Marvel Legends (Terrax Wave)
Iron Man & Variant Review

When I bought Marvel Legends the first time around, I wasn’t always happy with their experimental articulation. I like having a lot, but my definition of a lot is basically what Mattel uses with MOTU Classics (I would like to see ball-jointed wrists in that line though). I don’t really need jointed toes or fingers, I never cared for those embedded shoulder joints, etc.

For my Iron Men, I’m really happy with most of the articulation. I’d like to see better ankle articulation, (they are ball-jointed, but I want the rocker ankles that were promised at SDCC), a swivel waist, and for the figure’s design to be more compatible with the hips (let’s just say it’s a good thing Iron Man doesn’t have anywhere he needs to sit down).

Those three nitpicks aside, Iron Man is really impressive! Below the waist, he sports ball-ankles, double hinge knees, thigh swivels, and ball-jointed hips. The thigh swivels are ingeniously hidden between the red lower thigh and gold upper thigh, but what I really appreciated was the two circles on his hips – they’re articulated too and can swivel up and out of the way so they don’t block poses. Pretty cool.

Above the missing waist joint, you’ve got some nice articulation in the arms with ball shoulders and wrists, bicep swivels, and double hinge elbows. These are tremendously useful for posing, the only pose I haven’t been able to get him into that I wanted was him firing both repulsors side-by-side, but with his fist hand, he can’t really do that anyway (some extra hands would be nice, Hasbro).

The last two joints are what really sold me though. Normally, I prefer an ab crunch to a ball-jointed torso, but Iron Man has such great range that I have no complaints this time around. He’s got great forward and back movement and it’s tremendously useful in flying poses. The same can be said for the neck joint as well. I was downright gleeful when I found out how far the figure could look up. The ball-joint in the neck has such great range that IM can look straight up while standing, or, more to the point, he can look forward while being parallel to the ground. The ball torso adds to the pose, but the neck does a great job on its own.

Finally, I also scored my first Terrax piece! There’s not much notable here other than to point that I now am a proud owner of two Terrax left legs. Though I will point out that the leg has the ankle articulation that I want incorporated into every figure ever. It still features a ball-joint, but with the peg going into the foot instead of the other way around. The peg goes into the foot piece as if it were a shoe and the range is incredible. It’s similar to what Mattel tried with DCUC16 Robin, but y’know without weakass thin plastic. I have this same joint on a few of my MUs and I think Joe/Renegades Scarlett sports it as well.

I also got a little slip of paper detailing Terrax’s run-in with Dazzler. I don’t know much about Terrax and as I inevitably build him (let’s face facts here folks) it will be get to the get the paperwork and learn more about him.

Overall, after picking up Thor & Iron Man (and a few others…), I think it’s safe to pronounce that Marvel Legends is back. These figures are nothing like Hasbro’s first stab at the license a few years ago. The original sculpts are solid, the articulation useful with no stuck joints, the paint has been good on the two cases I’ve seen so far, and the whole line just looks really good – back from the edge and flush with potential. These are toys I’m happy to own, happy to build a BAF I know nothing about instead of having to buy figures I wasn’t happy with to get a BAF that was more about the character for me than the final toy. Those days feel like a long time ago after seeing this wave. I had a good chuckle at the new packaging, there isn’t much fanfare in this hobby and the little “The Return of Marvel Legends!” sticker amused me, but it belongs there. And the proof will be in the pudding, because there’s going to be a Terrax review here at IAT before you know it.

For more Marvel reviews, check out our Review Index.

40 thoughts on “Marvel Legends (Terrax Wave)
Iron Man & Variant Review

    1. you know, seeing that group shot, i don’t think IM is that much smaller than he ought to be. like, compare him to constrictor, who’s pretty much a regular dude. IM is notably larger than he is. carnage is a normal sized guy, but the symbiotes do tend to add mass (i don’t believe they do canonically, but look at how venom and carnage notably bulk up over their symbiote-less host) and then in the avengers shot, while i agree that thor is a tad big, cap is a peak human, at physical perfection… he should be considerably larger than IM has business being, because tony is not only a peak athlete, he’s a businessman and alcoholic… his stature should be a little slight by comparison. not to say that extremis IM is not a tad small, but i really think he’s close to about right.

      to make more comparison, i think clearly the FOIM is too buffed, by a huge margin, to be a CEO. these dudes are not buffed, sorry. and the first IM and WM in legends were just all around too big. even “dude in a suit” doesn’t explain why they’re so large. tony is not hulk sized, and if you match up that first series IM and hulk, it appears nearly so.

      i know it’s almost anathema to suggest, but that movie WM might be the gold median everyone is searching for. he’s about dude sized, but bulkier due to the mass of the armor.

      1. I think the height is pretty good, I just want a little more bulk in the arms or legs. I agree that he should only be so buff as a CEO, but he’d have to be downright malnourished to fit in the suit!

        I agree on IM2 War Machine. There’s some convincing bulk there.

  1. I was way more impressed with this guy than I thought. He’s a bit on the small side even without taking into account your “too sleek” point, and definitely feels as if he fits more into the scale of the movie figures. Still, he captures the Extremis look perfectly and moves great.

