{"id":12327,"date":"2011-04-18T00:45:43","date_gmt":"2011-04-18T05:45:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=12327"},"modified":"2011-04-18T22:16:10","modified_gmt":"2011-04-19T03:16:10","slug":"marvel-universe-reviews-loki-the-savage-front-giant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=12327","title":{"rendered":"Marvel Universe Reviews
Loki & the Savage Frost Giant"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a> I had little intention of buying the Frost Giant. He looked cool at SDCC , but I generally only buy Marvel Universe figures of characters I know & like. And yet, when Vault called me late last week to tell me the newest Gigantic Battles had shown up at Wal-Mart, I found myself driving over to check them out. <\/p>\n

As you’ve astutely gathered, that Frost Giant came home with me. There were a few reasons: he looked cool in the package, I had $25 burning a hole in my pocket, my wife wasn’t with me, etc. But to be honest, I think the biggest factor in my picking him up was because he didn’t have to be just a Marvel Universe purchase. He belongs with them to be sure, but he also fits well in a Marvel Legends display. He could come in handy battling against the Legendary Comic Book Heroes’ Conan, Masters of the Universe Classics Vikor, or a bevy of other warrior-themed figures.<\/p>\n

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Of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that there’s a Loki in the set too. He wasn’t so much of a selling point for me, though he certainly helps to justify the price of the set. It’s not Loki’s fault, I’ve just had very little experience with the character. I’ve never read a Thor comic (though I am picking up Keiron Gillen’s new run on Journey into Mystery<\/em>), so most of my Loki knowledge came from an old episode of Spider-Man & His Amazing Friends<\/em>. Thor appears early on in the episode (it might even be the first time I ever saw Thor) and gives viewers a quick monologue about Asgard, the Rainbow Bridge, Frost Giants, Loki, etc. For the longest time, I thought Loki was simply Thor’s brother \u2013 that his origins in Norse mythology were simply overlooked for the sake of convenience. It wasn’t until years later that I learned Loki was indeed still a child of the Frost Giant Laufey, but had been raised by Odin as Thor’s adopted brother and later his arch-rival.<\/p>\n

* – That episode actually features Frost Giants too, if I recall. Iceman ends up being sent to Norse Hell and is saved by the Frost Giant queen who then takes him back to her kingdom as her lover. Hilarity ensues. That was show as crazy like that. I\u2019m still kicking myself for not picking up that 3pk. <\/em><\/p>\n

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Loki appropriately uses the thin MU buck (think Spider-Man). Below the neck, it’s the same body we’ve seen a time or two before. I still don’t like how soft the hand sculpts are, but the fist and the open hand work really well for Loki (as you’ll see in a few of the pictures).<\/p>\n

Like any buck figure, the head sculpt is where the whole piece succeeds or fails and, man, does Loki succeed. The horns and ponytail are present for accuracy, but it’s the face sculpt that really impresses. It’s not soft at all despite the scale and has excellent details with a great expression that’s perfect for a trickster god.<\/p>\n

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The paint work was hit and miss on my Loki. You can clearly see where the gold stripe down his chest didn’t quite meet the yellow paint for the collar, but it’s mostly blending out because most of the edges are sharp. The tampo for the scales is extra clean and that saves the whole area I think. The various yellow and gold parts blend well throughout the figure. The face is well done, but also peculiar. The face is molded in a yellowish flesh tone and then painted with a darker flesh tone. It’s hard to see unless you’re up close, but the highlights on his face are actually areas where there is no paint. It’s so strange, I almost question if that was done purposefully, but it works so well that it must have been.<\/p>\n

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Articulation is the only area where I wasn’t pleased with the figure, but it’s more about my dislike of how Hasbro handles the articulation on the line. I lament any figure that doesn’t have a waist joint or uses the simple one-piece ball joint for the head. Despite the head only having limited up and down movement, the other joints all have decent range and the figure stands well unlike a handful of my other Marvel Universe figures (there are some leaners in the above photo).<\/p>\n

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Loki is a nice figure. His face and hands are expressive and he looks sharp on the shelf with his color scheme. It’s just that I clearly bought the set for the Savage Frost Giant and Loki hasn’t been getting my full attention. I mean, a Frost Giant picture even spilled over to his page. Sorry, Loki. Continue to the Savage Frost Giant…<\/a><\/p>\n

