Thursday, April 15, 2021

Marvel Legends Stilt-Man Wave Prowler review

Prowler is one of those characters that you have to give a lot of respect towards; he is the brother of Jefferson Davis as well as the uncle to Miles Morales, his relationships between the two contrast each other as he wants to be a cool role model of sorts for his nephew, but despite being a great guy as Aaron Davis, he has a dark side to him that involves his role as a hitman for Kingpin. He is very intimidating to the point where he doesn't mind killing children until he witnesses that the new Spider-Man was actually his nephew. His refusal to kill Miles led to his own death, and his last words were for Miles to be nothing like him on top of apologizing for failing to be the best role model he could be. In a time where most Marvel movie villains since 2013, be it from the MCU or outside of it, were very lackluster in presence, Prowler trumped every Marvel villain in 2018 as my favorite of them all, beating Killmonger, Thanos, the foster homeowner from Deadpool 2, whoever was the true antagonist from Ant-Man & the Wasp, and Riot from Venom. So with all that said, let's take a look at Prowler!


Here we have Prowler in hand, capturing his new design in the movie as it deviates from the comic suit beautifully. He's got some of the similar details that the original comic suit has, like the chest emblem and the cape as well as the collar, but the color scheme fits the character much nicer than ever as a new take on the Ultimate suit. I especially love the gauntlets and the claws, and the paint apps used on them are beautiful. The pattern of black/dark gray-dark green-black/dark gray is very nice, and the logo is good even if the paint apps are a bit hit or miss on the torso. The cape is nicely proportioned as well as the dual-sided cape's coloring. While the aesthetics are nice (even if the figure might be a little inaccurate in terms of proportions to the movie), I don't like that the arms don't go in all the way, which is a massive pet peeve of mine with action figures made of materials like these.


Head sculpt is very accurate to the movie, and I especially love how the mask is sculpted from the bottom to give it the look of a person wearing it underneath. The sharp eyes especially make it look cool if you ask me. His articulation is the same as with most Marvel Legends figures, so I won't cover it in this case for simplicity sake, but one thing that bothers me is that his hands hinge in and out rather than up and down...why that is the case is beyond me, as it'd be even cooler if they hinged in and out to give him more claw-like poses. The ab-crunch is weird since it looks like you could crunch it back more than you would forwards. And as you see here, he has no alternate display options. No Aaron Davis head, no gestural claws, and no effect pieces....that's really frustrating about this toy!


The accessories he does come with are actually BAF pieces for Stilt-Man, which are the right arm (and a corresponding right fist) as well as a briefcase. Look closely at the briefcase and you can open it up to reveal cash inside! Pretty cool if you ask me, and that's sadly it for this figure...but there is one issue that needs to be mentioned, and that's the fact that his arms come off! That is not an intended feature, and it's very annoying that it's been happening whenever I try to push the arms down to make them look straight. Stuff like the figure's design not entirely matching the look of the movie is one thing, having the figure not come with accessories is another thing, but having arms that come off too easily is very annoying. You can always put them back in and it'd work just fine, but that is extremely inexcusable!

Overall, Prowler could have been a great figure to go with the wave, and while he looks mostly good, he ends up being a disappointment compared to his other Spider-Verse counterparts and is sadly worse than Frog-Man! It's especially disappointing when you have a character like him, who was an amazing inclusion to the movie and was a remarkable character overall. I do recommend getting him if you either really love Prowler or ITSV or are interested in completing the BAF. Beyond that, he is more of a letdown as an action figure more than he was when he failed to be a good role model for Miles.


Final ranking: ⭐⭐ and a half out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

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