ToyBiz is no more, and the reign of Marvel Toys has begun. Quite ironically, Marvel’s own toy company is now making non-Marvel superhero action figures. It’s either genius, or sheer insanity. Either way, it’s awesome.

The first series of exquisitely sculpted, highly detailed, superarticulated action figures from Marvel Toys Legendary Comic Book Heroes line gives us 6″ action figures of independent comics characters Savage Dragon, SuperPatriot, Rip-Claw, Madman, Judge Dredd, and Witchblade. But the real anchor of this first series is the outstanding build-a-figure, Pitt - who many are heralding as the best BAF of the superarticulated era. (I tend to agree). Enough talk, click the full post to see all the pics.

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SAVAGE DRAGON

Savage Dragon leads off this series and is really the perfect figure to lead off the new line. He’s one of the more recognizable independent comic book characters, and Marvel Toys did an outstanding job of bringing this into the 3D world. Dragon’s articulation is outstanding - he gets everything we knew and loved from the ToyBiz Marvel Legends day, including double-jointed knees with double-disk hips; ball-jointed shoulders; and ab crunch and waist swivel; toe artic and side-to-side ankle tilt; and he even has individually articulated knuckles on his big green fingers! Absolutely amazing! His variant is the ’slightly sexier’ wife-beater version, which really is just a sloppy undershirt shaped splotch of white paint. Nevertheless, I bought both versions, cuz I can never have me enough Savage Dragon!

variant:

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WITCHBLADE

It looks like the ToyBiz tradition of including at least one female character in every assortment is continuing with LCBH under Marvel Toys. Witchblades gets the honorable first female slot, and holds it with dignity. The figure is strong, with nice paint and detail on her armor parts, but she lacks bicep swivels, and that bugs me. If it weren’t for that one missing point of articulation, I wouldn’t really have any knocks against her. (Other than the awkward plastic nudity. But there’s not much to be done about that…)

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MADMAN

Heh. Neato! I have no idea who Madman is or what he does, but this figure is just cool. It’s hard to appreciate his detail from an image, but when you have him in hand, you’ll be very impressed by the subtleties of his sculpt with such a seemingly simple outfit. Madman has the most functional articulation of anyone in this series, given that his ’simple’ design doesn’t impede his range of motion anywhere. He’s definitely my fave of the bunch to just sit around and fiddle with while I watch TV or something.

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JUDGE DREDD

Kick. Ass. Okay, well, it’s hard not to relate the Judge Dredd character with Sly Stallone’s filmic version. But, if you can reason him as the comic character and not the buff movie stud, you’ll realize what an excellent translation of the character this figure actually is. At first, I felt like the body Marvel Toys had chosen to use as his base (Marvel Legends Series 14 Longshot’s body) was a little to ’slight’ of build, but after checking out some of the original art from his series, I realized it was spot-on. The detail is exquisite, the paint is top-notch, and the articulation’s all there. Dredd really does shine in this first series.

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SUPERPATRIOT

I remember having an old toy version of this weirdo back in the 90s. It’s hard to look past his in-your-face design, what with the American flag cod-piece and all, but what’s underneath the silly flashiness is a really nifty action figure. Superpatriot is an all new sculpt from Marvel Toys with lots of detail and the standard articulation. His variant is the ‘unmasked’ version that shows what’s left of his human face, and swaps his gun arm to the other hand. Pretty cool.

variant:

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RIP-CLAW

Rip-Claw is another character I’m not familiar with, but the toy has a neat, dynamic look to it. He looks kind of like an angry Native American warlord or something. He gets ToyBiz’ Marvel Legends Black Panther body, with new arms/hands and feet. The articulated blade fingers are pretty nifty, and allow for a lot of freaky poses. He suffers from a little floppiness in the lower half, where his knees joints don’t quite fit snuggly into the grooves where they meet his lower thigh and upper calf, but all in all, he’s a solid toy and definitely worth picking up.

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PITT

Yep. Here he is. The real reason we bought all those figures listed above. It’s hard to describe the awesomeness of Pitt. He’s huge, he’s menacing, and he’s articulated out the ying-yang. Combine with that his impressive sculpting and awe-inspiring paint detail, and you’ve got yourself one of the best action figures to come out in the last ten years. Marvel Toys really nailed it with this one.

Tags: Judge Dredd, LCBH, Madman, Marvel Toys, Pitt, Rip-Claw, Savage Dragon, Superpatriot, Witchblade

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