“Benjamin Grimm! Wherever you are — I challenge you! I challenge you — to a duel you can never win!” – Thundra. Fantastic Four #133, Vol. 1 (Apr. 1973).
Marvel Legends has been running for so long that that they’re making WWE figures!!
I mean, yeah, Thundra is from the Marvel U, but just look at the figure. She’s wouldn’t be out of place with Sgt. Slaughter or the Ultimate Warrior. Well, except maybe that she’s too tall for those guys. Going into the Hulkbuster wave, I bought Thundra just to build the BAF and planned to sell her, but the figure is honestly giving me second thoughts.
While I’m not terribly familiar with the character prior to getting the figure, she sounds like a fun character. It sounds like she’d be near and dear to me if I read more Classic Marvel. She’s an anti-hero, and seemingly one that gets handled improperly by bad writers and written as a villain off and on (but I could be wrong on that). I do know that she’s a champion from an alternate future, a time when the world is controlled by amazon-like women, and that she came back in time to battle the ultimate man and prove her worth. The ultimate man turned out to be the Thing and so hilarity & destruction ensued. Since then, she’s appeared both to assist & thwart our favorite heroes many times over the years.
Since she hails from a race of genetically engineered, super strong women, Hasbro is using that same amazon-like buck used for Valkyrie. It’s a solid buck and it works great here, maybe even better than on Valkyrie and allows Thundra to tower over all but the Asgardian & BAF figures around her. They left most of her costume details to paint, so we’ve only got a couple of newly sculpted pieces for Thundra: a belt and her head sculpt. Like pretty much every figure from Hasbro these days, it’s a terrific head sculpt and tops off the figure style. The only knock is the hair – it’s sculpted around the shoulders which really locks down the neck articulation. I guess at least it looks good doing it? The belt piece does its job, though I’m tempted to pop out some glue and anchor it down.
One quick point on a missing detail. Thundra tends to be shown with big cuffs on her boots and that’s not the case here. It’s a big detail to omit, but the figure itself isn’t lacking for it. You have to know they’re missing to care (and surely some folks do).
The painted costume details are perfectly fine, but probably why the figure looks like a wrestling figure. Wrestling figures seem to relay more on these more detailed, stamped on costume bits than our usual superhero figures. So, it’s a little weird, but not a deal breaker. I mean, we’re used to seeing the lightning bolts down the sides done like this or logos and other details. The ornate braid around the open left shoulder being painted on though is pushing the bounds of acceptable painted details for me. If it has to look like you’re printing it on paper with thick heavy black outlines, you might want to sculpt it. Just sayin’. Again, it’s not a dealbreaker for Thundra, it’s just an oddity that we (thankfully) don’t usually see at this point.
The one mark against the paint is on Thundra’s mouth. I like the open mouth sculpt a lot (I usually don’t), but the white paint on her teeth is a little sloppy and creeps up too much over the lips. It’s a small detail, but it just throws me off when I look at her. Despite my protests on the braid and missing bootcuffs, this white paint on the lips is my only real visual nitpick on Thundra. Continue to Page 2…
Is Thundra built off the Valkyrie buck or the Red She-Hulk buck? someone claimed she was simply a (flesh toned) repaint of the still MIA “Llyra” (aka future She-Hulk?), who was the running change/variant for Red Shulkie, and I can see what they were getting at, but the details are slightly different, even if the costume is (nearly?) the same, iirc.
I really want to see this body used for Zarda aka Power Princess, so we have someone to go with Hyperion. The upcoming Speed Demon is kinda a teammate cheat, as he was with the Squadron Sinister, not Supreme.
Having the Thundra, Valkyrie and Red She Hulk figures and having popped them all apart and reassembled checking for compatibility (plan on using the Valkyrie upper torso and arms either on Thundra or RSH to make a more “classic” Val) I’m fairly certain Thundra uses the same buck as the She Hulk. The one difference I noticed in all the figures is that Valkyrie is just ever slightly more narrow overall. Her upper torso on Thundra’s or Red Shulkie’s lower is pretty snug but works fine and doesn’t look odd in any position. On the other hand using RSH/Thundra upper on Valkyrie’s lower leaves a noticeable gap between the pieces.
I really hope this is leading to a Titania figure especially with Absorbing Man coming out.
I’m that guy who’s bothered by her boots… heck, they could’ve been re-used for a classic Mockingbird or Monica Rambeau. Or not, now that I think about it, due to the scale they used. (And to be clear, I don’t object to it. Klaw and Classic Iron Man aside, they do seem to be *trying* with regard to scale.)
I’m tempted to pick her up anyway.