Marvel Legends Fang review – BAF Ch’od wave

I’ve gotten on Hasbro’s Marvel Legends team a lot for starting teams and then never finishing them especially when it’s just a member or two. With Fang, the Marvel Legends squad is starting a team they’ve little chance of completing, but I’m game for as many of the Imperial Guard they want to try and get out to us.

That’s largely because I’d love to re-enact the entire Dark Phoenix Saga with all the relevant characters in figure form.

Let’s take a look at Fang and see if he bites or if he’s ready to go to war with the X-Men.

Package: I promise not to do this with every review, but man do I hate this closed package setup. You’re trusting that your figure doesn’t have a lousy paint job, which isn’t something you can confidently do with a mass market release figure.

Visually, the packaging just isn’t as cool as previous presentations. There’s no bio anymore and it’s hard to trust that the finished product will look like the image of the figure on the front.

I do appreciate how easy it is to see which figure has which Build-A-Figure part thanks to the yellow highlighting.

Likeness:  Fang has an intense head sculpt. If we’re getting the Imperial Guard trickled out every six years at least Gladiator’s backup looks like he can hold his own against the X-Men until Wolverine arrives.

Hasbro went with the Spider-Man UK mold, which is really one of the best in the arsenal now, with newer pinless arms and legs. That works for a beefy, but not particularly broad brawler.

He’s got hands with exaggerated claws to simulate his main attack mode, which is a great choice for him.

In a nice touch for the figure, all of his necklaces, glove/boot cuffs and belts comprised of fangs are sculpted pieces adding some depth to the figure.

The big problem comes with the necklace piece as it’s pegged in the back creating a floating effect. Hasbro should have glued the front piece down to eliminate the floating “action feature.”

Scale:  For now, the only useful scale comparison for Fang is Gladiator, who is thicker and taller than his teammate. Hopefully, Hasbro will add more to the IG soon. He is noticeably taller than Wolverine, which seems accurate to how Dave Cockrum drew them in their initial clash.

They’re both supposed to be 5’4″ so Fang should be a lot shorter.

Paint: Fang has a color scheme that might have been adopted by Wolverine and later Sabretooth, but he’s the originator of this combination with orange, black and brown.

Fang has a pretty clean paint job since there’s a clear distinction with the linework since the black stripe runs straight down his torso and the inner portions of his legs.

The brown is restricted to the boots and gloves. With the bone elements separate sculpted parts there’s no worry for overspray on them.

His head sculpt is very well done with no problems or spotty paint coverage anywhere. There is some slight color distinction with the knee and elbow joints as they’re a fraction lighter than the rest of the yellow orange of Fang’s outfit.

Articulation:  Fang is basically the Wolverine of the Imperial Guard lunging and attacking with claw strikes and going off in berserk-like rages.

This body allows for easy posing in aggressive hand first attacks and Fang can hit some strong kicks as well.

Hopefully he’s got a stronger zipper to stop him from losing his costume.

I’m going to need to superglue his fang chains as Hasbro opted to just have them as floating pieces like the bands on the X-Men Cyclops. They’ve since made them part of the sculpt so I’m not sure why they went back to not attaching them onto the figure. It quickly becomes a nuisance when posing Fang.

Fang has:

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

Accessories:  Fang doesn’t have a lot of obvious accessories except for what seemed like a no-brainer when he was announced. He’s got a set of swappable fists, but not the layup bonus of a Wolverine head.

Granted, Wolverine would look a little silly on this much taller and thicker buck but crouch him down and it wouldn’t look as silly especially in the name of provided Fang with something extra beyond fists.

He also has the head of the Ch’od Build-A-Figure and his pet, Cr’Reee.

Worth it?  Fang is the standard $24.99 price tag. Given the lack of accessories and overly complex sculpting, he’s not worth the same as an intricate figure like Spiral, who seems to have set the bar for this current price point.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Fang is too tall and his fang gear really should be attached to the figure, but otherwise he’s a pretty fun figure that’s now opened up the Imperial Guard for my ML wish list.

Where to get it? Target has Fang in stock. I got him from Entertainment Earth.

As an Entertainment Earth affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases.