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Just before Christmas last year, images of a Civil War Lego set were leaked that showed a certain unannounced (but thoroughly expected) character was likely to be in the film. Then, just before this year's Toy Fair, someone spilled the beans on the lineup for this ML series, with the Build-A-Figure seemingly confirming the rumor.
Now, that would be fine, except a site which shall remain nameless (but that covers "plaything announcements"
in an "intercontinental" manner) was clumsy and amateurish enough to put the unconcealed spoiler in the headline for their coverage of this "news." The headline which was then automatically plastered all over their social media feeds. When it was pointed out that maybe that wasn't the smartest thing to do, their defense was "Lego already did it, and it'll be at Toy Fair anyway." As though that were a valid excuse. Stop and think for a second, you sponge-brained simpleton, that maybe not everyone wants the information that far in advance.
Anyway, my point is that I'm envious of Mrs. yo, because she got to be shocked and amazed when Ant-Man turned into Giant-Man. At least I got to live it vicariously through her.
Giant-Man is assembled from six pieces: head, torso,
arms and legs. There are no variants, no swap figures, no nothing that would make the collecting of him more difficult (other than the series' continued unavailability). Buy the six figures in the series, get the six pieces, and snap them together to build yourself a huge figure. A tremendous figure! None of the pieces gave any trouble plugging into place, which is more than we've been able to say about the last few Build-A-Figures, at least.
Scott's costume changed between Ant-Man and Civil War, with the implication being that Hank Pym has been tinkering with it since last we saw him (along with confirmation that the Marvel movies
take place more or less in real time). The change isn't huge - he still wears red and black, with silver tubing running all over the place - but it's definitely not the same suit he wore before. The easiest way to tell is to look at the Minimates (1 2), because the artistic style makes the changes simpler to spot. He has metal panels on his hips, across the back of his shoulders, and on his forearms, an increased amount of red on his arms and legs, and now there are grey panels on the abdomen, chest and shoulders. And they bothered to paint the back of his body, too.
The helmet has been redesigned, and it was clearly done early enough in the process that this time the toy gets it right without needing
to be customized. The shape is a departure from the helmet we know from the comics, coming to a point in the front like an animal's head, and his antennae are now larger. The lenses in his mask are clear red, so we can see the painted eyes behind them. It's great the way the different sections of the costume are textured to look like different materials, too: the black is smooth like leather, the red looks like spandex or vinyl, the grey seems like plastic, and the silver is metal. The increased size of this figure really let sculptor Josh Iwanski work his magic.
Hey, size! The Build-A-Figure stands 10⅛" tall, which is definitely larger than the other figures, but not nearly large
enough to re-create the way he looked in the film. I mean, consider the big reveal, when he grabs War Machine out of the sky - Rhodey looked like a toy in Scott's hand, didn't he? About the size a Marvel Legend is when you hold it? So to be truly in scale, the Giant-Man toy would have to be 6' tall! This one might be sized for HeroClix. Pretend he's still in the process of growing.
The larger stature of the toy does not
bring us any increase in articulation. Giant-Man has a balljointed head, hinged neck, swivel/hinge shoulders, swivel biceps, double-hinged elbows, swivel/hinge wrists, a hinged torso, swivel waist, balljointed hips, swivel thighs, double-hinged knees, and swivel/hinge rocker ankles. The chest hinge could maybe have a better range of motion, but are there really any joints he doesn't have that you wish he did?
Giant-Man has no accessories. They could have given him some tiny heroes to crowd around him, maybe? But it's not like he uses any specific weapons or anything, so nothing is really missing. It's nice that we get this figure, even if he's not as big as he'd really be. After all, Cap needs more people on his side.
Captain America | Iron Man | Black Panther | Nuke | Dirk Anger | Red Guardian
-- 09/19/16
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