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Like much of Thor’s back story, the Frost Giants also spring forth from Norse Mythology and aren’t exclusive to Thor. As I said in the intro, I bought this Frost Giant because of its versatility. You already saw him sparring with a Marvel Legends Valkyrie on the last page and he doesn’t look out of place with her. On this page you’ll see him mixed in with some other lines and his design fits right in with them too. I think Hasbro will surely squeak out some extra sales on fans like me buying him to fight Vikor or Conan.<\/p>\n

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I don’t know enough about Marvel’s Frost Giants to know if this is a specific one, but the packaging doesn’t seem to indicate that he was designed to be. There is a comic included, The Mighty Thor<\/em> #175. I read through it and didn’t see this particular Frost Giant in there either (though I did feel like I might have gotten a preview\/spoiler for how the movie is going to play out). <\/p>\n

The Frost Giant stands about 12″ tall and is an ingenious reuse of the 12″ Marvel Legends Thor. He only needed new feet, knees, the armor\/kilt, and a new head. It’s hard to even tell he’s a reuse \u2013 the bandages on the feet blend perfectly with the bandages from Thor’s boots, but a quick check under his kilt will reveal his… Thor belt buckle. What’d you think I was gonna say?<\/p>\n

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I never had the original Thor, but it looks to have been a well sculpted figure for the size and the Giant benefits from it here. The pieces unique to him really add a level of detail that made him hard to resist on the shelf. He’s unmasked in the package, which lets you see the great sculpt on his face. He’s not happy, he’s about to snarl, and he might even be hungry. I don’t know if Frost Giants eat people, but I wouldn’t want to find out on a dark night in the icy tundra. His armor and kilt are nicely done. They’re a soft plastic, but with plenty of detail. His armor is a big selling point for me with hammered details, rivets, and dents & dings aplenty. I\u2019m also unnaturally happy about his rough and broken toenails. I don’t know why.<\/p>\n

The paint work excellent. His skin fades from a light icy blue (his molded color) to a darker blue in key areas. The armor is made to look like metal through a mix of brushwork and dry washes. The washes on the fur pieces bring out their details and the specific areas like the chin tattoo, the eyes, and bullring are all crisp. The only thing I didn’t like about the paint was the use of silver to simulate the snow\/frost on the top of the fur around his shoulders. I think it’s just too metallic to convey snow to me. An off-white might have been better and using a little bit of it on the rest of the sculpt would’ve probably helped blend it in as well. That’s a minor quibble on an excellently painted figure however.<\/p>\n

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Like most MUs, the articulation is pretty good, but it also makes me want to pull my hair out at times. Above the waist, he’s fantastic. Ball-joints on the head and shoulders, swivels at the biceps, wrists, and waist, hinges at the elbows, wrists, articulated fingers on his left hand, and the ab crunch. The legs give me pause though. I’ve never been a fan of ball hips for two reasons. One, they’re unsightly (which is taken care of here with the kilt) and two, they can be a real pain in the ass to get in the right position. This is particularly true with the Frost Giant. When I bought him I couldn’t get much range out of his hips. I had to hike up his kilt so I could get at the joints more directly and it took some serious work to get them to twist and turn how I wanted. They’re still a bit hard to turn and any deep range is blocked by his sculpted butt and the kilt (it’s pliable, but cumbersome). Once I got them working better, I still had problems with the ankles. They look like rocker ankles, but they don’t have much side-to-side range \u2013 meaning even when I did get the hips into nice poses, the ankles didn’t help me stabilize them. The giant also features double hinge knees.<\/p>\n

The articulation isn’t a make or break issue for me. I wish the legs worked better, but the upper articulation is excellent and, as you can see in the pics, I got some decent battle poses despite the restricted legs.<\/p>\n

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The Frost Giant also included a giant axe accessory. It’s a nice piece unto itself with a good sculpt and nice paints, but I had trouble with the figure holding it. It’s designed for only his left hand* (with the articulated fingers), but the weight of it is sometimes more than the fingers can handle. I spewed my share of curse words trying to get the axe the way I wanted it in a lot of these shots. I like it, but I wish it had been designed to better fit between the thumb and palm of the hand so it could fit snugly without relying on the articulated fingers to hold it in.<\/p>\n

