Nova (Marvel Legends)

The new Marvel Legends Nova figure from the Guardians of the Galaxy Wave is the most anticipated figure; making him the highest selling action figure compared to other figures in this set for a lot of obvious reasons. He is not a movie figure and could attract anyone who loves him in the comics. And in terms of paint job, sculpt and articulation, this new Nova beats the old Nova from the Nemesis Build-A-Figure Wave in all those areas. You may not be as familiar with his origins and lore as you're with guys like Iron Man and Spider-Man but hopefully with this yet another fantastic job by Hasbro, you'll draw some interest on Nova- a character that might also get a movie of his own (fingers crossed).

Marvel Legends GOTG Wave Nova

Released earlier this month, the figure also adopts the new Marvel Legends packaging which I probably don't need to get into the details. Through its window, you can see Groot's right arm which you'll definitely gonna need when you build your Groot Build-A-Figure.

With the added shoulder guards, arm bracers and shin guards, it's considerably excusable to assume it's a new body mold but... surprise surprise! The Black Panther (or Bucky Cap) body mold is back and utilized once and for all. For a superhero with an average physique, I think this body mold suits him perfectly. The only major changes Hasbro did with this mold are the sculpting of those "disc-like thingies" over his pecs, the line work around his torso and apparently the gears and armour fixed and/or glued on top of his arms, legs and shoulders.

The paint job is well done! It has that beautiful reflective finish like that of an Iron Man figure, which covers probably 80% of his blue and gold suit. You can see bits of waves and swirls inside the plastic but these are just nitpicks. Overall, the paint on this figure looked clean and flawless.

While this may be the Black Panther body mold, the articulation with Nova has some slight differences. Particularly the legs where it usually has that rotation at the boot cut but with Nova, it got none and it's all because of these shin guards. Each shoulder guards have that flapping-type of articulation that allows you to raise his arm without it getting in the way, but the only downside to it is that it makes the figure look anatomically ugly.

Nova's neck is on a ball-hinge that allows his head to rotate and aim vertically but doesn't give you that ideal 60-degree chin lift to do a perfect flying pose. Furthermore, his ab crunch doesn't fully extend to the back making it a lot worse. Both his arms got ball-hinged shoulders, double-jointed elbows and complete articulation on the wrists. He got waist swivel, T-jointed hips, rotation at the upper thighs, double-jointed knees and ankle rockers with the hinges.

Nova stands at 6.5 inches tall and is in-perfect scale with the rest of the Legends figures. It is a two-thumbs up highly recommendable figure with the advice of a "Get him now!" before he's going to be sold out. I think I would include him in my list of favourite Hasbro Marvel Legends figures.