Marvel Legends Age of Apocalypse Shadowcat review – BAF Colossus wave
Kitty Pryde has undergone some drastic personality changes over the last few years. Once again, you can look to Age of Apocalypse for some foreshadowing of this more extreme take on the character.
In AOA, Kitty was fully taken under Wolverine/Weapon X’s wing and she grew to adopt many of her mentor’s habits including killing, claws, smoking and a casual disregard for authority figures. Sound familiar?
I’ve always liked this take on Shadowcat and Colossus and her scarcity on shelves and online made me anticipate how she turned out. Let’s see if she delivers or needed to stay ghosted.
Packaging: OK, I’m starting to run out of things to say about this wave. The X-Men logo is done in the AOA font and it showcases the character well. Sabretooth is massive in the bubble and does a nice job of conveying the value.
David Nakayama’s artwork is, as always, stellar truly capturing the essence of the character. We’ve seen a few artists handle the package art, but I’d be fine if Hasbro just stuck with Nakayama and John Tyler Christopher.
Shadowcat’s bio actually does a good job of explaining the first part of her AOA backstory. Given the slim likelihood of getting a full AOA Generation Next roster, not mentioning them makes sense.
Likeness: In what’s something of a common theme with this wave, I don’t love Kitty’s head sculpt specifically her expression. Nakayama’s art again shows the blueprint for Hasbro as he drew her with a bit of a mischievous smile as she’s ready for battle. This head sculpt makes her look more disgusted than amused at the thought of her opponents underestimating her.
Between Invisible Woman and Shadowcat, gritted teeth head sculpts for female figures haven’t had a good track record this year. Beyond that, the figure is great. Kitty’s collar and gem are both sculpted. Her corset shows this isn’t the young innocent Sprite.
Hasbro also got the unique layout of her arm bands with the diagonal top stripe. Her gauntlets have an impressive amount of detail. Shadowcat is a smart reuse of the Lady Deathstrike from the waist down since she already had the sculpted segmented legs.
Paint: Shadowcat has a few paint issues although most aren’t awful. The light brown hair is accurate to the comic, but a darker brown wash would have provided a nice blend and add more depth to her hair.
There’s some missing paint around the base of the gem and the red in the belt is weak. The sloppiest element is the fingerless gloves as the blue is peeking through many of the figures.
Shadowcat’s biggest paint issue is the red of her lipstick carries up to her lower row of teeth. I wonder if her head sculpt would look better if that were properly painted white or worse?
On the plus side, the base blue for her outfit came out very sharp and has a slight hint of a metallic sheen.
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Scale: No matter the iteration, Shadowcat is traditionally the shortest member of the X-Men. That’s the case here as well although she still could stand to be a bit shorter than Rogue.
Articulation: It’s too bad Shadowcat didn’t come out a little later as she would have benefitted greatly from the soon to be common articulation improvements specifically bicep joints.
That said the Lady Deathstrike legs allow for deep crouches — just perfect for a ghost assassin.
While she has single-joint elbow articulation, Shadowcat has the deeper clearance elbows, which almost eliminate the need for double-jointed elbows. That’s progress right in time for the overall female figure upgrade.
Shadowcat has:
- neck
- ball-jointed shoulders
- elbow
- wrist
- wrist hinge
- torso
- waist
- hip
- thigh
- knee (double-jointed)
- ankle
Accessories: Shadowcat has a swappable set of gauntlets, which feature her claws fully extended. They’re angled somewhat from the package, but otherwise they turned out great right down to the various segmentation components.
And for safety’s sake, she’s got swappable fists to provide some clearance for her claw slashes.
Finally, Shadowcat comes with the torso of the Build-A-Figure Colossus. It’s probably not an accident that the main piece of the BAF came with Kitty all but encouraging collectors to build him. Though in this case, Colossus isn’t a wasted BAF and he’s providing us with another member of Magneto’s X-Men.
Worth it? For Black Friday, GameStop actually had Shadowcat for the old $19.99 retail price. It’s wild that the old price tag is considered a good deal, but she and Sabretooth have been the only figures that haven’t dropped below $22.99 over the last few months or been part of the big sales from Target.
She’s got a vital part of Colossus and you’re getting her there’s zero reason not to get Colossus so this is “basically” a two for one in this instance.
Rating: 9.5 out of 10
In some light the head sculpt doesn’t bother me as much. While I wish she had the bicep articulation, Shadowcat’s articulation is so smooth and easy to maneuver she sneaky became a low-key favorite of this wave for me.
Where to get it? You can get Shadowcat from Amazon or Entertainment Earth.
As an Amazon and Entertainment Earth affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases.