I’ll start by saying that this is by far my favorite wave of Marvel Legends to date! It is the most dynamic, colorful, and diverse wave that Hasbro has put out, not to mention the most bang for your buck. I say that because for the price of an 8 figure case you virtually get two really nice BAF figures, and if you grab an extra Iron Fist and Thor, you LITERALLY get two BAF figures.

BAF: Lets begin there, with the BAF figures. Each figure in the wave comes with parts to build the large All-Father, Odin. As I mentioned earlier, if you buy a case you get 2 Hawkeyes that come with the torso of Odin. Now with just the case you can interchange there are 2 different heads and 2 different sets of arms that can be interchanged to make a King Thor from Jason Arron and Esad Ribic’s run on the book. These 2 figures are far above Hasbro’s oddity BAF’s of the past waves like Hit Monkey, Puck and Jubilee. When I think of a BAF I think of the good old days of the massive Apocalypse and Fin-Fang-Foom. Though Odin and King Thor are not that large, it is cool that they represent larger figures in the Marvel U, and look great with Terrax and Ares.

Character Selection: Opening I mentioned that this was my favorite wave of Marvel Legends to date. The character selection touches on multiple areas of the Marvel U. There are A-listers like Thor and Hawkeye, the street level Iron Fist, the B-lister Machine Man, the psychotic Sentry, and the females Scarlet Witch and Carol Danvers’ Captain Marvel. Not to mention the cosmic gods Odin and King Thor.

Articulation: All of these figures have the new ML ankle pivots (with one exception), and many multi-hinge joints including ball and hinge head and neck, shoulder, bicep, double elbows, double wrist, ab crunch and swivel, hips, thigh, double knees, and double ankles. Not much new there, but I’m glad the ML design keeps evolving. One downside is that Thor’s head can pretty much only swivel and he is the one figure that doesn’t have the new ML ankle pivots.

Design and Accessories: These figures look marvelous! My favorites of the bunch are Machine Man and Captain Marvel. Machine Man is a very basic design using the much loved Bucky Cap buck, but the head sculpt is classic, and he comes with not only 2 sets of hands (fists and open) but 2 extended machine arms that can connect to each wrist or be doubled up for one really long arm! Captain Marvel is a very striking design showcasing her new costume. It’s nice to see Hasbro including some pretty contemporary costumes. She also comes with a blast that attaches to her hand, and an alternate head; one short hair, no mask, and one masked with the mohawk. Really cool! Scarlet Witch is a great new design that doesn’t re-use the similar Emma Frost body, but rather fills it out so it’s less Kate Moss and more Heidi Klum. She also comes with some hex magic circles that conveniently attach to her wrists and look awesome in display. The Hawkeye figure is cool, but very basic. He is the Bucky Cap buck re-used with a new head sculpt and a robotic Winter Soldier arm cast in Hasbro’s new metallic plastic. He also comes with a new tunic and cool chest armor that is removable. His bow is a purple re-issue of one from the movie Hawk, but his quiver is new with some nice painted details on the feathers. The Thor figure is the only one that is a bit of a bummer. His body is the same as the Terrax wave Thor. His head is a new sculpt and a bit too anime for me, and I think his hammer is new. Thor also suffers from some laziness on the articulation side, but a decent looking figure nonetheless. The last 2 regular figures are Sentry and Iron Fist. Both of these were supposed to be part of past waves but never made it, so it’s nice to get updates on these guys. Sentry is basically just Hyperion minus the boot cuffs, with a new belt and head sculpt. Sentry has always been one of my favorite characters, and this figure looks great. I think I’ll just sculpt a beard on him and keep him for myself. This figure is probably as close as we will get to how he looked in the first 3 issues of New Avengers vol. 1. Great story. Iron Fist is also one of my all time favorite characters, and this figure would be perfect if he was in his David Aja traditional green and yellow. I am not a fan of the white and gold, but the figure is great. He comes with 4 sets of crazy kung fu grip hands, and the base body in the same as the Protector or black and green Spiderman figures, so he has those nice double shoulder joints, elbows, and knees. When you buy him look close at the packaging because some of the legs are bent and wonky, but you can apply some heat to straighten them out. I already talked about the BAF figures a decent bit, but to add, none of the parts are reused. The chest, legs and shoulders have some cool, weathered kingly armor, and the King Thor has his super cool armored or robotic arm. Both heads are new sculpts and are pretty different, with the patches over opposite eyes. The Odin figure comes with his All-Father staff, and King Thor comes with his Jarnborn axe, which is a tad underwhelming, but a nice and different accessory. These figures are also pretty large compared to the average ML figure.

Paint Apps: The paints on these figures are pretty clean, bold, and basic, which I like because that’s very comic booky. Most line work seems pretty clean, but that can vary from figure to figure. The white of Iron Fist’s body is highlighted with a tint of blue. Machine Man’s purple body is a bit metallic. The Sentry is very basic, but his eyes are a solid light yellow; very cool. Hawkeye is also very basic but darker than tradition. Some have claimed that this is Dark Hawkeye from the Osborn’s dark Avengers, but it isn’t. If you know that character, he looks totally different being Bullseye, and he doesn’t have a bionic arm. Thor, Captain Marvel, and Scarlet Witch all look very true to the comics. Bold and solid colors with most of any shading going to the hair and metallic parts. The BAF figures have some weathered wash effects ont he armor, and some shading on the beards.

Negatives: I like this wave very much. If I had to find some holes in it I would say that there is at least one thing wrong with every figure, but they are forgivable. Scarlet Witch has a hard time standing because her legs are a bit too flimsy for some poses. I wish Iron Fist was green and yellow. Sentry could use a beard and another fist instead of the masturbating hand they keep giving these characters that should just be throwing punches. I really don’t have any issues with Machine Man and Captain Marvel; great figures! The Odin and King Thor BAF figures suffer from a bit of a lack of articulation of the legs due to the skirt, but these guys should be regally standing anyway. The biggest downside of this wave to me is that the Hawkeye doesn’t quite know what he is. He’s part Heroic Age and part House of M. I would love a straight up House of M Hawkeye with the sharper features and a bit more of an original body for some of out male figures. The other kind of lame aspect of this wave is that we didn’t need another Thor. I like the Terrax wave Thor better, as he is based on Olvier Copiel, one of my favorite artists.

Bottom Line: Great wave. Pick it up. The BAF figures are great, the character selection is really diverse, and you definitely get your money’s worth out of every figure, whatever your pleasure may be.