Marvel Legends Count Nefaria review

Count Nefaria has been pretty high on my most-wanted Marvel Legends villains list for a while now. Getting one bad guy who can tangle with a full team of Avengers is rare once we get past Kang and Ultron. And I’ve always loved the idea of an evil Superman decimating Captain America, Iron Man, Wasp and crew until Thor arrives.

It took longer than I wanted, but we finally get Count Nefaria in the Marvel Legends line courtesy of the Iron Man Retro wave. Let’s see if the leader of the Maggia was worth the wait.

Packaging: Count Nefaria didn’t make an appearance on the 1994 Iron Man cartoon series, but he is on the 30th anniversary Iron Man series retro card. He could have been on the Bag Man card series for all I cared.

This does limit some personalization since the Retro series keeps a static Iron Man image on the front. Nefaria does get an animated style drawing for the bio, which offers a glimpse of how he might have looked on the show.

The bio is decent as it mentions his rivalry with the Avengers though an extra line about his powers would have been nice. There is also a big drawing in the center showing Nefaria’s accessories. All two of them. Can’t win ’em all.

Likeness:  Hasbro’s ML team had a bit of a conundrum with Count Nefaria. They opted to give him the Vulcan mold, their newest most articulated body. Nefaria is probably better suited for a new mold that’s a cross between the Vulcan buck and the Thor/Hercules mold. And could be used in the future for characters like Black Bolt and Gladiator.

In a pinch, Hasbro could have just reused the Hyperion mold from the Squadron Supreme set. The only problem there is the arms reuse the Hercules/Thor mold and still have pins. That one is probably just a tad too wide and big for Nefaria though.

While he might be a tad undersized, Nefaria looks pretty good. His head sculpt is excellent fully capturing that glee of a villain who’s now able to go toe to toe with any Avenger instead of ordering his mercenaries from an office. The intense expression works well.

His unique cape with the slanted high collar and cord across his chest is intact. And the cape has a nice flow to it as well. Bonus points to the sculptors for angling the cape so the right side cups his right shoulder like the comics. It is going to lose several points for having that old diagonal plug system and the cape peg isn’t a snug fit into the hole. That means it pops out with faint movement.

Nefaria’s flared gloves are sculpted though his boots are just done via paintwork. His signature N belt is a new piece with the “N” actually sculpted on.

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Paint: White on black and red? That’s a recipe for some paint issues. Thankfully there’s not an abundance of fuzzy linework or bleed through. The shoulder points could have used another hit or two of the white paint and the V point in his chest could have been tighter.

His head sculpt features stellar paintwork from the crazed eyes to the teeth and tight linework of the goatee.

Scale: Count Nefaria is shorter than Thor, but not by that much. He should stand taller than Iron Man and Captain America, but with the Vulcan body he’s a little shorter, which is annoying.

Articulation: The downside of the Vulcan mold is the size and width, but it does ensure that Count Nefaria can lay out the Avengers without any restrictions or limitations. From flying poses to straight up brawling, Nefaria can do some damage to the Avengers.

Thanks to the frustrating cape peg, posing can be a bit troublesome. I really wish they engineered this better.

Count Nefaria has:

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

Accessories:  Count Nefaria is lacking in this category. He’s only got sprawled open hands. They’re good for clutching throats and lifting objects.

I’m not sure what else makes sense to include with Nefaria, but this Retro Iron Man wave was strong enough that it really could have had a Build-A-Figure.

Worth it?  Target had a sale going that took the figures down from $24.99 to $17.49. That was excellent timing and took the price down to an old school level.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Count Nefaria really would benefit from a beefier body, cleaner paint apps and a better implemented cape setup. That said, I’m still happy to have one of my favorite Avengers villains in my collection.

Where to get it?  Target and GameStop has the Iron Man Retro wave in stores. You can also grab Count Nefaria from Amazon or Entertainment Earth.

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