Marvel Legends Warlord Professor X review

The Marvel Legends Warlord version of Professor X accomplishes two important goals. It completes the main image of the Uncanny X-Men #275 cover and gives the ML team some brownie points with a look that was recently spotlighted in X-Men ‘97.

This figure has been a desired Professor X variant for years so getting this with the team look for the X-Men in a very short window was remarkable. Especially when considering some other X-Men teams and adjacent teams that still need to get completed.

Let’s take a look at Warlord and see if he’s ready to rule over the Shi’ar consort style or slide into a more dangerous guise in the back of my display.

Packaging: Like the #275 Wolverine, Warlord Xavier gets the Retro card packaging. It’s got the bright orange and red color scheme with artwork from Dan Nakayama. His ‘action’ feature is “Shi’ar armor!” The box does not have a cross sell since this is an exclusive figure though it seems like a great opportunity to showcase all of the other #275 figures Hasbro produced.

The bio is actually pretty decent summarizing Xavier’s role with Lilandra and his reunion with the X-Men.

Likeness: As Warlord, Professor X rocked a very cool angular helmet. This does sorta seem like it borrows some cues from Rob Liefeld’s Stryfe, who predated Warlord by nearly a year. The helmet sculpt is an amalgam of the various ways Jim Lee drew it.

He’s not the most consistent artist and changed how it looked from panel to panel. The ML sculptor did miss the flared nostril piece and the distinct cut out area around the cheekbones. Warlord’s helmet has a more pronounced dome with three sections. They are sculpted, but aren’t as distinct with the figure. This felt like a very elaborate breakdown of a helmet that without looking at the source material would qualify for good enough.

Warlord’s collar piece should be wide enough that it mostly conceals his neck. The ML version has all the proper detail, but lacks the size. His shoulder pads match up correctly with Lee’s art with the cape flowing out from under it.

Hasbro went with a pinless version of the Spider-Man 2099 body, which is a good choice for him. Professor X didn’t shift into becoming some powerlifter while he was away from the X-Men. His default hands are the opened, somewhat gesturing ones that make sense for a telepath.

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Paint: More controversy due to inconsistencies with the art and coloring. On the #275 cover, the accent colors of Warlord’s outfit are magenta. In the interior art they’re a light blue. Hasbro kept getting caught between trying to perfectly match the cover and the more practical looks for the characters based on the interior artwork. The blue makes more sense and complements the other X-Men better anyway.

The work on his helmet isn’t great. There are focused blue tints throughout. In the comics, that’s more of a reflective coloring against the metal than actual blue paint. This is a case where just using that pearlescent silver would have made it more accurate.

As is always the case, it feels like the design team should wait for Nakayama’s artwork to come back in as he draws and colors the character in their definitive look. Note how he shaded the silver armor pieces.

Scale: Thanks to the exoskeleton provided by his fiancé, Lilandra, Xavier could fully walk again. This suit also gave him some extra height making him taller than the others including Gambit and Forge.

Articulation:  Warlord joins the Starjammers and X-Men in defeating the Imperial Guard. He operates from a distance using his mental blasts, so he doesn’t need the maximum amount of articulation.

Nevertheless, the Spidey 2099 body offers plenty of poseability.

With the positioning of the cape, it doesn’t affect his arm movement either.

Warlord has:

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

Accessories: Warlord gets all the accessories he really needs. He has swappable fists for serious power focusing efforts.

The more interesting one is a new Xavier head sculpt. This one has a more maniacal, evil grin.

Considering the true identity of Warlord that makes a lot of sense and I dig it though I could see where folks wanting a new portrait for Professor X would be disappointed having such a villain-skewing expression.

I did try a standard Skrull head, and it wouldn’t fit without some adjustments, so this pic just has it resting on the neck peg.

Worth it?  Warlord is $24.99, the going rate for Marvel Legends these days. The value is just never there without a Build-A-Figure for me with most MLs on solo card. The execution is OK, but not so well done that it covers for so few extra parts to justify the cost.

Rating: 9 out of 10

This is likely going to be the first of a few Warlord figures we get from Hasbro. This is the most common look from the interior pages. The ML team did a very nice job pulling it off despite some challenges with matching the source material.

Where to get it?  Professor X is a Walmart exclusive.