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Thursday, September 10, 2009

Marvel Select sinks its teeth into Sabretooth!

And what teeth they are! I’ve been a bit underwhelmed by some of Marvel Select’s recent efforts, particularly because they’ve been on the small side for the price. Select’s latest release, Sabretooth, is much more like it – this fella’s massive!

The figure is packaged in a dynamic pose, and this made me worried that it may not stand properly on its own. I needn’t have been concerned – he stands easily both in a crouching position and also in the overarm pose he’s packaged in – makes for an imposing stance over a shorty like Wolverine!

This is a well sculpted and painted figure. Still some issues with the awkward ball-jointed hips that MS uses, but it’s less irritating at the larger scale. His base is pretty useless, and in fact doesn’t come with much of what’s pictured on the back of the box. Why bother then?

It’s nice to see Select hitting the mark again in terms of figure quality – however I’d be more confident in continuing to add them to my collection if there seemed to be some kind of plan in terms of character selection / team completion, especially since the quality of the bases seems to be going downhill (although I am looking forward to having the front gate to Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters when the Marvel Girl figures come out). There’s a great deal that could be done with this line to bring either groups of characters or more obscure characters into plastic, and it would be nice to see the Marvel Select line proceed with a bit more of a sense of direction.

You can see more pics at Facebook, discuss this at the AFB Forum, and comment on this post to enter the September Comment of the Month Contest!

Until next time!

9 comments:

fishmilkshake said...

I just don't "get" these figures? Is there a point to releasing 1 figure every few months? Sorry to rain on anyone's parade but I'm yet to see a figure that is several levels above Marvel Legends. In fact the Series 5 ML 'Sabretooth' figure is superb.

Xander said...

About time they made a good size Sabertooth. He's got the right hunch too and enough articulation to be playable but not torpedo the sculpt in the process. Good stuff, Andy!

Westy said...

I'm with FMS on this. I got the Select IM, purely because it's boss, but I look a a lot of them and think "but that scale doesn't work with my MLs". Plus I'm not going to risk converting my MLs collection to MSs, so it just encourages me down the MU path. It does look like a sweet figure and I've been thinking about slapping a few bucks down... maybe if the x-men display wasn't already crowded.

Tom Freak said...

I like him, his feet look kinda awkward though... Perhaps because of the hips?

Is good to see a line that's right on scale, He's just as big a s he should be considering the size of lil' Wolvie.

I like the sculpt in face and hands too.

Not to disagree with FMS, 'cause I think the ML Sabertooth is a great figure, but there's the problem that not everybody likes ML. Select is a little bit more friendly to that collector that just wants to display their figures standing and with little or no pose.

bmac10 said...

It's weird, I used to buy a Marvel Select figure here and there, and for some reason I never really considered them action figures because of the elaborate bases. Since I don't open my figures, I'm not sure how the articulation was back in the early days, but does anyone know if it has improved, or has it always been about the same?

Lobo said...

bmac10: The articulation has somewhat improved. If we're talking about the really older M.S. figures like Ultimate Spider-man e.t.c. Although their use of articulation for new figures is a bit inconsistent.

Wes said...

I really like the look of this Sabretooth -- and given his size, I'm guessing he'll work well as either an "animated" Sabretooth among my MLs (dude was hyoooj on the 90s cartoon!) or an X-Men vs Street Fighter Sabretooth among my NECA SFIV figures. Thanks for the quick review -- I'm glad to hear that there aren't any glaring problems with the guy!

DCcomicsfan said...

looks better than the marvellegends one

Unknown said...

I have this figure and the ML one, and this one blows the ML one out of the water. It's not as articulated as the ML ST, but go look at the ML version and tell me his hip ball joints don't look ridiculously small. This one is far better proportioned and menacing.

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