Despite his connection to Wolverine, Victor Creed, better known as Sabretooth, first appeared as a foe to Iron Fist. Like fellow X-foe Mystique, he was an example of long-time X-scribe Chris Claremont spreading the love so to speak, and introducing characters he intended to use in X-Men in some of his other books. Whatever his source, he's been an enduring foe for Wolverine and the X-Men, and was at the height of his popularity alongside them in the '90s, when he got his first action figure.
Sabretooth was released in Series 2 of Toy Biz's X-Men line. He's based on Sabretooth's original John Byrne-designed costume, which, interestingly enough, Sabretooth had just ditched in the comics at the time of this figure's release. The early line was kind of plagued with things like this, which is why characters had a tendency to show up a second time pretty quickly (Sabretooth's second figure would arrive just three series later). The figure stands 5 inches tall and has 8 points of articulation. Sabretooth lacked neck articulation, a surprisingly common phenomenon in the early years of the line. Unlike other figures this happened to, Sabretooth doesn't really have any specific gimmicks preventing a neck joint from being added, so I guess it was just a design thing. Whatever the case, it's a bit limiting on posing. Sabretooth's sculpt was unique to him. It's okay, but not really anything to write home about. It leans closer to the weaker of the Series 1 sculpts than it does the stronger Series 2 sculpts. The details are rather soft, especially on the face, the hair is rather oddly shaped, and the proportions are really on the scrawny side for a Sabretooth figure. His paintwork is pretty basic; the standard colors are all handled decently. The two shades of yellow for the fur and his hair are kind of close to each other, meaning they kind of blend together and look kind of odd. Sabretooth was packed with this weird sort of claw thing to hold. He also had an action feature, where the front plate of his stomach could be flipped back and forth. One side is clean, while the other has claw marks, thereby simulating his healing factor.
By the time I was collecting, this figure had vanished from shelves, replaced by his more cartoon-indicative second figure, so that was the one I had. I picked this one up a couple of years ago second hand. Part of his appeal was being the first copy of this guy I'd seen without horrible paint scraping on the eyes. He's not really a great figure…or even a particularly good figure. I guess if you really like his original costume, that's a plus, but it's not even the best version of that costume on the market.
The retail product for the fourth Avengers film, Avengers: Endgame has officially started hitting shelves in preparation for the film's April 26th release date. However, with Endgame coming out just one year after its predecessor Infinity War, there's just a touch of overlap, as the last of the IW product is still making its way to shelves. I'm doing my best to keep up with it all (I ended up having to do a lot of picking and choosing during the onslaught of IW stuff) and to that end, I'm looking at Diamond Select Toys' take on Captain America's Infinity War appearance.
Captain America is one of the four Infinity War-based figures from the 2018 lineup of Marvel Select. He ended up taking a little while to make it to shelves, and just started showing up in full force a few weeks ago. The figure stands 7 inches tall and has 32 points of articulation. As far as scaling goes, he's definitely nearer the taller end of Selects. I had ever so slightly been hoping he might follow Daredevil's lead, and potentially be closer to Legends scaling. Of course one can't really blame them for sizing him this way; he's in proper scale with most of their other offerings, which wasn't really true if DD. This figure has a sculpt, handled by Gentle Giant Studios (who handle most of the MCU Legends as well), which appears to have at least some parts in common with the Civil War figure. It's really for the best that this figure arrived so long after the movie; Cap's "Nomad" design went through quite a few changes right up to production of the film, resulting in a lot of inaccuracies on his other figures. This one is far more accurate to the final product. He's got his proper hair length (which neither Hasbro figure had), as well as both gloves, properly styled, and all of the appropriate wear and tear to his uniform. The details of the uniform are also nice and sharp, and I really dig that texture work. The head sculpt is probably the weakest aspect of the figure. Its detailing is on the softer side, and it doesn't quite have a spot-on Evans likeness. That said, the likeness is still closer than all of the Hasbro attempts barring the unmasked Civil War head and certainly an immense improvement over prior unmasked Cap heads from DST, and the softer detailing may be more linked to the paint. Speaking of the paint, slight thickness on the head application aside, it's not a terrible offering. The general appearance is accurate to the film, and there's quite a bit of accent work going on. In addition to the accuracy of the man figure, something else that really sets this guy apart is his accessory compliment. In addition to a selection of eight different hands, as well as a display stand, he includes his Wakandan replacement shields in both collapsed and deployed configurations. Prior Cap figures have been lucky to get a single shield, but this one can appropriately dual weild, and the deployed versions even have a sliding segment in the front like we saw in the movie. By far, these are the most accurate versions of the shields we got on a small scale figure, and I would count them as a major selling point.
