Blue with a tail and a sword

Hasbro is giving us just about every Marvel Legends figure we want, now it doesn’t seem that far fetched to suggest this might be because the license is expiring but they are extracting some serious money from collectors. But what if something else is happening? They must know the age distribution is people collecting, they must know those people are getting older. Those people are buying houses and having children. Their disposable income is dropping, maybe they’re getting these figures out before people drop out. Several of the podcasts I listen to have stopped or had people leave. People are leaving the hobby, maybe this is Hasbro getting as much as they can before that happens. Or maybe this is just wild speculation......

I seem to suddenly have a lot of unopened figures, Legends Loki, Gambit, Jubilee, Storm, Mister Sinister, Nightcrawler, Captain America, Thor, Psylocke and Captain Britain, plus Siege Springer and Reflector. I am going to open Nightcrawler......

He's fantastic! My favourite Marvel character, he's blue with a tail. And a sword. I think I also like him because if I could have any superhero powers it would be teleportation. Think about it, you could live your life in a way where you don't waste any time travelling between places, plus no money wasted on petrol or plane fares. You could see the world for free! Anyway, Nightcrawler is responsible for my inability just to collect the main X-Men from the cartoon. I needed him as well. But then once I made an exception for him I also needed Angel, Iceman, Kitty, Colossus, Psylocke and Bishop. And X-Factor, Cable and Captain Britain. My only small critique is that I think gold paint should have been used for his eyes (they used it on the handle of the sword). The headsculpt is (for me) a fantastic improvement over the old. The smiling head is also great, very fitting for the character and I have a genuine dilemma over which to use. Fantastic!

These Legends figures are really helping me get into X-Men all over again. Since I now have Archangel, Iceman, Forge, Kitty and Nightcrawler I’m going for a Wolverine and the X-Men display until I get round to opening Gambit and Jubilee. I will open Storm next. The vintage packaging is great, but would be even better if the whole team was available in this style! (If it was I would consider keeping them MOSC.) Okay, so this figure is everything I wanted, white costume Storm. Fan-bloody-tastic. She looks great, bring on Jean Grey!

One of the pitfalls I really wanted to avoid when I started collecting Marvel Legends was buying the exact same collection again, but paying twice the price. I made a big list of all the figures I have and I have bought roughly half of my Universe figures as Legends (it gets a bit vague because I still have unfinished customs), it's quite reassuring to know I haven't made my Universe collection completely obsolete.

I've now opened Reflector, I was having some second thoughts on whether I should have got three of the regular cartoon figures, I'm happy to say those doubts have gone. Viewfinder in particular is a fantastic update, Spectro is also a fine update, Spyglass less so as he seems a bit plain. Viewfinder and Spyglass could do with some extra stickers, but I'm very happy and don't regret selling my Perfect Effect set. That said, I'm not sure it's worth the money - £10 or £20 cheaper and I would be far happier. £70 for three small almost identical deluxes is pretty outrageous. A random aside from that, I realise that part of what I like about the figures is the size. It's the same reason I like the G1 Datsun mold, and the 80's/90's Turtle figures. It's probably the same reason I took to Marvel Universe figures so much, figures 4-5" are just the perfect size for me.

Re-reading More than Meets the Eye inspired me to re-watch some Red Dwarf X - XII. They actually did a really good job of re-capturing the spirit of the original series. As much as I like Kochanski, series VII and VIII are not quite the same as the series with the main four. Might have to watch some of the older ones at some point.

Juggernaut and Colossus are on their way, yay!