Marvel Legends Emma Frost review – BAF Ch’od wave

Emma Frost has been one of the legit successful face turn X-Men villains. In the hands of creators like Grant Morrison and Joss Whedon, Emma has emerged as arguably the most popular addition to the team since Bishop.

Hasbro has already taken a crack at the Astonishing X-Men team in Marvel Legends back in its early days with the license. That didn’t turn out so well even in the moment, but Hasbro’s ML squad has learned a ton of lessons since that inglorious start and is ready to take another shot at the team starting with Cyclops and Emma in the Build-A-Figure Ch’od wave.

Let’s see if this update of Emma is a gem or a figure that still fails to shine.

Packaging:   The good news is we know the end of the windowless packaging is in sight. It’s just no fun having to open up the figure immediately to verify everything that should be included are actually intact.

The side package art is from Astonishing X-Men #12 second printing version, which like the smaller front image includes the art from John Cassady. Another smart choice to hone in on the figure reference.

Heading to the back it remains underwhelming without a bio or much else interesting particularly considering her pitiful amount of accessories. This really shouldn’t be what passes for a $25 figure these days.

Bios have now been ported to the Pulse website so at least they haven’t been forgotten totally: The former Hellfire Club White Queen must grapple with her teammates’ misgivings about her joining the X-Men, as well as her own.

It’s a basic sentence and while it doesn’t explain her powers, it does provide a time frame for Emma’s entry to the X-Men. 

Likeness:  Emma got a lot of instant hate online from her head sculpt. I think Hasbro’s sculptor was going for a try and match up closer to Cassady’s art.

The likeness to Cassady’s art is apparent, but it looks far too harsh in figure form. Hasbro hasn’t made a habit of trying to match up with specific artist’s take on a character and Emma was a bad choice for one since they needed to just focus more on making her look attractive. This isn’t out of Hasbro’s reach as we’ve seen with excellent female head sculpts like Invisible Woman (Walgreens edition), Scarlet Witch and Enchantress for very quick examples.

This head sculpt makes Emma look too old while still missing the mark on her being one of Marvel’s definitive sexpots. Hasbro keeps clutching their pearls at the thought of making Emma look like she does in the comics unlike the Marvel Select version.

Emma’s chest should be far more pronounced as it’s supposed to hold her corset up and her waist is still too small. It’s wild that of the various female bodies the only one that resembles a non-petite woman is the Spider-Woman/Warbird mold.

There’s no excuse for Emma and Kitty Pryde to have similar body types when the whole point of Emma’s look is to showcase her assets.

Her hair flows smoothly along her shoulders in a manner befitting Emma. This of course, is another impediment to her articulation, but not as significant as the main drawback on that front.

While not as in your face as her New X-Men attire, Emma’s Astonishing costume certainly proves distracting in a battle. It was a unique design with the cloak hanging not from her shoulders, but from her corset top. This makes for a cool costume but is impractical for an action figure collectors would presumably want to pose. I’m getting ahead of myself in the articulation section.

As far as getting the look down, the figure design is solid right down to the seams along the front of her pants. I still think Hasbro made Emma too slender, but at least she’s not the waif size of her previous Astonishing figure.

Her heels should be more of the platform variety, but that might have made her harder to keep standing. She’s a little tricky to find the sweet standing spot, but she does hold it once you find it.

MORE:

• Marvel Legends action figure reviews
• DC Multiverse Duke Thomas figure review
• McFarlane Toys DC Multiverse Knightfall Batman review
• The Walking Dead: Dead City – Doma Smo review S1 E6

Paint: Emma’s paintjob is pretty simple as she’s wearing all white with the exception of her belt buckle.

The most work on the sculpt is done via the head sculpt, which features a very well-done mix of yellow and white in her hair, impressively clean makeup applications right down to the silverish lipstick.

Scale:  In a nice departure from previous Emma figures, she’s no longer ridiculously tall and actually scales properly with Cyclops now instead of towering over him. Again, the Kitty Pryde needs an update as she shouldn’t be taller than Emma.

Articulation:  Here’s where that costume accuracy hurts the figure. The cloak severely restricts Emma’s ability to raise her arms.

It’s the kind of instance where Hasbro tends to shy away from using soft goods with figures, but they really should have in this instance to give Emma more mobility.

At least in this form, Emma wasn’t too big of a physical threat. Maybe if Hasbro releases a diamond shell variant, they could figure out a better way to maintain the integrity of the likeness while accommodating more articulation.

Emma Frost has:

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

Accessories: Continuing the theme for this wave, Emma is pretty light on accessories.

She’s got extra hands — the matching gesturing left hand and right-hand fist. That’s all for Emma though a swappable diamond arm would have made for a cool unique accessory.

She also has the right leg of the Build-A-Figure Ch’od.

Worth it?  Given her articulation limitations and minimal accessories, Emma wasn’t a great value at $25. Thanks to the Target mass clearance I was able to get her for a much more reasonable $12.49.

My stores sold out quick at that price though I have seen some areas with Emma’s that lingered long enough to hit $6.89, As always, my value score is based on the price I paid so I have a higher opinion of her than if I paid $25. Amazon currently has her for under $20.

Rating:  5 out of 10

Hasbro can’t seem to get Emma right at all. Her figures are either too tall, have questionable likenesses or are just too timid in terms of properly handing her appearance.

Where to get it?  Target had this whole wave plentiful for about two months before the great clearance. You can still get her from Amazon, Entertainment Earth or Target.com.

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