Marvel Legends Black Knight and Sersi review

Black Knight and Sersi were core members of the underrated early 90s Avengers squad. At this period in Marvel Comics, it was all about the X-Men so the Avengers got a 90s edgier makeover to try and keep up. Besides writer Bob Harras’ odd fascination with Black Knight and cop out manner of writing Hercules, it was a pretty fun run.

A signature aspect of this era was the signature matching vests and leather jackets. Taking advantage of the Avengers’ 60th anniversary, Hasbro added two more members to the team. This is a sensible pairing since Sersi and Black Knight aka Dane Whitman were an item during this run.

Oddly, this crew is basically complete. We’ve got Eric Masterson Thor, Captain America, white Vision and jacketed Black Widow. With Crystal and vest era Hercules this team is just about done.

Let’s see if Black Knight and Sersi are worthy inclusions to the line or will need mightier figures in the future.

Packaging:  The Beyond Earth’s Mightiest packaging set up was some of my favorite that Hasbro has done in a while. The white and light blue dominant colors with red accents helped the packaging pop.

For the main artwork, Hasbro went with the cover for Avengers #373 by Steve Epting. The left side features the color version of the cover while the right showcases the figures.

On the back we get the accessory rollout. The major omission with the packaging is the lack of a historical write-up of the characters.

Likeness: Sersi’s dedicated Avengers look is very 90s with the high hair, low cut top, crisscrossing belts and thigh high boots.

The sculptor did a great job on Sersi’s head sculpt, which certainly seems to channel a FRIENDS-era Courtney Cox.

Unlike many of his 90s peers, Epting didn’t overemphasize Sersi’s chest. Still, the lack of a sculpted top makes her bust look very weird without lines to break up the outfit and skin.

Sersi’s body is too skinny as she uses parts from Shriek and Phoenix. Her new parts are the head (naturally), the belts and kneepads.

It’s a decent mix of existing parts though Hasbro needs to diversify the female figure body options more.

To be fair to Hasbro, Black Knight’s 90s look seemed to change every few issues so a consistent attire would be tricky. Some artwork had him with a mullet peeking under the back of his helmet.

Other artists featured him with armored kneepads/boots. And then some others gave him a far more intricate belt. The belt seems to be the biggest omission of Dane’s usual look during this timeframe.

As far as accessories go, Hasbro probably should have included some alternate head sculpts. One, a helmet-less long haired scruffy looking option. The second would be the helmet with hair flowing from the back.

Once again, Hasbro uses the angrier head sculpt from the previous release. It does make more sense with Dane’s more aggressive streak from this period.

Paint: Black Knight colors are more muted here. The chain mail leggings should be a lighter shade of blue. It also seems like a fairly consistent aspect to this attire was the red collar with his bare neck showing. That’s swapped for the look with the silver neck piece. While accurate to an eventual vest look it’s not the more common outfit setup.

The face printing allowed Hasbro to add in Dane’s stubble. BK’s vest gets a bit of a wash to convey the leather material. All of the paintwork, including the Avengers logo tampo on his jacket sleeves, is crisp.

Hasbro did a decent job of matching Dane’s vest color to Black Widow’s shade. Their vests are a lighter shade of brown than Sersi’s vest.

Sersi’s paintwork especially around her head sculpt is exemplary.  Like Dane, she’s got a wash on her vest though for some reason the Avengers logo is missing on her sleeves.

And again, Hasbro didn’t color the inner portion of her torso where the jacket should cover it. Hasbro really needs to just add a circle of paint to create the full illusion of the jacket.

Scale: Both Black Knight and Sersi scale appropriately with their fellow Avengers.

Black Knight is looking up at Thor and Sersi is just slightly shorter.

Articulation:  Sersi doesn’t have Black Widow level of articulation, but her articulation scheme is pretty good. She could use the missing bicep joints, but the range in her jacket shoulders is better than most female figures.

Her torso doesn’t have extensive forward range but has very good side to side and backwards motion.

Black Knight is the standard basic ML articulation setup save the jacket sleeves giving him swivel biceps instead of the usual plug-in mold. As a sword-wielding character, Dane would definitely benefit from butterfly shoulders. That would help with wider sword slashes.

Most of the figures with the scaled armor setup have tight/fused thigh, knee or boot swivel joints. Dane turned out solid with smooth and easy movement.

Black Knight and Sersi have:

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

Accessories: Black Knight gets the open left hand and right fist to match the default hand options.

His main accessory is his Photon Sword, which was essentially a lightsaber. It’s got a nicely detailed grip and proton burst at the hilt with red and orange mixed in the mostly yellow translucent piece.

Again, some other head options even if Hasbro just the neutral head with this helmet from the previous Black Knight release.

Sersi fares about the same.  She’s got swappable fists. It also looks like she has some new accessory parts with what looks like a swirling ball of energy. These are translucent with red and orange gradient.

It’s very nice to see a character get some new accessories or at least something different from what’s been the norm for the last few years.

Like Dane, Sersi could have used an alternate head sculpt — say a yelling expression with the headband — to cover her different looks from this time period.

Worth it?  I got this set for a birthday present, so it was a tremendous value for me. During the Christmas holiday, the set was cheaper than its current $42 price. Still, that’s cheaper than its original $50 price. This is more in line with old school Marvel Legends pricing so it’s a fair price to me.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Sersi would have benefitted from articulation upgrades and Dane needed a helmet-less head. Otherwise, this is a very solid and useful set to complete an underrated Avengers squad.

Where to get it?  This set is exclusive to Amazon. You can still pick it up now.

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