Nightcrawler (Marvel Select)

Marvel Select Nightcrawler

Teleportation is all I'd like to think about in those days where everything just sucks and where I am desperately wanting to go find a place to settle me down. Then suddenly my thoughts are aimed on this guy who's probably the most envied being in all fiction not because of his otherly world feature but with his ability to hoard some Hawaiian sand under his feet in a matter of seconds! Nobody has delivered this impressive display of teleportation powers better than Nightcrawler. With Diamond Select Toys having already released and action figure of him, I guess that amplifies my yearning.












Taking a glimpse at his physical features, my attention immediately got glued to this sinister look over his face, and it's actually not bad. Maybe some people would find it a little weird looking but for me, this brings some "adult-ness" on the character. Tough and ugly.

Now looking at the entire sculpt, I almost fell under the impression that the body mold is from that of a Marvel Select Spider-Man since both these nimbly superheroes have leaner physique, but it is not what I thought it is. What truly bothers me is his wide crotch, these big big big ball-hinged hips and very lean thighs! This physical deformity may not look obvious once I put Nightcrawler in a crouching stance but once I have him standing with his legs straight, I think I just wanna murder my eyes looking at this debauchery!

Nonetheless, Diamond Select maintained its excellence with paint application. As I had expected, they combined two or three different colours with shading and highlighting and not just plain solid colours like that of a MOTUC and Marvel Legends action figure. By looking at the arms and legs, you could see some darker blue areas following the contours or curves of his muscles, and even the tail has some colour variation around it. The red areas seem to be solidly painted but still I gotta give credit to the overall paintbrush skills.

In addition, the accessory (he only got one) has these beautiful touch of dark colours in the middle of this "teleportation cloud" made of translucent purple plastic. The accessory can be used as a background prop like you've seen on that photo at the very top (I just stick it right unto a wall) or use it simply as a figure stand as it's suppose to.
















Articulation-wise, I gotta give this one an average score. Although I like that they gave him a highly poseable tail and the fact that it's even more bendable than the arms of Plastic Man, but I rather want to see poseability around the arms, legs and torso that can match the Marvel Select Ultron. One flaw on this figure is that it got these shoulder pads that hinders the shoulders from moving all the way up. Another flaw is this diaphragm swivel that doesn't really function like a swivel. Nightcrawler got no swivel to the mid-calves and no ankle pivots.

But anyways, let's round them up! Nightcrawler got a ball-jointed neck that rotates his head but barely lets it move up and down. It got ball-hinged shoulders, swivel to the biceps, single-jointed elbows, wrist twists with no hinges that let them move up and down. Diaphragm joint/swivel allows him to hyperextend his spine to the back but hardly to the front and sides. His waist rotates 360 as well as with his upper thigh swivel along with those hip ball-joints I was just talking about. He got double-hinged knees and hinges at the ankles. So there are just parts here and there that needs improvement, but this is Marvel Select... this is what you'll expect.

In comparison with the rest of his teammates, the Select Nightcrawler is in perfect scale standing just about 7.2 inches tall. Being a great addition to an X-men collection, I'd say pick him up but just don't make those sculpt issues look too obvious once he's up on the shelf. Believe me, it's not easy on the eyes.