Marvel Legends Age of Apocalypse Iceman review – BAF Colossus wave

Of all of the dramatic makeovers from Age of Apocalypse, Iceman had my favorite. It just was a cool look for a character that artists previously didn’t do enough to play up his visual.

Iceman’s AOA look is my favorite take on him so I had high expectations of what the Hasbro team would do with him as they continue expanding the AOA roster. Let’s see if this figure leaves me heated or icy from some questionable decisions.

Packaging:  There’s not a lot of changes with this from the first series. The X-Men logo is done in the AOA font.

Hasbro once again had David Nakayama provide the artwork. Nakayama captures the essence of the character so well although in this instance he’s hindered by the figure design choice — more on that in a bit.

His bio is alright although it doesn’t offer as much detail as I’d like of course.

Likeness: This is mostly the Juggernaut wave Iceman figure reused. It actually works better for the AOA look than the quasi-modern take. The ice armor around the shoulders, forearms and shins are a nice touch. His arms could have had more armor protrusions though as Iceman was portrayed as one of the X-Men’s heaviest hitters with more bulk and size to match.

Hasbro did add a different chest piece to give Iceman a bit more bulk. In AOA, Bobby wore boots and didn’t have his feet showing. I suppose I can compromise on that shortcut, but these are starting to mount.

I’m starting to get tired of the Marvel Legends team making avoidable errors on figures. It’s not so much that I want perfection on these figures — just stick to the look of the source material. As much as I appreciate getting these characters in their Age of Apocalypse looks, about half of them have had some issues.

Morph’s colors were from his Exiles color scheme instead of the turquoise attire from AOA. Magneto’s helmet portrait wasn’t shrouded in black. Blink also had her older Exiles head sculpt.

Now Iceman is based more off his appearance from the fantastic X-Force run when the team traveled to the AOA world. In that arc, Iceman’s more natural hair was replaced with ice spikes. One of the best aspects of the original AOA design was how Bobby used his powers to create more of an armored look while showing more precision in his ice coating specifically his hair and covering his facial features.

I’m all for options to mix things up. An alternate head sculpt with the X-Force hair sculpt would have been fine, but not at the expense of the base look collectors want. An Exiles Blink and Morph don’t mean anything without the rest of the team while I’m still waiting for actual AOA looks.

Iceman is another weird design choice from the Hasbro team and I’m wondering if they’re just setting up a Retro AOA line with the correct paint and heads sculpts to make the most of these sculpts?

Toy Biz actually knocked the AOA classic Iceman look out perfectly with the sculpted hair and some ice armor attachments. Yeah from the articulation standpoint, Hasbro will win every time, but this is definitely a rare case where Toy Biz’s aesthetics are superior.

Paint:  Hasbro did an excellent job with the frosted/iced effects. This is where the translucent body really comes into play allowing Hasbro to provide an amazing glean that looks more like Iceman than any previous crack at the character.

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While I hate the design choice for the hair, there’s a tremendous captured frost pattern in the hair spikes that looks great.

Scale:  Iceman’s scale was inconsistent throughout AOA as he would use his powers to bulk up as well as turn into ice vapor or building size. He lines up next to the others fine, which is no problem in his case.

Articulation:  Unlike the Juggernaut Iceman, this one features sturdier joints so he won’t topple over easily.

That’s a good thing as the Juggernaut figure had some notoriously soft joints that would wobble/topple with a sideways look.

Iceman has:

• neck
• ball-jointed shoulders
• elbow (double-jointed)
• bicep
• wrist
• wrist hinge
• torso
• waist
• hip
• thigh
• knee (double-jointed)
• ankle

Accessories: Iceman comes with two clawed hands. Again, a few more ice armor bits would have gone a long way here.

And definitely an alternate head sculpt with the traditional hair.

That would have made him an easy two purchase off of one figure to have an X-Force villain and AOA hero.

Finally, Iceman comes with the left arm for the Build-A-Figure Colossus.

Worth it? Iceman is sticking at the $18.99 price point. That’s a good deal for these guys especially since they’d normally clock in at $22.99 now.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Iceman would probably be at least a 9.5 with the accurate hair sculpt. Going with the AOA Iceman look from X-Force really felt like a boneheaded choice that could have been avoided. The rest of the figure is enough to overcome that mistake, but it’s a big one.

Where to get it?  You can get Iceman from Target, Amazon or Entertainment Earth. The wave is slowly tricking into stores as well.

As an Amazon and Target/Entertainment Earth affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases.