Marvel Legends Karnak review – Build-A-Figure Totally Awesome Hulk

Karnak getting his debut Marvel Legends figure should be a good thing. We finally get another member of the Inhumans’ Royal Family. They’re a pretty small team and years ago, Hasbro knocked out Black Bolt and his wife, Madusa.

It’s taken a long time for another Inhumans figure and with the execution of Karnak, it’s hard to say we’re still not short (pun intended) better versions of the whole family.

Let’s see if the flaws with Karnak are a deal-breaker or if there’s enough reasons to still be excited about him.

Packaging:  I’m nearing the finish line with the closed window Marvel Legends in my review backlog. I’m confused with the artwork choices here as it’s more of a modern Karnak design — peep the shoulder pads — than the classic version we have with this figure.

Karnak is part of the Build-A-Figure Totally Awesome wave so the back shows off his “abundant” accessories and the BAF parts. As well as a pretty cool action stance. I missed the bios and he was a character that would benefit from more info on his backstory.

Likeness:  Based solely on Karnak he looks good. Too often the Hasbro ML team gets too creative with the outfit choice for long-desired characters. No bald tattooed Karnak at play here. It’s classic old school as if Kirby drew him Karnak. He’s got an elongated head and a fierce expression as if he’s found the vulnerable spot on a target.

Hasbro threw in some welcome details on him like his striped gauntlets and the bracers on each hand. The latter isn’t painted and is actually a nice touch to get right. His skirt piece is also well-executed fitting snugly along his waist without riding up.

Karnak has the slender, lanky body, which in theory is the best base for him. In actuality, Hasbro should have used the Miles Morales teen body. Since Karnak doesn’t have a ton of sculpted elements the blank Miles body would have been fine. It’s slighter, well-articulated and matches up better with taller characters.

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Paint:  Karnak has a striking green and white attire to help distinguish him from the many Spider-Man villains who rocked green with more sinister colors like yellow and purple. In the old school comics, Karnak’s masked area had black shading. To tease that look, Hasbro opted to go with a darker green. That was a smart idea, and it looks great.

The bracers and gauntlets have a metallic sheen to them, which helps sell that they’re not cloth but metal elements. There’s a little fuzziness around his boots since they’re painted and not separately sculpted.

I also really like how the green of his torso carries over into the butterfly shoulder section so there’s not a weird visual break.

Scale:  Sigh. The pain. Karnak is traditionally portrayed as the shortest of the Inhumans Royal Family. Naturally, Hasbro’s ML team just went with the ok-ish enough body instead of a smaller, teen buck for Karnak that doesn’t have him looking down at Black Bolt. This feels too much of a layup to botch so miserably.

The only characters Karnak had to properly scale with were the Inhumans. And maybe the Fantastic Four and somehow he’s the tallest one of the bunch not named Thing. I’ve given up customizing, but the scale of Karnak is so bad I might need to grab a Miles body and try it.

Articulation: As Karnak has most of the articulation you’d expect from him. The butterfly shoulders were very important with him, so it was great to see them included. He’s got fantastic range in his neck joint, which allows him to look all the way back.

Besides the curiously missing boot articulation joint, Karnak can hit a ton of poses.

Karnak has:

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

Accessories: Karnak didn’t need an alternate head so short of that the only other needed accessory was some alternate hands. We get the matching left fist and right chopping hand. Maybe a fingers-together grip hand would have been another set we could have gotten?

He does come with the right arm and swappable right fist for the Build-A-Figure Totally Awesome Hulk. I like that Hasbro is added swappable hands for the BAFs.

Worth it?  I was able to get Karnak on sale for $17.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Karnak is a really fantastic figure who on his own really doesn’t have any problems. It’s just his scale that is a serious problem. Hasbro probably needs to update Black Bolt and Medusa anyway so maybe some of Karnak’s issues could be fixed with scaled up versions of his family.

Where to get it?  You can grab Karnak from Amazon or Entertainment Earth.

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