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Shhhhhhh!
Exposed to Terrigen mists before birth,
Black Bolt obtained a dangerously loud voice that causes massive damage with even a whisper. Reigning in silence, the King of the Inhumans can level cities with a single word due to his sonic powers.
Wait, "before"? How did that work? I would like further information on how Mama Boltagon exposed little baby Blackagar to Terrigen while he was still an embryo. What freaky things were you getting up to, Rynda? Because he had his powers from birth, he had to be raised in isolation in a sound-proof sphere until he could learn to never utter a single sound, even while he was sleeping. It's like a Skinner Box on steroids! Though technically, his powers are linked to the speech center of his brain, which should mean that random noises don't set them off, but using sign language does. Spoiler alert: the comics do not treat them that way.
Usually with my One:12 Collective purchases, I stick with characters no one else is making (or at least characters no one else is making well), but there have been three Marvel Legends Black Bolts,
and two of them have been pretty good, so it's not like Black Bolt was a character we needed. That said, Mezco's doesn't just have paint on a superhero body, so he's got a kind of detail Hasbro would never spring for.
One:12's "thing" is softgoods outfits, but Black Bolt doesn't look like he's wearing pajamas. The basic bodysuit is made from a thin material, which then has slightly thicker panels of on top of it. They're shaped like something Jack Kirby would have drawn, and give BB a look that says "alien" more than it does "superhero." The boots and gloves are regular plastic, as are the kneepads and the exposed neck, so they can have even sharper detail molded in. The pale blue pattern is metallic and reflective, really making it stand out against the black.
The figure insludes two heads: one calm, and one yelling. For a guy whose entire gimmick is "I must never speak," it sure seems like every story goes out of its way to make him speak, doesn't it? I mean, that's not the guy's only power. He can lift five tons, he can fly, he's got some low-level psychic powers... but all he does is show up to talk. Not even talk, shout.
Black Bolt has been diluted to the point that his screams, which should be able to crack a planet, are only enough to briefly inconvenience people now. Anyway, the portraits on both heads are excellent, with a subtle, understated sculpt. They both look like the same guy, which is important when the expressions are so different, and the "I'm going to take a bite of this big sandwich" head has energy swirling up off the tuning fork on his head - in the interest of fairness, we must say that Hasbro's idea to do the same thing as Kirby dots was a niftier execution.
Beneath the soft clothes, Black Bolt has a fully articulated body. It's hard to tell exactly what kind of joints everything is, but suffice to say he moves like a real human would be able to move - the
arms bend forward, not backward, the knees don't go sideways, etc. He moves at the ankles, knees, thighs, hips, waist, chest, wrists, elbows, shoulders, and neck. The accordion wings under his arms are softgoods as well, which is good for the movement, but I always get annoyed when those fail to fold up properly. Like when your grandparents hated paper roap maps.
Black Bolt is light on accessories.
You want hands? Because this is how you get hands. Fists, flats, relaxed, and clutching. There's also a big cone of energy to represent his powers. It doesn't clip onto the neck like the similar thing Minimates have had, but instead has a hole in the bottom so a display stand can hold it up. All One:12 figures come with a base and a clear plastic posing arm, but Black Bolt has two: one with a C-clamp for him, and one with a peg for the energy effect. Perhaps a "Kirby dot"-style wall of bubbles to stand behind him like one of those Tamashii Effect Parts displays would have been cool, but Mezco decided to spend the money on something more important.
This is not just Black Bolt by himself - it's a two-pack with Lockjaw.
Lockjaw, faithful and fuzzy companion
to Black Bolt, gained the ability to teleport across time and space after being exposed to Terrigen mist. With super-canine strength and telekinetic abilities, Lockjaw is an indispensable part of the Inhuman world.
We've previously discussed how stupid John Byrne's "Lockjaw is a mutated human, not a dog" idea was, but it's not completely out of nowhere: like, why would anyone ever bother exposing a dog to the Terrigen mists? And why only him? Where are all the other magical Inhuman pets?
The only Lockjaw toys there have been before are the Minimate and a 4" Marvel Universe figure in an SDCC set.
Until now, your only option was to customize a McFarlane Little Nicky Mr. Beefy, which would first require any living human being to remember the movie Little Nicky existed, and secondly require them to remember McToys made a line based on it. Unlikely. But now Mezco has made a Lockjaw, and he's just as much an action figure as Black Bolt is!
The sculpt is great. He looks like a chubby bulldog, just as he should (and in your hands is about the size of a real bulldog puppy). His skin wrinkles realistically, and every last inch of him's covered with hair fur. He has large, soulful eyes, and drooping ears, and his mouth is sculpted in a big frown. Because he can teleport, everybody forgets that that isn't Lockjaw's only power: living up to his name, when Lockjaw bit onto the Ben Grimm's arm, Thing wasn't strong enough to pry the dog's mouth open again.
Lockjaw doesn't have an articulated jaw, sadly, but he's not as immobile as action figure dogs usually are. His head is mounted on two balljoints, letting him look all around. And up. His waist is balljointed as well, as are the shoulders. The rear legs just seem to be swivels, though that may be due to the shape of the bodyparts. It's possible they could have included more articulation, but he can stand, he can sit, he can walk... it's more than expected.
Like Darkseid, Lockjaw has a light-up feature. The switch to control it is accessed by removing the head, same as the battery compartment. With the power on, his eyes glow blue and the antenna on his forehead, a piece of Kree technology that increases his teleportation radius, glows white. There are no batteries in there when you get the toy - they are included, though, in their own little plastic tray in with the other accessories.
I did not care about Black Bolt at all - I've already got some perfectly fine ones, and didn't need another - so this set was clearly all about getting a 6" scale Lockjaw to go with the Marvel Legends. And while we still stand by the idea that Mezco could make extra money selling their One:12 accessories a la carte (or that Lockjaw should have just been available by himself), Blackagar turned out to be way more appealing than expected.
-- 12/07/20
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