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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 brand-new Mezco Toyz One:12 Collective Magneto! This is the regular release, clad in classic purple and red, but there’s an all-white “Marvel Now” Previews Exclusive coming later this year as well. That’s a good thing, because this bad boy is sold out at most retailers online.
You can still grab the Master of Magnetism at these fine e-tailers as of this article going live:
Packaging
This is a cardboard Mezco treatment as contrasted from their other tin packaging that some figures receive. The outer slipcase is spot-glossed on top of a matte finish. The inner black box has the classic giant Gomez symbol on the back with a large window box out front to view your villainous mutant inside his plastic prison. The window is nice, but I don’t quite understand the logic. All of the layers of plastic over the figure inside obscure any sight of the figure and the window is covered by the slipcase, so mark me down as not getting it. Anyway, not a big deal or at all relevant.
Once inside, Magneto is safely set out with all of his accessories and interchangeable parts. Each part is segregated to keep it safe and the plastic cover fits tightly preventing any movement. Like always with Mezco, there are no pieces of tape to remove, no twist ties, no blister packs or sealed plastic baggies to rip open. As they advertise, Mezco are as collector-friendly as can be for in-box collectors and out of box collectors alike.
Sculpt
Mezco’s prowess at sculpting lifelike likeness has been stated, restated, chanted, sung, screamed, and beaten to death and beyond. However, it’s warranted and deserved. Magneto comes with two headsculpts, helmeted and un-helmeted. I can’t quite tell, but the bare head looks a little younger than the helmeted head. Maybe it’s not supposed to and my eyes are just playing tricks. The helmet itself is rife with small details. For starters, the cheek guards (word choice? I’m going with cheek guards) on the helmet are actually raised above the head sculpt, projecting small shadows over the face below and really adding to the the whole presentation of Magneto’s face.
The bare head has finely sculpted hair lines, small, sharp lines on the brow, dimples, and pretty much the whole face.
Beyond the head, there are a few more elements with some sculpting worth highlighting. The hard shoulder armor leading into the cape have these Kirby-esque circles and lines carved into the plastic that really play up this figure’s classic comic heritage.
The gloves have tiny little raised armor pieces sculpted onto the backs and the belt, wrist gauntlets, and boot cuffs continue the theme from Mag’s shoulder armor. Finally, the boots have tiny little molded stitches at the edges of the overlapping leather pieces. This figure’s sculpted pieces (at least those not covered by the body suit) are near perfect. While you don’t get Hot Toys level realism at this scale, this is about as damn close as it gets.
If I had to nit-pick a tiny, little issue, it would be the small seam on the side of the boot cuffs where the molded pieces are joined. Honestly, I had to search for that critique.
Costume
If we eliminate the sculpted portions of the costume I’ve discussed above, we’re left with the red body suit and purple cloak. If you’ve bought super heroes from Mezco before, this body suit will be very familiar. It’s an elastic full-body suit, with simple linear designs applied in glossy material on top of the matte suit. It’s simple, it’s effective, and it doesn’t materially affect the articulation of the figure. Do I love this particular body suit? Well, not really anything to write home about, but no complaints either. Not to knock it, it’s great. It’s just probably not the most interesting aspect of this figure.
When I first took the figure out of the box, I didn’t think about the cape too much. Even while posing it and photographing the figure, it wasn’t at the forefront of my mind. However, reviewing the photos and how the light plays off of the fabric, I went back and damn it if I didn’t change my mind. Now, the cape is my favorite part to pose. It has a weight to it that flows nicely down Mag’s back. It’s thick and creates these deep shadows when lit from one direction. What’s even better is that the cape is packed into the box in a very intentional accordion-like fashion. It’s not just tossed in behind the figure, it’s set up for success with not-quite pleats right out of the box. With the two posing wires down the two extreme edges of the cape, you can really get this cape to do your bidding for some bad ass posing opportunities.
Jus throw Magneto on the included figure stand, floating through the air, throw the cape back over the stand arm, and bend that wire! You’ll get as much attitude from that cape as the rest of the figure on its own.
