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What’s up, Everywookiee! It’s DrunkWooky back with another action figure review! Today, I’m taking a look at the Fantastic Four Marvel Legends Wave 1 Dr. Doom.
Doctor Doom can be purchased at the following fine e-tailers:
Packaging
Standard Marvel Legends fare with a nice big window on the front, nice John Tyler Christopher art on the sides, and a short bio with an actual figure graphic and cross-sell for the Super Skrull BAF below that.
Like always, this Marvel Legends figure is pretty collector friendly. One piece of tape to cut or unpeel on the side, then you’re in to a simple plastic tray that slips out, with no tie downs to cut or tape to unpeel. He can be unboxed and reboxed with relatively little damage to the packaging.
Sculpt/Paint Application
Hasbro got to exercise their creative skill from head to toe on this figure. I can’t imagine any of the body pieces from this figure could have come from another figure. Seeing as Doom’t entire body is armor-clad and robe-draped, the entire figure is oozing with small details.
There are rivets and straps up and down the sculped arms and legs. A belt, complete with holster and ornate buckles. That holster has a big “Doom” “D” embossed on the top flap. There’s the set of gold chains keeping Doom’s cloak around his neck, small jet rockets on his back, pointed armored shoes, a textured tunic, and some great, flowing folds to his hood.
As if all that weren’t enough, you’re treated to two head sculpts: a classic Doom and more modern Doom! Whether you’re looking at the classic head with more rivets or the more simple and clean modern head, the whole things is a great representation at how much detail can be packed into a $20 figure nowadays! Just as an example, I was impressed with the small pieces of metal they were able to sculpt inside the mouthpiece of each head. From best I could tell, the hood was not separable from the rest of the heads, but I didn’t push it to its point of failure.
Articulation
Doom has a ball and swivel neck joint, ball and swivel shoulders, double-swivel elbows, a swivel wrist with a rotating peg, what appears to be a ball waist, ball hips, bisected thigh, double swivel knees, and a ball and swivel ankle.
In general, Doom was far less hindered by his bulky outfit than I expected. I have seen many people online cutting Doom’s tunic to about mid-thigh height. You could do this, but I don’t think it’s necessary. The soft plastic of the green tunic moves out of the way fairly well back and forth and has two slits on the sides to accommodate sideways motion of the legs.
On the flip side of Hasbro putting single elbow joints on figures is Hasbro putting double elbow joints on figures that can’t use them. Like his clone counterparts over on the Star Wars Black Series side, Doom can’t bend too far beyong a 90 degree bend at the elbow because his armor clashes with itself. Luckily, the unhindered shoulders and wrists give you some options that make up for this.
I also expected Doom’s hood to get in the way of his head articulation. The soft green plastic, yet again, came through and didn’t prevent me from achieve the two axis swivel and tilt I was looking for in poses.
Probably the most intrusive part of the figure is the cape. Any sort of bend in Doom’s leg will make him shorter than his cape which will not bend. It’s a simple fix: just tilt it back. This move even helps him balance. But this is a small hindrance. You can always remove the cape, but that doesn’t look quite right.
Lastly, it’s not like Doom needs much help balancing anyway. I expected this bulky figure to have some major top-heaviness and balance issues, but that wasn’t the case. With the added assurance of the cape propping him up, he was reliable as a statue. No loose joints either!
Accessories
Apart from the Super Skrull left leg, Doom comes with two head sculpts, a luger-style pistol, and interchangeable hands. He can be equipped with dual fisticuffs, a right pistol-holding hand, and/or a gnarled expressive left hand as the pose needs.
This is about all he needs, I’d say. The one critique I’ll give is that the barrel of my pistol came a little bent.
Price/Value
Doom is around the normal Marvel Legends $20 mark and he’s a good bargain for that. Sometimes, a Legends figure will be pretty lean. It can be a slight or small character, with relatively few accessories, sometimes no BAF piece, and worse yet, riddled with issues like loose joints, single jointed elbows, small feet impossible to balance on, etc.
I’m happy to report that Doom delivers satisfactorily in all categories and he’s a great representation of a great villain to foil all your heroes on your shelf for years to come! At around $20, this guy is a “buy” in my book!
You can bring Doom to your world from the following fine e-tailers:
