Saturday 29 March 2014

Ultimate Green Goblin (Marvel Legends)

Marvel Legends Ultimate Green Goblin (BAF)
Taking every bit of the Ultimate Green Goblin pieces and putting them all together is not only rewarding but it's also quite a relief knowing that we're finally back to the good ol' Marvel Legends "BIG build-a-figures". Not that I hate those little ones we had a year ago, but getting three of them consecutively- Hit Monkey, Rocket Raccoon and then Puck was distressing me quite a bit. Now having this figure to be quite frank with you, is like meh... with a question mark on my forehead. I presume fans of the Ultimate Spider-Man comic book series would be wanting this but me?- I'm not a huge fan of what it seemed like an Abomination look-alike or a Green Goblin hulking out!













Speaking of which, some of you may be familiar with this body mold. This is a retool of the Wal-Mart Exclusive 6-inch Avengers movie Hulk (also by Hasbro). I wish I have that figure so I can show you a comparison between the two but unfortunately you may have to resort through Google. The Marvel Legends Ultimate Green Goblin Build-A-Figure Wave or the Infinite Amazing Spider-Man Series had a pretty good set of figures. My favourite of all is Carnage, and then we got a new female body mold with Black Cat and a highly articulated Spider-Man. I got nothing bad to say about this Series.


The Ultimate Green Goblin is not the typical masked villain we know who carries pumpkin bombs and rides a glider. He has the power to control or conjure flame (pyrokinesis) and thus this flame effects he comes with. Aesthetically, the design of these accessories are impressive; almost glowing with its translucent orangey plastic sculpted to follow the contours of his arms and back. And it's removable, so you can either have him wear it or not however you want.


But without Goblin's visually dynamic flame effects, he is but a figure painted flatly with green in most parts and blue all throughout the pants. Nothing really astonishing with the paint job. However, I like the darker tone of green used on him. The bony structures sprouting out from his arms, shoulders and the big horns on his head along with the ones under his chin are painted in dirty white, which I think is a good choice by Hasbro! But the major issue for me is how they did not even bother painting the fingernails or claws with the same type of paint they used on the bony thingies... and I don't understand why.


Although I'm not too sure if this is the right body mold for an Ultimate Green Goblin figure but the sculpting is nicely done. The neck and the torso all the way down to the legs and ankles are completely unchanged and unaltered; showing what's obviously from the Avengers Hulk figure. Parts like the arms (except for the hands) and the feet are just being re-sculpted and not considered something "new" like his head and his clawing hands.


I think the main selling point for me here is the head sculpt and secondly, these bony thingies which kinda reminds me of Doomsday. He got this reptilian look on him with his dragon-like ears and these little bumps lining on top of his head... and of course the horns! In fact, he's more like a crossbreed between a dragon and a human to me. Moreover, both his arms as well as his feet are slightly textured; making up for his lack of paint detail.


The poseability on this big guy is certainly not the worst nor the best either. To some extent, you need to remove the accessories for you to get Ultimate Green Goblin execute some desired poses or it's just gonna fall off. His shoulders can be raised at to some degree apparently because of these "exo-bones" that's affecting it. The way the back is hunched limits his head from moving up but it has a good rotation. He got double-jointed elbows and hinged-wrists that rotate and flex. No waist swivel but got a diaphragm swivel which is a decent substitute. Ball-hinged hips (which I'm not a fan of), swivel to the upper-thighs, double-jointed knees and ankle pivots are incorporated.


Overall, I think this is a decent figure. As much as I want a build-a-figure Rhino or a classic Lizard but looking at the Ultimate Green Goblin as a figure makes me want to wish I've read the comics. He got a good size- standing at about 8 inches tall and just looked bigger, more muscular and intimidating than the Marvel Legends Terrax and Iron Monger. Sometimes I get the feeling that maybe using the Avengers Hulk body mold is kind of becoming it less comic book accurate. But who cares, it's an awesome figure that some fans and action figure collectors will probably get.


4 comments:

  1. Not a fan of this version of the Goblin either.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A Build-A-Figure Rhino would have been great.

      Delete
  2. The flame special affects is probably one of it's most memorable features. You have pretty much the same opinion on this BAF as I.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yujin, do you have a Google+ page where you put all your action figure reviews? I'd like to add you on my Blog List.

      Delete