* – It’s okay that his right hand can’t hold it because the fur over his right shoulder prevents him from raising that arm to swing the axe anyway.<\/em><\/p>\n

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His other accessory is probably my favorite piece in the whole set. I love his helmet. It’s a skull adorned with tusks. I don’t know if it’s based on a crazy Norse beast or if three elephants had to die to make it and I don’t care. It’s made of a pliable plastic and fits on the giant perfectly, but it’s the details \u2013 the cracks, holes, striations \u2013 that really make it shine. It’s just a really cool piece. The great head sculpt makes me want to have him not wear it, but it’s great enough in its own right that you want to keep it on all the time. Fortunately, he can hold it by the horns or, like at my house right now, he traded with my GI Joe 12\u201d Marine. The Marine is sporting the tusked helmet with his dress blues while my Frost Giant looks like the Captain of the Love Boat!<\/p>\n

Overall, Hasbro hit it out of the park on this set. Loki is a well-executed buck figure and an important part of any Thor collection (I’ll finally have a Thor when I pick up that Avengers 3pk), but the crown jewel here is appropriately the Frost Giant. I wouldn’t mind picking up the Bill Foster Goliath figure (he looks cool even though I’m not terribly familiar with the character), but I couldn’t say no to the Frost Giant. He’s a great reuse of the 12″ Thor with all the right details added via new pieces, cool paints, and two great accessories. Yeah, there were one or two things I didn’t like with the hip joints or the articulated fingers, but they ended up being smaller distractions on an otherwise great figure.<\/P><\/p>\n

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For more Marvel Universe reviews, check out our
Marvel Universe Collector’s Guide<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had little intention of buying the Frost Giant. He looked cool at SDCC , but I generally only buy Marvel Universe figures of characters I know & like. And yet when Vault called me late last week to tell me the newest Gigantic Battles had shown up at Wal-Mart, I found myself driving over to check him out. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":12329,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[26,34,10],"tags":[979,24,980,2567,888],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.itsalltrue.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/froTN.jpg?fit=50%2C50","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pObc6-3cP","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12473,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=12473","url_meta":{"origin":12327,"position":0},"title":"THOR Week Reviews Marvel Universe Thor #012","date":"May 2, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"With Thor debuting in theaters this week (and another project we'll announce soon) we've decided to celebrate the God of Thunder with a week dedicated to reviews of toys based on him and his supporting characters in the Marvel Universe line. For today, we're taking a look at the single-carded\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marvel Universe"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27203,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=27203","url_meta":{"origin":12327,"position":1},"title":"Marvel Universe Hercules Review","date":"March 5, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"","rel":"","context":"In "Marvel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":21397,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=21397","url_meta":{"origin":12327,"position":2},"title":"Marvel Universe SDCC Exc: Masters of Evil 3pk Review","date":"October 10, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"It\u2019s been awhile since my last Marvel Universe review. Truth is, MU and I seem to have had a falling out. Space, budgeting, the return of Marvel Legends, & just finding the damn things have all affected my MU purchases of late. I haven\u2019t bought many, but I did need\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marvel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12563,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=12563","url_meta":{"origin":12327,"position":3},"title":"Shameless Plug: Check out my new blog, The Daily Thor!","date":"May 13, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"This announcement was supposed to come at the end of Thor Week, but some technical glitches here at IAT really threw me, Vault, and the rest of the gang for a loop this weekend! Now that we have everything in working order, I'd like to invite all of you to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Daily Thor"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12495,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=12495","url_meta":{"origin":12327,"position":4},"title":"THOR Week Vault Review: Doctor Doom & Absorbing Man","date":"May 3, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I also found it interesting that they chose to give us a classic comic book version of Doom in a Secret Wars pack. I always thought the battle armor that he forged to take down the Beyonder had a great look. Plus it made for a really cool toy in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marvel Universe"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":22207,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=22207","url_meta":{"origin":12327,"position":5},"title":"Review Round-Up (December10th-December 16th)","date":"December 21, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, the world didn\u2019t end, but the long reign of TMNT Series 2 is over! Who\u2019s in Series 3 again? Anyway, sorry for the late update this week, but we\u2019re here now with plenty o fun Marvel, DC, & MOTU reviews. Plus, there\u2019s some Captain Action action and can you\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Toys"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12327"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12327"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12358,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12327\/revisions\/12358"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}