    Regarding whether he’s too sleek, I agree more that he should just be bigger. The popular point that the scale conscious and Iron Man fans debate over is whether Extremis figures can afford to be smaller than other IM figures because much of the armor is secreted as a second skin out of his pores – thus allowing his overall build to be sleeker than a suit containing a dude.

    1. I really love how he moves! He’s like a dolphin. LOL

      I like his height, I just want a little more bulk in the limbs I think. The nano aspect of the Extremis does explain it away somewhat, but not quite.

        1. Yep. I bought the orange variant one, but I haven’t opened him yet. I might actually like the blue one better, but, after the eventual review, I think I’m going to tone down the color on the skull. Hopefully it’s white plastic and a little aceton will help clean it up.

  2. I wish he was a little bigger, but he still looks great. Looking forward to seeing what other Legends are on tap for this year. Love the pics of the Iron Men having a laugh!

  3. Great review! I am more of a DC guy, but with DCUC on the ropes, I’ve started picking some of these up myself. Not having been into ML before, I have to say I’m really liking them. One question: Where did you get those amazing flight stands?

  4. Loved the review! I’m a huge Iron Man fan, and the Extremis Armor is my favorite. Your review is spot on. Also loved the shot of Extremis vs. Hulkbuster–straight from the comics.

    I’m envious of your Stealth variant. Gotta have it for the armory!

      1. I ordered 2 each of Steve and Hope from TRU.com and got two variant Steves. I do tend to be lucky like that, online. At retail, not so much. I did see this IM the other week at TRU, but I’m so tired of IM after all the movie waves, plus he’s the extra figure for the 8/case shipper, it was an easy pass.

      2. I ordered 2 each of Steve and Hope from TRU.com and got two variant Steves. I do tend to be lucky like that, online. At retail, not so much. I did see this IM the other week at TRU, but I’m so tired of IM after all the movie waves, plus he’s the extra figure for the 8/case shipper, it was an easy pass.

  5. I’ve been searching all over California for the new Legends and can’t find them anywhere. What states are you guys finding them in?

    1. Target made life easier for ML fans this time round. J0emama over at fwoosh (http://thefwoosh.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=96&t=75859&start=420) posted the following link for Marvel Legends stock at any target store:

      http://sites.target.com/site/en/spot/mobile.jsp?title=fiats&dpci=087-06-2403&storeNumber

      Just enter either your zip or city and state and it will tell you the stock status of ML 1 for stores in a fifty mile radius down the exact number of figures. These have a street date 2/24, so a lot places aren’t putting them on shelves. I used the link and still had to ask. Best part of the story is that I couldn’t find a staff member to help me, but a vendor (from a company collectors give a lot of flack to) happened to be there. She looked up the dcpi#, even made a call to verify, and ran to the back to grab a case for me. She’s the one who told me about the street date, but told me to check out with them and see if hey ring up. She also said I didn’t get them from her. She was really great and made my day. Only gripe I have is that was a variant case. I’m not interested in any of those this time around so the hunt continues.

  6. STOP MAKING ME WANT TOYS. TRU only had TWO Stealth Iron Mans. Bummed I missed out on Energy Shield Steve. Might go back for this guy, maybe. $18 is a bit much, though i rpefer to support TRU over walmart. Hopefully these will hit other stores soon. Though my walmart has been a dick with their 6″ move exclusives. If it want for living mostly out of state for the past few years I wouldn’t have foun d nay. Now I’m back in NY stuck between two shitty walmarts. Hopefully these get released everywhere.

    1. If Wal-Mart would get these in, it’d be great! As it is, the next case at TRU will prolly see me finishing up Terrax at the higher price point. :/

  7. Great review, and phenomenal photography as usual. If you want some good Terrax stories make sure you check out all his appearances in Fantastic Four when John Byrne used to write & draw the title. Don’t bother with any modern crap…the FF appearances are where it’s at. 🙂

    Peace,

    Chip

  8. Great review! Got a variant set from Meijers. $14.99 was the damage. Didn’t get Hope S. though.

    1. Nope, that’s the alternate head from the Iron Man/F. SHIELD 2pk. It seems that Hasbro is continuing to make their heads swappable after those 2pjs.

      (regular red 70s armor Tony came with Sharon Carter, while the variant Stealth Tony came with Maria Hill. altho you could do a little army building as both sets came with two head for each figure. The variant female heads were fully painted, while the regular were flesh plastic, and the alternate Maria head was a red head.)

  9. I wonder why Hasbro stopped doing the whole optional hands gig, especially since the Iron Man 2 6inch line featured it. Having asymmetrical hands really irks me, and its strange to display him as a suit of armor if one hand’s a fist and another’s wide open. The IM2 6inch Mk.IV and Mk.VI are still the best Iron Man figs in recent years IMO, in terms of articulation, accuracy and details. The Revoltech Iron Man series just look too anorexic; Iron Man’s a guy in a suit, not a mecha, so he really should look like there’s a human inside

Comments are closed.