Marvel Legends Ant Man figure review Hasbro
One of the big surprises this summer was Ant-Man. Given the behind the scenes drama, this seemed poised to be the first Marvel Cinematic Universe film to drastically fail to meet expectations. Those fears proved unfounded though as Paul Rudd charmed his way through one of the more amusing and entertaining MCU films.
Thanks to the movie, Hasbro was able to sneak out an Ant-Man theme wave in its Marvel Legends line. Did you ever think we’d live in a world where an Ant-Man figure wave was a thing? I’m breaking down the wave headliner today to see if my hopes for another great ML figure get squashed.
Packaging: All of the Marvel Legends spin-off lines have the same black and red color scheme to remain uniform for MOC collectors. The only difference is the Ant-Man logo at the top. Ant-Man himself gets a bit more personal touch as his figure has an Ant-Man portrait along the side while the rest of the figures in the line have a drawing of an ant army. It pays to be the headliner.
I appreciate Hasbro not getting too cute with the posing, which is especially helpful if a figure has weak plastic joints (more on that later).
With swappers and outright thieves stealing the Build-a-Figure piece, I appreciate the positioning so you can quickly see any funny business has occurred. I’ve stumbled across a few Captain America Winter Soldier figures that had the Mandroid leg replaced with an Iron Man Masher figure’s leg.
The package back seems like a lot of wasted space to me. There’s a picture of the figure, a brief bio and a crammed graphic of the other figures in the wave and the BAF. Some of that is trying to fit in four languages on the card, but these aren’t package backs I feel especially interested in clipping and holding on to like other lines.
Likeness: Unlike the other figures in the wave, Ant-Man is based on the movie version, which lends itself to more scrutiny than a comic book version that can be a bit more loosely interpreted.
Hasbro sculptors should really take a bow here as they managed to faithfully capture all the little details of the overly complex movie costume from the elaborate piping, panels, canisters and line-work.
The only drawback — and it’s a big one — is the exposed lower half of the helmet. That wouldn’t be a problem for a comic book visual as that’s a key element to the costume.
I tried to find even one reference picture with the mouth area open, but couldn’t and to be honest, I prefer the movie costume’s full helmeted look. Unfortunately, while the chin guard piece is sculpted on as a separate piece with a little give, you won’t be able to bring it up to move it flush against the nose and cheek piece.
Scale: Ant-Man is set up on the 6″ scale like the other Marvel Legends figures. While he’s a more natural fit alongside your Marvel movie figures, he fits in just fine with the wider comic book line as well.
Paint: For a mass-market produced figure, Ant-Man comes out looking almost as good as the prototype.
The costume’s red paneling has some shading to it to convey a leather-like material while the metallic portions of the costume from the helmet, gauntlets and belts have a good amount of black wash to bring out the details.
There’s a faint bit of overspray with the orange glowing portions along the belt and gauntlet, but it’s negligible.
My only nitpick is a few of the glow indicators are orange when they should be red and vice versa. The biggest offender again is the helmet, which definitely should have red eye pieces.
Articulation: This is the area where the figure takes a serious tumble … literally. Over the last two years, Hasbro has nearly had a perfect string of releases with character selections, availability and mastering being able to fit releases along the Marvel movie release schedule.
The one negative that occasionally pops up is the weak gummy plastic used. In some cases, like the Guardians of the Galaxy movie line, it’s a series wide issue that makes keeping them upright a challenge. More often than not when a figure in my ML display falls, it’s a GOTG member.
Ant-Man sadly has the same gummy material and he’ll be a nightmare to keep in many poses for extended periods of time. That’s a shame as the figure itself, like most Marvel Legends, has exceptional articulation.
He’s got a ball-jointed neck and shoulders, bicep, double-jointed elbows and knees, wrists, an ab-crunch, waist, belt, hip, thigh swivel and ankle. Two gripes: I wish the neck had more range so we could simulate Ant-Man’s diving through the keyhole pose and he had fists instead of head scratching hands.
Accessories: Hasbro has been a lot better about including more accessories than the standard Build-a-Figure piece with this year’s Marvel Legends. As the featured character in the wave, Ant-Man gets a bunch.
We get an ant, which I’ll just assume is Ant-ony, as well as a non-articulated mini Ant-Man and Yellowjacket. While I’m perfectly fine not getting a dedicated movie line, I was surprised we didn’t get at least a 6″ Yellowjacket since the film design was pretty cool.
As is, this is the only way you’ll have a movie Yellowjacket in your display. For microfigures, Ant-Man and Yellowjacket impressively even have a couple of paint apps.
Additionally, you’ll get the head for the Avengers: Age of Ultron version Ultron. It’s a savvy move on Hasbro’s part as you’ll want to get Ultron if you’re into the movie figures forcing your hand in buying the comic book style figures. Conversely if you’re just into the comic book figures, you’ll feel more obligated to buy the wave’s one movie figure to have a completed Ultron.
Worth it? I was a big fan of the movie and while I’m not a big movie figure collector in this scale, this is a very solid figure and one that gets a prime position in my expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe display.
Rating: 7 out of 10
The weak plastic really hurts what would would otherwise be a superior figure even with the less than accurate movie helmet. Still, the detail, paint apps and accessories merit a better than average score.
Where to get it? The Ant-Man wave is currently available at Toys R Us and Target.
Since the movie came out Ant-Man has gone from being a constant figure on store pegs to one of the harder ones to track down in my area. Whoever questioned how important movie exposure is to selling figures need look no further than Ant-Man.
Failing to find him there, you can try some of the Lyles Movie Files site partners, who kick back a portion of your purchase to help me enhance the site just from you clicking the link.
Amazon.com has the single figure available: Marvel Legends Infinite Series Ant-Man
Or if you’d rather go all-in, you can grab the full Ant-Man wave from site partner Entertainment Earth:
Order Ant-Man Marvel Legends Action Figures Wave 1 from Entertainment Earth!