Sunday, November 17, 2024

Marvel Legends Retro Scarlet Spider & Quicksilver review

Marvel Legends retro-carded figures vary in terms of quality. On one hand, you'd get sculpts that feel genuinely worthwhile overall and are almost perfect for having regular releases in the BAF-wave lines, such as Spiral and Armored Daredevil, but on the other hand, you have garbage such as Tarantula and Multiple Man with barely any paint or over heads that come off as over-sized somewhat. Then it comes to the characters who's probably need to be in the middle ground when to comes to articulation or accessory count, but there's always the necessity to have their newly tooled parts to focus on in addition to making the overall execution easy to stomach given the price tag Legends go for. Let's see which of these two examples can survive current Hasbro's penny-pinching: Scarlet Spider from earlier in the year or the recently-released Quicksilver.


Here we have Scarlet Spider in-hand, who is a reuse of the Renew Your Vows mold and has a prominently red suit with the iconic blue hoodie and a belt with more visible bracelets serving a web shooters and pouches strapped around the ankles. A far as things I like, the shade of red is correct, and I always love seeing the hoodie's slanted logo in addition to the sculpted rips for the sleeves and bottom trim that would be around the waist. I also love seeing that the smaller details, such as the strap for the belt combined with that red dot on the buckle, the silver on the pouches, and the straps near the hood. The belt and bracelets could have easily been painted with silver rather than be molded in marblized plastic, but I'd rather see more shading on the rest of the suit. As it stands, it just ends up looking rather plain, something that could have been fixed if Hasbro wasn't going to add too many accessories.


His head sculpt is just as simple, mostly focusing on the white, jagged lenses signature for Scarlet Spider, but I do wish the lenses could be a little more pearlescent since they appear somewhat flat. That and I'm annoyed at the very tiny paint chip. Articulation is the same as the RYV mold, which means you have a double ball-jointed neck, shoulder rotation, outward arm movement, bicep rotation, double-jointed elbows, wrist rotation, inward wrist hinges, butterfly joints, a diaphragm joint, a reverse ab-crunch joint, ball-jointed hips with drop-down capabilities, thigh rotation, double-jointed knees, boot rotation, ankle hinges, pivots, and toe hinges. He also has a pair of web-shooting hands and wall-crawling hands, with one of each displayed in the second pic. Sadly, there are no other display options to make up for the super basic deco, such as an unmasked head sculpt for Ben Reilly or a hood to put over the mask for that more uncommon look.


Here's a comparison with RYV Spider-Man. As much as I do like Scarlet Spider for the most part, the thing that makes Spider-Man's traditional design better in my eyes has to be the effort put in the color break-up and the various details that make this design feel intricate while having that classic simplicity we all love from the character. Maybe Hasbro could have done some washing to make the flat red less dull on him, or they could go for an Across the Spider-Verse drybrushing route to go with his somewhat edgy character in the movie. Still, Scarlet's a decent figure, and between him, Final Stand Spider-Man (who has the coat-like design), and Spider-Shot (the one with the wonky leg gap and dumb name CALL HIM SPIDER-SNIPER), I'll be fine with what I got.


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

And here we have the recently-made Quicksilver. A lot of people tend to think that Hasbro Legends of late have come off as rushed and not worth the price in 2023, and some of that rings true in 2024 with a few figures. The retro-carded figures also tend to suffer unless they're new sculpts or have worthwhile accessories to make their prices tolerable. Scarlet Spider turned out to be fine, but Quicksilver, rendered in his lesser-known green costume, feels more like the usual crap we've seen with the examples mentioned in the intro. Deco-wise, we get the lighting "strap and belt" design on the torso as well as the white for the rest of the gloves, but color break-up is still pretty basic otherwise. The trunks are a darker green, and the hands and boots are white, yes, but those are molded parts, meaning there could have been some room to either add a wash to accentuate this flat plastic look or a slight bit of sculpted detailing on the lightning bolt that we don't see as often. With the Vulcan body being plain as it is, why not change it up with a bit of new tooling beyond the head? Even the lightning pattern feels a bit mediocre. The lines are crisp and it's not poorly applied, but it could be a bit less transparent. I also don't like how the elbow and knee joints don't mesh with the colors of the rest of the suit.


His head sculpt reeks of brainrot we've seen in Gen Alpha memes of late, as if the Quicksilver was corrupted by that Ohio Skibidi Rizz Sigma Gyatt garbage from one of those 2020 New Warriors everyone made fun of. Pain apps look good, yes, but I do not like this expression and how oversized it comes off as on the body. Also, I don't like how half-baked his hairdo looks, either sculpt those strands of hair to look less like alien antennae or have the hair white and give it a wash! Do both, in fact! His articulation is almost the same as Scarlet Spider's, but the main differences include a ball and hinge combo, an ab crunch and waist swivel combo, and no toe articulation, all of which were common on older Legends. His sole accessories include alternate hands that are not the same as the flat karate chop hands on the card art. Great job, stupid!


We previously had a Quicksilver with a blue suit and entirely different head sculpt, with a more serious facial expression and a less goofy haircut. While this was sold as part of the Family Matters 3-pack with a so-so Magneto and a metallic Scarlet Witch, this Quicksilver looks better than the one we got in green, even with the somewhat dated head sculpt. At least that facial expression doesn't scream brainrot.


Overall, Quicksilver SUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKS. I'm all for Hasbro shadow-dropping a figure out of nowhere, but this may as well be a freebie if the quality is going to be mediocre. If you want a comic Quicksilver, either get this for way cheap or get the blue version.


Final ranking: ⭐⭐ out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

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