I'm a little random in my selection - I included a custom Diamondback figure from Captain America, but didn't pick up the Luke Cage figure that came out.  I have her on the first shelf and Arachnia on the first shelf, but Beta Ray Bill is on shelf #2.  I also have both Yellowjacket and Giant Man on my top shelf, and I had to include FA Iron Man and the 80's Gold and Red Iron Man on the top shelf as well, so its not perfect.

The nice thing about this is that its almost complete.  I'm having a custom Tigra and Mockingbird created by a guy at Fwoosh who made an awesome Kate Bishop for me.  I'll probably get around to adding US Agent, maybe Sersei, Crystal, Starfox, and Quasar, and if a better Luke Cage comes out, I would add him.  Possibly Beast as well.  Not adding all of the New Avengers nonsense that's going on now - Iron Fist, Dr. Strange, Iron Spidey, Wolverine?  Those guys do not belong in my avengers, though I did squeeze Wolvie into the top shelf for now. 

If you wanted an assembly of the best of Marvel, I would do something similar to the one version of each character and just put in the major characters/your favorites.  For me, that would look something like:

8-10 Avengers (Original team plus Witch, Quick, Hawkeye, Cap, Herc, Black Panther, Black Knight, War Machine, Ms. Marvel)
10-12 X-men (Original 5 plus Wolvie, Colossus, Storm, Nightcrawler, Rogue, Gambit, Bishop, Cable, Prof X, Kitty?)
Fantastic Four
Spiderman
Daredevil
Dr. Strange
Moon Knight
Punisher
Ghost Rider
Captain Marvel

Any big names I forgot?  If you've collected all of the bad guys as well, would be pretty cool to set up a display with the good guys charging right and the bad guys charging left - I mainly just collect the heroes.

[Ben]

I've been seeing wave 2 a lot lately. I want to pick up X3 Jean Grey and Juggernaut, but man, they just want to much for these, and the figures themselves don't look that great.

[Brian]

Our local Target has had some HML 2 in stock as well, although the only two I've seen there are the same She Hulk and X3 Juggernaut.  I was surprised to see She Hulk sit that long actually.  Last I checked, WM and TRU still had HML1 (or none at all).

I see Cool Toy Review has another "411" on upcoming waves of HML - these are apparently focused on a Hulk wave of 12, split across two waves.  It sounds like the two waves will combine to form a BAF of Fin Fang Foom.  I don't know when these are expected to come out.  According to these recent rumors, it seems like there are a lot of "theme" waves on the way - SM3 movie, F4, and now two Hulk waves.  I suppose that means with the movie next year, we'll be seeing an Iron Man themed wave sometime then too.

[evenflow]

Well i am not against using 2 waves to give us a large BAF considering there are a lot of larger characters i want. Looking forward to hearing who the next 6 are.

[Brian]

Yeah, hopefully by spreading it across two waves, this is the way they can "cost out" doing a fairly to scale Fin Fang Foom.  As much as I'd like to get Foom, I just can't see myself buying all of these figures to complete it.

I'm curious, if all of these rumors hold out to be true, how the release schedule is going to look.  It seems like HML 2 is still making it to stores in some areas, and in many cases, there hasn't been much of it out there yet.  After that, we have a confirmed (and seen) HML 3, then rumored waves for Spidey 3, Fantastic Four, HML 4, and now two Hulk waves.  That's 6 waves, and I can't see how those all fit into this year (which is fine).  That's a lot of figures that could realistically last until the middle of next year, but I don't know if that will be the case or not.  Either way, its ok if there is a bit of a wait, because its not like I need to spend more money this year .

[evenflow]

So i was looking at my wish list this morning and its not as long as it used to be, especially if these rumored waves turn out to be true. Here is my current wish list, mostly spidey stuff. What about you guys:

Spider-Man

1. Doppelganger
2. Prowler
3. Puma
4. Jackal
5. Silver Sable
6. Tarantula
7. Chameleon
8. Aunt May
9. Mary Jane
10. Cosmis Spider-Man
11. Amazing Bagman
12. Tombstone
13. Kaine
14. Molten Man

Cosmic Characters

1. Adam Warlock
2. Quasar
3. Drax (modern)
4. Drax (classic)
5. Nova (Galactus Herald)
6. Terrax
7. Fallen One
8. Firelord
9. Ravenous
10. Thanos (modern)