The Legends version of this Cap was definitely the biggest disappointment of that set for me. I really liked the Nomad look, and such an inaccurate figure wasn't cutting it. I considered the Figuarts release, but he just traded in some inaccuracies for another set of them, and lacked the shields entirely, so I passed. Once I saw the prototype for this guy, I was definitely on-board, making him an easy buy when he showed up at Cosmic Comix when he showed up a few weeks ago. While I'm a little bummed that the best version of this guy out there doesn't quite fit with the rest of my IW figures, there's no denying this is a solid figure, and he's nice enough that I'm probably just going to fudge the scale a bit on my shelf.
Hey, do you guys remember yesterday's whacky pairing of two guys from Captain Marvel that never meet? Well then you'll love today's pairing of two other guys from Captain Marvel that also never meet. Though, I guess in a slight uptick of connectivity, at least these two do occupy the same planet at the same time, which is more than yesterday's pair. Maybe they formed a budding relationship off-screen! Well, let's look at best buds Yon-Rogg and Phil Coulson. Nope, that feels wrong. I don't think these guys are friends. Let's look at mortal enemies Yon-Rogg and Phil Coulson. There, that feels better.
Yon-Rogg and Coulson are the last of the Walgreens-exclusive Marvel Minimates for the Captain Marvel assortment. There's also going to be a specialty-exclusive boxed set, but these are it for now.
Man, we were really itching to find out what Yon-Rogg's big secret was before the movie came out. Turns out the big secret was that there was really no big secret, aside perhaps from this version of Yon-Rogg somehow ending up as less villainous than his comics counterpart. Honestly, though, it feels like they came up with the role for Law without knowing exactly which Kree officer he'd be playing, and eventually decided to tag him with Yon-Rogg's name (the fact that said name is only spoken once in the film, said in a scene where his character isn't even present kind of lends credence to this). Whatever the case, he's a pretty prominent character, and obviously he was going to show up somewhere in this line. He makes use of add-on pieces for his hair, backpack, gloves, belt, and holster. The hair is reused from Venkman, but otherwise these pieces are new. At first glance, the holster looks the same as Korath's, but it's actually its mirror piece, correctly representing their placement in the film. Like Carol, Yon-Rogg also includes an alternate helmet piece, should you want him fully armed up. But, given how briefly he wears it in the movie, I don't see it getting much use from me. Yon-Rogg's paint is pretty involved, and matches up with Carol and Bron-Charr (but not with Korath and Ronan). The face has a pretty solid likeness of Jude Law, which is certainly refreshing after the Legends figure. Yon-Rogg is packed with a pistol, an effect piece for his weird gauntlet thing, and a clear display stand.
Though relatively minor in the film, Coulson's return to the MCU proper was still a delightful one, and Clark Gregg was clearly having a blast playing the rookie field agent version of the character. His presence in this assortment is no doubt due to the large fanbase for the character. He's not new to Minimates, with an MCU release back in Series 39 for the first Thor film (reviewed here), plus animated and comics versions of the character. That said, it's nice to get another go at him, if for nothing else than to pair off with Fury. Coulson is pretty much the same as Fury in terms of construction, just swapping out the hairpiece for a new one, representing Coulson's '90s hair. Of course, it's nondescript enough to work for a modern Coulson as well, if that's what you're looking for. Coulson's paintwork is respectable. I think the facial likeness is better than prior attempts, and I especially like the different pattern on the tie. Like Fury, Coulson is packed with a spare set of white arms, a handgun, a shoulder holster, and a clear display stand.
Though they don't offer much new after looking at all of the other figures in this line-up, I do find myself quite liking this pair. It's nice to get a Yon-Rogg figure that isn't horribly disappointing, and I've been hoping for a Coulson update since The Avengers came out. All in all, a nice pair to round out a pretty fun little assortment. I look forward to the boxed set.