Marvel Legends Dark Avengers Warbird review (2025)

The Dark Avengers Warbird figure brings us another step closer to completing the Dark Avengers in the Marvel Legends line. Who says Hasbro can’t be committed to finishing teams?

Karla Sofen is used to joining up with teams pretending to play the hero. First as a member of Baron Zemo’s Thunderbolts, then the somewhat reformed but largely loose cannon Luke Cage iteration of the team. That led to her joining Norman Osborn’s team of Dark Avengers masquerading as their version of Ms. Marvel. For some weird reason, the Hasbro ML team labeled this figure Dark Avengers Warbird instead of Ms. Marvel so for the sake of clarity I’ll refer to her as Dark Avengers Warbird.

Let’s see if this figure is a worthy addition to the Dark Avengers ranks or just a poor substitute.

Packaging: This is the new slimmer style for the Marvel Legends packaging, keeping it more consistent with other Hasbro lines like G.I. Joe Classified Series and Transformers. It’s OK, but certainly looks far removed from previous ML boxes.

Dark Avengers is most prominent on the presentation instead of Marvel or Marvel Legends. The left side features the character name and a small portrait while the right side features another image that more closely resembles the figure in hand. I do really like that all of the three comic art images used are different. Her bio is brief but effectively explains the character and why the former Moonstone is now running with the Dark Avengers.

Likeness:  This figure is one new sculpted element’s inclusion from being a complete reuse of the actual Warbird figure. The new part is the turtleneck scarf Carol Danvers wore that doubled somewhat like a cape flowing in the wind.

Carol’s original Ms. Marvel costume had a triangle cutout to expose her abs and show off her hot pants a bit. Before too long she ditched the cutout and wore a full shirt like the Dark Avengers Warbird outfit.

Easily the biggest disappointment here is the reuse of the Warbird heads. In the past with this kind of repaint, Hasbro would use different head sculpts to avoid the inevitable comparisons. There had to be some other viable female head options that would have been better.

Sure, the Warbird figure has sculpted masks, but I would have been ok with the ML team reusing another head without them if it meant not making Dark Avengers Warbird looking like Carol Danvers’ twin sister.

To mix the default packaging up, Dark Avengers Warbird has the fuller hair head sculpt that looks more like the John Byrne presentation and the gesturing hands.

Scale:  My main knock on the Warbird figure was its stature. Were the figure taller and maybe a little more muscular like the Power Princess figure it would be perfect. That applies to Dark Avengers Warbird as well as she looks positively dainty next to her teammates.

Paint:  The paint is really nicely done with an overall darker hue to the bright and vibrant Ms. Marvel attire. The reds are muted and the “is it black or is it blue” debate of the accent color is settled here with it painted black. For the inevitable (?) Ms. Marvel repaint I imagine Hasbro will boost the colors to make for an obvious visual contrast between the two figures.

The gold star is clean without any runoff or bleed through. That’s pretty impressive.

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Articulation:  For my disappointment with the Warbird size, I definitely didn’t have any issues with her articulation. That also applies to Dark Avengers Warbird.

The butterfly shoulders and bicep articulation allow her to pose more dramatically whether in attacking from a distance or up close and personal. Similar to Warbird, the hair’s flow does interrupt some posing options.

Dark Avengers Warbird has:

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

Accessories:  This is the exact same accessory rollout as the Warbird figure with one minor difference.

Her secondary portrait is the more modern of the two Warbirds. This one has less bounce to the hair and has a harsher expression. It actually works better for a more villainous Dark Avengers Warbird than the heroic Carol Danvers. That makes it a better option for the default head sculpt going forward. Which means I’ll only use the original head for a Ms. Marvel in her Earth’s Mightiest Heroes look.

The one slight change is her eyes are fully whited out. In the comics, and even on the packaging, her mask isn’t drawn consistently. It seems like the most common look has the mask showing very little skin around her eyes especially for the whited-out eye look. I think I’m going to need to be very delicate in filling in that area black to make this a bit more accurate.

She’s got a swappable set of fists. To show her using her energy blasts, Dark Avengers Warbird also gets the yellow orange translucent energy swirls. It would have been cool if Hasbro changed up the color of this part to differentiate it from Warbird.

Another missed opportunity was the absence of a dedicated Carol Danvers head sculpt with her 70s flip bob hairstyle. That would have provided enough incentive to buy a second Dark Avengers Warbird and use that as Carol in her second Ms. Marvel outfit.

Worth It? Dark Avengers Warbird is the base $25 price and since she’s sold out on Pulse, she might be trickier to get on sale for a cheaper price. The complete reuse doesn’t make this the best value, but it would have worked with a Carol Danvers portrait as well.

Rating: 9 out of 10

I’m not against reuse when it makes sense, but it sure felt like the ML team dropped the ball a bit by not giving Dark Avengers Warbird a unique head sculpt.

Where to get it? I got the Dark Avengers Warbird off of Hasbro Pulse. Entertainment Earth still has her available for pre-order.

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