Some characters cry out for special presentation. Extra effort. Maximum plastic. For Marvel, Galactus is definitely one of those characters. You will never get a true scale Galactus, so we want to go as big as possible and Hasbro has made the largest Marvel Legend yet. He’s the kind of character the Haslab really seems made to achieve, let’s take a look at the Marvel Legends Galactus!
The box is a big old slab of cardboard that came shipped in two outer boxes. I could see wanting to keep this box because not only is there a lovely comic-splash-page like front, but there is a huge cosmic backdrop on the back of the box, suitable for display. I included a shot above with a legends Spidey to help convey the scale of this chunk.
Galactus comes with three additional figures (Nova, Silver Surfer, and Morg) two stands, Surfer’s board, a purple energy effect, Morg’s axe, three sets of hands for Surfer (fist, open, and chop) and Nova (grip, open and fist), three face plates, and an alternate head.
The alternate Dr. Doom head swaps on and off easily and has pretty groovy metallic paint job with some creepy as all heck Galactus style pupils peaking out of his soulless black eyes. I don’t know the story this is from, but I want to read it now. The downside of the Doom head is you are missing the exquisite sculpting and light-up glory of the main head since the head lights are all powered by batteries in the head. The chest does still light up and there are enough pieces and layers in the chest to make it look sufficiently complicated and cool.
The alternate lower face plates can be pulled out and swapped for the others and are cast in a PVC that is softer than the rest of the head so it’s easy to pry it out and place back in. The sculpting on these three is fantastic and the paint has lovely dimensionality to it that makes it feel realistic. I think there is a slight texture to the faces brought out by a wash. The lights on this thing look like burning energy and I love the effect of the blue glow through the translucent eyes.
The stands for Nova and Silver surfer are designed for Galactus to grip the blast effect bases. The Surfer’s base does have swivel hinge to it for additional poseability, while Nova’s flame base has the hint of a peg and a flame part that can wrap around her leg to hold her in. The figures also balance fairly well on the stands when they aren’t in Galactus’ hands.
The three figures are fairly solid, Nova especially so as her articulation is exceptionally tight. I’m not sure if that is purposeful to help her stay posed on the stand, but it was a little scary at first getting those joints moving. The body is one of the newer pinless figures with double elbows and a lovely portrait and is cast in a shiny gold plastic. I’m not usually a fan of this kind of metallic plastic, but I feel it works pretty well for Nova. The translucent orange hair has a nice bit of fire highlight painted and it looks wonderful when back lit.
Surfer is a repaint with a new head. The finish is brighter, but slightly less metallic feeling than the recent Walgreens Silver Surfer.
I get more a modern comics feel from the portrait as well with finer features and hints of ears.
He has one of those ubiquitous Marvel Legends translucent power effects, but the plastic is so soft, I couldn’t really get it to grip his wrist and had to sort of shove it onto his open hand to get it to work.
Morg is all new and features a portrait that’s full of gleeful malice. The upper body had this great, bumpy red texture that is highlighted with a wash looks really interesting. His belt, gauntlets and boots are all a metallic plastic and I wish they had some sort of wash or other finish because they stand out to me as very obviously toy-like. I noticed mine has fairly weak ankles too.
His articulation is typical Marvel legends except he doesn’t have an ab crunch, just a ball and socket waist that gets nice movement. The neck is also a barbell ball joint and the hair prevents much looking up.
Galactus himself is a fairly modern design that has the main shapes of classic Galactus, but with a ton more detail packed in. For example, his shirt has the bold blue outlines you see in a Kirby drawing, but within those lines there are even more seems and rivets and designs.
The articulation is typical Legends style with:
- Swivel/hinge shoulders, wrists, hips, ankles, and fingers
- Swivel biceps, thighs, forearms, and boots
- Double hinged knees and biceps
- Ball and socket head and mid-torso
- Hinged lower ab crunch and knuckles
The articulation moves better than I was expecting, with the elbows getting about a 90 degree bend and the knees a little more than that. They did some cool engineering with the skirt, splitting it into four pieces that can move a bit to allow for more leg movement. The elaborate boots also have a moveable piece around the ankle so that the forward ankle hinge isn’t too impeded.
The hands are super poseable with swivel/hinge at the point where the fingers connect to the hand and hinges on the knuckles. It allows for some great hand movement and I expect to see many photos of Galactus flipping me the bird in the future.
The ratchets on the articulation are extremely tight and you really have to manhandle the figure to get them moving. Posing him makes me appreciate the ease of moving a regular six inch figure around! Galactus feels somewhat top heavy, so posing him is a bit scary, especially since I’m usually working on tables, so if he tumbles, he’s got a long fall to the ground. I usually shoot vanilla pics on a plexiglass sheet and man this figure was slippery on that surface. He stood much better on the wooden table.
Paint is great on this figure. Like I said earlier the faces have nice subtle washes that bring out detail and the metallic purples alternate with some matte purple details so he isn’t just a wall of metallic purple. The body doesn’t have much in the way of washes or drybrushing, but the cleanliness feels right in this case.
This was not a cheap figure, but the massive size, supporting figures, quality finish and brilliant, beautiful glow effect on the eyes make this feel worth the cost. I just need to figure out a worthy display. My favorite feature is the stands with Surfer and Nova, so I’m probably going to utilize those in there.
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Source: The Fwoosh