General Marvel Universe

1. Sleep Walker
2. Dark Hawk
3. US Agent
4. Speed Ball
5. Firestar (need to finish off the Amazing Friends)

X-Men

1. Jean Grey
2. Jubilee
3. Dazzler
4. Warpath
5. Shatterstar
6. Feral

Marvel Villians

1. Constrictor
2. Penance
3. Sauron
4. Dormammu
5. Morph

Build-A-Figures

1. Tenebrous
2. Aegis
3. Black Goliath
4. Titanium Man
5. Living Tribunal
6. Eternity
(Celestials would be awesome but there are 9 of them i think)

Small Pack-In characters

1. Pip the Troll
2. Frog of Thunder
3. Spider-Ham
4. Molemen

Overall its not really that big. This is if the rumored lists turn out to be true.
Rumored / confirmed characters off the list:

Peter Parker (SDCC)
FF She-Hulk (SDCC)
Ronan (FF BAF - rumored)
FA Namor (FF - rumored)
Black Bolt (rumored)
Nova (rumored)
Mole Man (rumored)
Wendigo (rumored)
Fin Fang Foom (rumored)
FA Daredevil (rumored)

[Mikey D]

Pics of the movie Spider-man wave

Don't waste your time looking at them though, they suck.

Doesn't bode well for the FF and Hulk waves.

[evenflow]

Well i hated the movie, so why not hate the figures too. I was skeptical when i heard about the Sandman BAF to begin with and my thoughts were correct. Spider-Man has always been my favorite character but i have no interest in getting these figures. The only one i will buy is Mary Jane because i passed on the first movie version and don't expect to get a true comic accurate version. She will have to do. The rest are a big pass for me. I hope the FF and Hulk waves are much better. At least those are supposed to be comic accurate.

[Brian]

I usually try to stay on the positive side of things with this stuff, but I have to admit that these really don't look too great.  I was happy to hear we'd get 6" versions of the figures when the rumors first hit, but seeing these they just don't look quite right.  I think the paint app problems continue to be one of the main culprits, they just seem so flat looking.  I'll pick up MJ too, for the same reason (passed the first version), and to be honest, I might end up picking up the Spidey 3 villains so I can have a "complete set" from the movies.  We'll see though.  This is one of the instances where I think you can really see the difference between the ToyBiz and Hasbro product, where you can see the red/blue (or in this case, now black) Spidey (and Goblin/Ock) and compare them with the rest of the wave.  There is definitely a difference in quality.  Also, to me, the Black Spidey doesn't look all that great.  Just a few things about that figure seem - off.  They would have almost been better off just repainting the Spidey 2 figure, although the "spider" is a little different I believe.

It will be curious what the other waves will look like from here on out, and maybe these pics just aren't doing them justice (hopefully).  If these types of problems continue, I could see trouble ahead for the Legends line.  Especially now that Mattel has the DCU license, there could be increased competition.

[Morgbug]

Wow, those look....mediocre.  At best.  wow.

Here's hoping those are photos NOT of the finished product.  If they are, it's just amazing to see that Hasbro pursued and obtained a license only to kill the line   ML1 was about 50/50 in terms of quality.  ML2 was better by far and in line with ToyBiz product.  Exactly why they'd now revert to the crappy half of ML1 is a bit beyond me. 

I'm going to remain optimistic (perhaps foolishly so) and say these will look better once they're finally released (ignoring the question of why they didn't just do this scale in the first place and the observation that they'll lose the kiddies sales because they've already jumped on the 5" scale anyway).  I'll get MJ regardless, as others have said.  The rest will be a wait and see for more pictures of something removed from a package (hoping those weren't). 

I thought the 5" scale product wasn't that bad looking, just the wrong scale.  How hard can it be to just scale those up by an inch without screwing it up entirely? 

[Brian]

I thought the 5" scale product wasn't that bad looking, just the wrong scale.  How hard can it be to just scale those up by an inch without screwing it up entirely?

Yeah, judging by these pictures, and from the 5" figures I have - the 5" figures actually look better in some cases, even if the scale is wrong.  I know the black Spider-Man figure from the 5" line seems to look a lot nicer than this 6" version, unless the final versions end up being a little bit better.  I agree too, I don't know why they couldn't have just gone this route in the first place.  Hopefully the 5" stuff is a thing of the past from now on.

[Brian]

It looks like TRU.com has some nice sales going on right now if anyone is still looking for them.  A few things I've noticed so far:

Face Offs Series 1 - $4.50 each
House of M/Young Avengers Box Sets - $8.75 each
HML Emma Frost (regular and "diamond" exclusive) - $2.50 each

There might be more, but those are a few I noticed, if anyone is interested.