



If you're anything like me, and you frequent any action figure communities or forums, you've probably seen or heard of this guy; Thanos by ZD toys, an import from China . I've seen him advertised for sale and heard other collectors proclaim him the best Thanos yet, superior to the Hasbro BAF. Is he the version of the Mad Titan we deserve, or just a shiny pretender? Let's find out!





Packaging:





Thanos is a deluxe imported figure, so his package is very impressive. It's a large window box, with a clear view of the figure and his accessories. It's very eye catching, has great art on the back and sides.

One odd detail is the positioning of the window. Instead of it facing out the front center of the box, like most figures, the window is facing out of the corner. It doesn't affect the figure any, I just thought it was an interesting design choice.





Sculpt:





So, right of the bat, Thanos looks really good! He's tall, bulky, and his armor looks like it was crafted by artisans. His face sculpt is great, and looks just like the movie version. The armor and gauntlets are full of sculpted details and grooves. He's very screen accurate, and definitively looks like an all powerful galactic conqueror. If nothing else, the figure looks amazing!









Compared to the BAF, he's roughly the same size, but is about a half inch shorter, and has sleeker armor, especially in the chest and legs. The ZD toys figure will still tower over all your Legends, so it's not a major issue.





Articulation:





Thanos isn't as jointed as his Hasbro brethren, and this is one of his main faults. He has: A cut neck, ball shoulders, double pin elbows, cut wrist, a minor bit of chest articulation, ball hips, double knees, and pin ankles. The flaps of his loincloth are jointed, to allow more leg movement, but why joint them and not his waist or biceps?









As good as he looks, a lot of his joints aren't very useful. The lack of a bicep swivel or an ab crunch really limit his pose options.

To make things worse, his left knee joints came out of the box loose, and while they stay in place fine, they constantly moved out of position while I posed him for pictures.





Paint:





The paint is another area where the ZD figure shines. He has an amazing shiny gold effect on his armor, and it looks great. The purple of his skin is nice and consistent, and even with all the different textures and parts of his sculpt, there's very little to no paint bleed.









The blue sections of his suit aren't screen accurate, they were definitely brown in the movie, but I honestly don't mind since the effect is so good, and it brings his comic look to mind. I like the look so much, I'm going to paint the BAF with this color scheme.





Accessories:





Thanos does pretty well with his inclusions, coming with four of them. The first is his helmet, which is removable. It looks good, the sculpt and paint are great. It doesn't fit over his head perfectly, since it leave a bit of the back of his head exposed, but it's not terrible, just slightly off. The option of having the helmet off is appreciated.





The second accessory is an alternate gripping right hand. It looks nice and holds the sword well, but it was very difficult to get the hand to stay on the wrist peg securely. I eventually had to soften it up with boiling water to make it malleable enough to stay in place. That's not good.





Speaking of the sword, that's his third accessory, and easily the best part of the figure. It's sculpt is great, it looks very intimidating, and the paint is flawless.





It's also WAY better than the dumb kayak paddle Hasbro Thanos came with. It's actually painted, for one (ignoring my lazy attempt to paint it myself) and looks way more accurate.









Finally, his last accessory is the Infinity Gauntlet itself, which can swap for the arm guard on his left arm. The paint has a neat weathered effect, and the gems are all colored accurately. Unlike the BAF, which put a very nice ball joint in the wrist, this one is just solid plastic, which means he can only pose it straight out in front of him, like he's awkwardly waiting for a fist bump. How threatening.









Also, like the situation with his right hand, I had to boil the gauntlet to get it to fasten to his arm properly. That's REALLY not good.





Overall:

So, you're take on Thanos will depend on what you expect of the figure. He has some great aspects, like the sculpt, paint job, and the awesome sword. But his articulation is limited, and most of his accessories don't attach as easily as they should.

If you just want a great-looking Thanos to just stand in a display, this one should do that excellently. But if you want a Thanos with more pose options and a better gauntlet, like I do, than the Hasbro BAF is my preferred version.









Or, for the best of both worlds, I just gave Hasbro Thanos the ZD sword. He looks really good with it, it's scaled properly, and his right wrist hinge works great posing with it.









Gallery:























