Marvel Legends Cardiac figure review (2026)
Cardiac seemed like one of those Spider-Man villains we’d never see from Marvel Legends. Even in the Toy Biz days where seemingly any 90s character could get made in figure form, he was absent.
In a year of surprising reveals and releases, Hasbro might have topped themselves in 2025 with the shocking announcement that Cardiac was coming to the Spider-Man Retro line.
Let’s see if this long-awaited figure delivers or if I’ll have to call Fred Sanford for this one.
Packaging: The Retro brand packaging is a faithful representation of the vintage cartoon style figures. Cardiac did show up in The Spider-Man Animated Series so the artwork reflects that animated style.
His background color is a red orange to show up against his blue and white costume. The dominant purple clashes nicely against the yellow and red logo.
His bio is actually pretty decent providing some insight into his background even if there is no breakdown of his powers/abilities or how he interacts with Spider-Man.
Likeness: Cardiac has a classic 90s look — he’s got big shoulder and knee pads and pouches upon pouches. Cardiac is basically an example of what happens when the ML team decides to flex their skills.
Absolutely no detail is skimped on — the pulse pattern of his Vibranium-mesh pseudoskin is actually sculpted. Typically, that’s something that would just be conveyed with a strong paint job, so this was impressive.
His shoulder pads also have some detail with creases in them. I assume his slotted forearm wrists and shins are reused from Iron Man figures. The tiny pouches along his wrist and shins are individually sculpted.
His unique sectional knee pads also are accurately sculpted per the design. Ditto for the squared off collar piece.
Cardiac’s head sculpt is very faithful to how co-creator/artist Erik Larsen drew him with a gritted teeth expression. The eye slots should be more prominent, which is the only issue with the sculpt and figure in general.
MORE:
- G.I. Joe Classified Series Kyle Budo Jesso action figure review No.174 (2025)
- Transformers Studio Series 86 Mixmaster review (2025)
- Marvel Legends Starfox and Champion of the Universe review (2025)
- Jazwares AEW Luminaries Surfer Sting review (2025)
Scale: Cardiac is 6’5″ so he wasn’t a shrimp. He’s about the same height as a standard Marvel Legends figure, but does look more formidable next to Spider-Man. That’s the main measuring stick for a Spider-Man rival.
Paint: Cardiac rocks a very cool shade of blue and white. In the comics, that blue has a lot of black shading and it looks like the figure has a hybrid of that blue and black mix resulting in a darker blue than the slightly lighter blue. The white is nice and clean. I greatly prefer the flat white as opposed to the egg white and bone white hues Hasbro used over the years previously.
His pulse marks is a silvery white. It’s probably a deal of not being able to properly match the molded white plastic but the sheen makes it stand out. That’s not a bad look, but it isn’t 100% comic accurate either. He should also have a lighter shade of blue framing the face portion of his “mask” that’s missing.
My biggest issue is Cardiac should have his irises visible. Even the card art and diagram on the back shows him with his irises flared. Part of his character is the intensity of his eyes and when they’re whited out, that element is missing.
Articulation: Cardiac is an intense melee and distance fighter so it’s important that he can strike a variety of poses. This mold doesn’t have the butterfly shoulders, an ab crunch or thigh cuts — the tradeoff for the molded pulse pattern sculpted onto the body.
He does have a ball-joint torso so you can still get some good range of motion for his attack stances.
Cardiac has:
- neck
- ball jointed shoulders
- bicep
- elbows (hinge and swivel)
- wrist (hinge and swivel)
- abdomen (tilting)
- torso
- hips
- knees (double-jointed)
- shin
- ankle
Accessories: Cardiac comes with everything he really needed.
He has a set of gripping hands to hold his main weapon — a pulse staff. It does have some unique sculpted elements with a pattern at the larger ends.
It also includes the burst effect when he fires it. That’s done using a translucent light blue that turned out really nice.
It has a hole large enough for it to fit his wrist provided you remove the fist/hand.
Worth It? Cardiac is $27.99. Considering the new mold and the all-around adherence to how he looks in the comics, this is a pretty good example of what that higher price point should warrant in a figure.
Rating: 9.5 out of 10
Cardiac is a really fun figure with better-than-expected articulation due to the extra level of sculpting. He’s missing the eye detail and the lighter blue around his mask, but this is certainly a figure that makes up for the long wait to add him to the collection.
Where to Get It? Walmart seems to be getting this wave in stock now although I got him from RetroRoboToys. You can also use Amazon or Entertainment Earth.
As an Amazon and Entertainment Earth affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases.