Let's start off with the X-Gal who's given top billing in the opening of the animated series. Short for Jubilation Lee, this character is given her signature raincoat, pink shirt, and short shorts with gloves and boots that match each other. While the X-Men character designs in the Jim Lee era/90s animated series are known to be colorful, probably moreso than other iterations, Jubilee stands out the most, having a more rebellious and carefree vibe to her outfit (unless she has her Uncanny uniform or the Generation X uniform. The clothes on her are sculpted nicely, though they don't have any shading to make them look less like plastic. But I guess the lack of shading fits her more youthful character more than it would someone like Wolverine or Storm. Her belt is at least painted well, the rolled-up parts of the short-short leg material are a different shade of blue, and the emblem on her shirt is decently painted.
Her head sculpt is generally sculpted well and the paint apps for the eyes, eyebrows, and lips are applied on well, but my copy has the eyes look derpy, which is a common issue for most Marvel Legends ladies in the 2010s. Misty Knight and Rogue are examples. Her visor is meant to stay on there, so while you can pull it off of her face, it probably isn't designed to work that way. Her articulation is standard for the female Legends, with a ball and hinge neck combo, shoulders that move front and back as well as in and out, the elbows bend and swivel, and her hands can swivel while her right hand hinges in and out in contrast to the left hand hinging up and down. The diaphragm joint articulates on a ball joint in lieu of an ab crunch joint and can also rotate in addition to tilting side by side, but the waist swivels as well. Hips move front and back, in and out, thighs swivel, knees bend at two points, the boots swivel, the ankles hinge and finally pivot.
She only has an alternate head accessory that depicts her blowing a bubble of gum, and that's it. While the visor IS removable on that head, it is weird how that is the only one to do so. And be careful with the bubblegum part snapping off. I wish she came with firework accessories made exclusively for her because she otherwise has not alternate accessories apart from the head. I mean, she comes with the torso for Caliban, but we'll see if I'll complete him anytime soon. On the plus side, she looks great with the X-Men figures of either normal (Jean Grey) or Retro-carded style (Rogue), though her face could use a better style that doesn't make her look like an early release of the character from before the Infinite Series. Ironically, the Jubilee that was made as a BAF for the 2014 Toys R Us X-Men wave depicts her with better-looking paint apps for the face. So overall, this is probably better than the VHS version, but don't go too crazy about buying her at a higher price tag.
Final ranking: ⭐⭐⭐ and a half out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
And up next it's Mystique. While there was a lot of tooling made for Jubilee in mind, Mystique isn't as new by comparison. In fact, her clothes are instead painted or molded colors, with the only new real thing being the loin cloth or skirt that includes various sculpted skulls in gold paint. She is the standard Female Legends buck, and it is a shame that her parts can't be newly sculpted to depict the difference between her blue skin and her white dress. If it weren't for the fact that her arms, feet, and both parts of her torso were molded in white plastic (the latter two pieces having blue paint), then you could probably strip the paint away and make her into her movie counterpart, but it wouldn't fit this version too well unless you're obsessed with fanservice too much.
Her head sculpt is thankfully new, and it not only fits her evil beauty perfectly, but it also contrasts the original Toy Biz head and the 2012-3 Epic Heroes version that gave her a pinched face and no sculpted forehead skull that is to blame from it being a repaint of Madame Hydra. I also love the red hair she has, and the yellow eyes contrast her blue skin nicely. Her articulation consists of the same range as Jubilee, but she has no wrist swivels, and her hand articulation is reversed on this figure. Her two main accessories include a pistol and a rapid-fire Tommy gun with removable clip to boot, but both of them are molded in pale gold plastic like some early Lego C-3PO minifigs.
As far as alternate accessories are concerned, she has a head meant for Lilandra, but I have yet to know if there is an complete version of that character to give this head to. Who knows, it feels like a Super Hero Masher pack-in accessory but without the mashing in favor of it fitting with the character's shape-shifting powers. The more successful accessory is a head that halfway goes to Rogue, which I put on the Retro Rogue to make it look like she took Mystique's powers and will use them against the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants.
Speaking of, here she is with the rest of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants that I own so far. Only Blob is more fitting for the 90s artstyle while Magneto is the Age of Apocalypse version rather than the full-on Jim Lee style. Overall, Mystique is pretty good, even though she feels a bit incomplete without the alternate hands and some new sculpting to make the clothes feel more layered. Still the best Mystique Hasbro put out.
Final ranking: ⭐⭐⭐ and a half out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
I should mention that Mystique also has a VHS-styled release, but I honestly don't think either character does a good job of conveying the real worth of the price bump and cel-shaded paint apps. Honestly, I'm not someone who cares too much about cel-shaded items in three-dimensional toys apart from maybe G1 Transformers because it's flat-surface robots vs more organic and rounded human figures. And the way the paint apps are executed on the two figures and most if not all of the VHS subline is amateur. I like that Jubilee has the option to wear either translucent or opaque visors, but her effect pieces are not proper fireworks effect pieces. And why are Mystique's weapons colored like her skin when the pale gold was perfectly fine if not unusual? The baby Nightcrawler accessory is fine but the face looks more like a baby Hulk in blue. Yeah you can skip these two and stick with the ones you already got.
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