Hasbro giveth, and Hasbrow taketh away...

My initial thought - OMG they fixed the hips!!!! And they did, truly. gijoey posted earlier that he though the hips were better now, and in hand, I can agree. I dig them. The difference? something we've been saying for a long time now - the angle at which the ball joint is inserted into the waist. The same component parts are there as for other movie figures. But instead of them being inserted upwards, they are inserted straight into the crotch sideways. The result is that you don't have to swivel the first joint at all. The hinge works for lateral movement, and the swivel from the new insertion point allows for forward and backward movement, all without having to monkey.

It's not a Joe hip, which I think I still prefer. But for the first time ever I can foresee hip articulation better than Joe. It has full range of motion, and now makes the thigh swivel relevant for the first time. You can easily put this hip into a sitting down legs crossed postion.

I am impressed.

Now the taketh away part.

No wrist articulation
No ankle articulation
No mid torso OR waist articulation.

I can almost live with the wrists and ankles. The rest of the arms and legs have Joe styled articulation, double knees, swivel elbows, etc... But the lack of any type of torso movement is a big hurdle here.

Cap and comic Thor have identical articulation, as described above. Hulk is different only in that his hip is inserted upwards - but without a thigh swivel, which is a small improvement over the old style, and he has an action feature that resembles mid torso articulation. I guess it actually is articulated back and forward. But nothing side to side.

As far as action features go, it's actually not bad. It's not intrusive on normal play. Though they click, the arms can still rotate at the shoulder independent of each other. If you want the Hulk smash, you line them up, pull them back past the head and let go, and it simply springs the arms and the upper torso forward. It's almost kind of cool.

Last observation is that Cap is small. His other movie figs were smallish too, so that's not a huge surprise, but it looks (without actually measuring) that he's a nub shorter than the Cap Movie figs even.

I strangely like these, even with the limitations, and I think it's more about how awesome they might have been. The hip upgrade is a HUGE deal - can't say it enough. And they feel like nice solid figures. The sculpts are well done, and they had the potential to be 3 of the finest 1:18 figures I've laid my hands on. With the articulation corner cutting, however, they are simply nice looking things that I'm not sure how much I should bother working on.

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I was at my nearest Toys R Us on Thursday and they didnt have any Avengers items. A worker asked if he could help me and i asked about them. He said that they had them in the back but that they were holding them until the release date. He called someone to see whenit was and the lady said the twenty-something of this month.

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I like what I'm seeing, Bindy. Thanks!

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Well, damn. No interest whatsoever now. The lack of any torso movement is a definite deal-breaker (I'll still get Scar-Jo Widow for the head, arms, & legs, though.) Glad that the new hips work, but the small size makes them incompatible with my other superhero figs & customs. Even Ult Thor looks too small - and I held out hope that he'd be the one fig in this wave worth getting. No reason to get any of these as they provide neither fodder or play value for my purposes


Thanks for the pics, Dennis - this was, sadly, exactly what I needed.

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I'm digging the Thor.

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Half of me feels as you do. At least I know for fact I won't buy multiples - except for maybe Widow. Though since my verse is still Joe sized, they are relevant for me in that way. Wondering if I can bump Cap up a bit and fix the torso issue by cutting him carefully and mobilizing the moob by hand... lol



My TRU was doing a large re-set for the first time in years, so someone probably just got jumpy. That never happens here, and I think the euphoria made me buy. lol.



They really do LOOK awesome. I'm torn between accepting them despite their flaws because of how much of them I do like, versus shaking my fist at them for the lost chance at greatness. And this is coming from a guy who had no interested in buying any more Caps, Thors, or Hulks.

Those IM2 figs I got the other day at Target, after DJ posted about them. Had never seen them prior to clearance.

Also, I'm sure it's just because I stopped paying attention to Thor figs, but I saw a whole wave of wave 1 repaints at my TRU (glow in the dark type repaints) I had never even heard of.

And I don't know if they didn't have it, or it already sold, but I did not see the heli-carrier. Just a couple Quinjets, which did surprise me. But the price didn't do it for me.

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wow, lack of articulation makes these a big pass.

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I tried that on Shawnee Rayburn in 8th grade and got the "LASER BLAST" slapped out of me...

*back then, "moob" stood for "mmmmmm......boob..."

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I was hoping that line would get sig'd by someone... lol

Best part is when Shawnee Rayburn's husband googles her name, and is like WTH?!

EDIT: saw the pics of the carrier on marvelous news. Better scaled than I thought, but still not close to being useable as such. Thinking that if I ever wanted to make one of my EXCAL airships though, this would make a nice top deck, with just building a hold beneath it.

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NO

dang it! I was hoping that they'd at least be what we're used to. i won't go back.

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Considering most of the Cap movie figures didn't have wrist articulation I think I can deal with it on the new Avengers Cap.

I'm going to need whatever versions of Iron Man they put out (aside from the blue "stealth" variations... ugh), movie Cap (masked and unmasked) and Ultimate Thor. Maybe Hulk if he looks good in hand if/when I see him. Other than that and the new characters I'm sitting this line out for the most part.

Oh... anyone else thinking of bashing a Flagg conn tower onto the Helicarrier to make a proper flying aircraft carrier? Nope? Just me then? Cool.

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Yes!
They fixed the cursed movie hips.
Let's hope they fixed it for good. Funny how we all knew that it took an horizontal peg instead of a vertical one before the engineers at Hasbro. Only took them 4 movie lines.

I hope that the new figures from the Spider-Man movie will be fixed as well.

Thanks for the reviews.

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No basic figs at my local TRU this morning, but they had a case of the first 2 deluxe figures (Iron Man w/Cap line glider and parachute Cap repack).

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Been seeing those at most TRUs myself. The Cap is a repaint of the single card Super Combat Cap from the movie line. So full articulation on him. Iron Man has Avengers artic. Kinda tempted by Cap, since it's the movie design in comic colors (red gloves and boots instead of brown).

Marvelousnews has pics up of the new MU, ML, and Avengers stuff. Love that Avengers Black Widow has only lost the mid torso joint. Bummed that MU Puck doesn't have elbow or knee joints. I was hoping this would be my source for decently articulated dwarf fodder. Surprised that they don't have MU Blastarr, Jubilee or Xavier on display, I'm looking forward to seeing pics of the Prof. in a form that's closer to production. Punisher is great, and I'm incredulous that they're doing Death's Head next year.