Winter Soldier

Someone invent a time machine and get this figure released last December, so it can be part of our running gag. Winter Soldier is a fierce combatant and an asset in battle, no matter which team he fights for. Over on our message board, regular reader Scissors was complaining about how Hasbro's constant flood of product means every series of Marvel Legends seems to have a few figures that are just there for "padding" - ie, they fill out the line and come with a BAF part (so we're kind of forced to get them), but who, were the lines more spaced out, could be replaced by better choices. The only up side is that not everyone might feel the same figure is the needless one; for instance, in this Black Widow series, I'm super happy to get Spymaster (an obscure repaint), but could care less about the once and future Bucky. Winter Soldier does make sense for this series, as he and Natasha exist in that same nebulous "not really a superhero, more of a spy" territory (plus they've dated before). The problem is there's already a Winter Soldier who's functionally identical to this one. Except it came with an alternate short-haired head and a "Soviet" variant this one lacks. Since coming back to life, the Bucky Soldier has worn one basic outfit (well, two, but who's counting?): a dark blue uniform with a flap of horizontal strips covering his chest, and the left arm of the shirt removed to reveal his robot arm. So the figure from a decade ago doesn't look substantially different from this one in stores today - great for fans who missed it, bad for long-term obsessives like us. This isn't the same old sculpt, at least - last time, they faked the chest flap as part of his webgear, while this time the harness is just itself, and the shirt has all its own textures. He's also got a utility belt with grenades, a knife, a holstered pistol, and a few extra clips for his gun. There are two more clips strapped to his left leg. The add-ons below the waist are a darker brown than the one around his chest. The magazines on his leg get a dark silver paint app, but the ones on his belt are unpainted plastic. On the shoulder of his fake arm, there's a white star in a blue circle with a red outline - were this figure representing his brainwashed days, that would just be a big red star by itself. It's tampoed on, not sculpted; you don't want to mess up all the intricate little lines of the armor. Paul "Winter Soldier" Anderson comes with two guns: a pistol and a rifle with an underslung grenade launcher. They're both molded from an exceedingly soft, rubbery plastic, which makes it a little tough to get them into his hands; luckily, his hands are also very soft, so you can flex the fingers open no trouble. It's a lot more annoying that the holster on his belt has a gun sculpted into it, so you can't actually store the pistol inside. His articulation is the standard ML stuff. Although the character is supposed to be 5'9" (really?), the toy is more than 6½" tall; what is he, lying on a dating profile? The toy also comes with a piece of the Crimson Dynamo Build-A-Figure: the head. Even if you're not old and decrepit enough to have been buying Marvel Legends in 2010, there have been a couple MCU Winter Soldier figures released as well, and his costume there is definitely close enough to stand in for a comic version. If not for the BAF head, I'd have been fine letting this Winter Soldier warm the pegs. -- 06/15/20

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