Articulation
Magneto has a ball joint at the top of the neck post, another one at the bottom of the neck post, two butterfly joints at the shoulders with a fair amount of range, ball and hinge shoulder, bisected bicep that rotates, double swivel elbows, rotating hinge joints on the wrist, a ball waist joint that rotates and crunches back and forth, ball hip joints, double swivel knees, and a rocker ankle. A caveat here: as with all Mezco’s the body suit hides some of the joints. So, my assessment of the joints is based on range of motion and feel of the joint through the suit. I’m probably never going to be the type of guy to try and wrestle the suit off the figure to check the waist joint.
Magneto can get into most stances fairly easily and hold them well. While the body suit, like most one:12 Collective figures, impedes the movement a little, you can get a little bit more than all of your basic fighting poses. There’s no lack of expressiveness here with the joints that are offered.
You won’t get Mafex, SH Figuarts, or Revoltech levels of articulation, but neither do I expect that from Mezco One:12 Collective figures. This line strikes a balance between inclusion of soft goods, articulation, and realism that I think has charmed their fans.
Accessories
Let’s be clear, Magneto comes with a ton of stuff. He has the two previously mentioned head sculpts, two magnetic power effects (left and right hand), a left-handed magnetic gun disassembling effect, and four additional interchangeable hands in various splayed-hand poses- some more aggressive than others, and an X-Men branded figure stand.
Some figures have come with more in the past, though. Some of those were deluxe editions at a slightly higher price, some exclusives. At base, the accessories here are all different hands. But, what do you want? Magneto is a man who travels light. It turns out that the control over magnetic fields can be extremely powerful and his bare hands are all he needs.
The blue, translucent plastic with white magnetic effect lines are just stunning in person. The disassembling pistol effect is actually a lot deeper in volume than it looked in the solicits. This thing is like a bugle (the snack, not the instrument. I have no idea what the bugle instrument looks like. Just kidding, it looks like a bugle snack).
The choice to mold the hands directly onto these effects was a master stroke. After having just muddled around trying to attach the Invisible Woman’s invisible shield effect to her hand over on the Marvel Legends side, it’s such a relief to just snap these interchangeable hands on the wrist pegs and get to posing!
His basic magnetic effects each have small magnets embedded in the translucent blue plastic. Ideally, these would be hidden somehow, but I don’t know how you’d do it. The plastic is translucent, and applying paint to magnets tends to mess with their strength sometimes. So there you go. I’m pointing out critiques without solutions…
I had some straight pins around and here’s the result.
Finally, Magneto comes with his branded stand. These Mezco stands are more well suited to displaying your collection on your shelf than providing a useful solution for toy photography effects. I think that’s kind of the point, though.
You can either keep the simple red peg the stand comes packaged with inserted in the base, or replace it with the clear, dynamic stand arm. The red peg helps Magneto keep balance in some deeper off-balance poses by slipping into a small hole in Magneto’s heel. I personally prefer getting Magneto in the air with the clear arm.
Go ahead and fully extend the figure arm here, levitate Magneto, pose that cape, and let his magnetic personality waft over your collection!
Price/Value
Magneto, at retail, is priced at $85.oo. This is about what One:12 figures are going for now from Mezco. For the price, I think he’s just barely worth it. He’s a bit skimpy on the accessories, which makes this more of an B+ value than and A-. I’d liked to have seen a separate helmet, maybe some levitating steel bars? I don’t know. It seems other Mezco figures at the same price range sometimes come with more.
Having said that, the more you play around with Mag and pose him, the more the price fades away into a distant memory. Make no mistake, this figure is a lot of fun and the nit=picky critiques I made above pale in comparison to how awesome this figure really is. I scratched the surface of the magnetic feature, but I think that has spades of potential.
You can still grab the Master of Magnetism at these fine e-tailers as of this article going live:
Magneto’s white Marvel Now persona is still available for pre-order at these fine e-tailers:
