Remember how everybody was worried that the first Hasbro line was too simple, that Hasbro was going to turn this into a cash cow and not take the care that ToyBiz did, well remember how I said things would improve? Well okay, you probably didn’t read my blog, but I did write about how I thought things would get better here.

I explained that it takes times to build up a bank of parts for more articulated figures. Toybiz shared a lot of pieces amongst different figures, it’s pretty unvoidable since molds are so expensive. Well as you can see here with Yellow Jacket, the shoulder articulation has returned, along with the feet (not pictured), and the Iron-Spider-Man is complete with finger articulation. I’m not sure how many points this brings the total count up to, and I never could figure out how they counted so many points on earlier figures (this part turns and lifts, that’s two!), but there don’t appear to be missing anything anymore.

Of course, there’s still room to improve on the paintwork, and those comics are still missing, but we’re almost there!

Black Bolt (sorry, “Blackagar Boltagon”) is definitely a gap in the Legends lineup. While he’s primarily from the Fantastic Four pages, I doubt he’ll ever be in one of their movies, so I think they might as well make him a Legend. On a sidenote, did I ever mention how weak that F4 Legends line was? Also, Black Bolt was also pretty predominant in the recent Planet Hulk storyline, well its beginning and end at least.

So Black Bolt, how should they do a figure? Well the Bullseye figure and its smiling variant didn’t make any great splash, but a yelling Black Bolt variant would make a lot of sense. If there’s enough money for some extra sculpting, they could have his costume ripping to shreds as he’s yelling at full volume.

Imagine how stoked I was to see this article, then imagine how UN-stoked I was to read the following…

“Maybe you shouldn’t put your Annihilus figure together, just to be sure. It might be like looking into the mirror and saying ‘Candyman’ five times.”

Guess what, every blurb is that stupid! A few of them list the heights of the figures, but there isn’t a scrap of insightful info on any of the toys. Toyfare has been trying to read like Maxim for years, filling their captions with jokes, but now they’re not even writing anything. The pic above is really all the content they had.

To review all the BAFs real quick…

Galactus was pretty good, but straightforward.

The Sentinel was excellent! Perhaps overwashed, but simply amazing.

Apocalypse was okay, but too simple of a paintjob, hence the later black examples.

Onslought was okay, but too short and boxed with uninteresting figures.

Giant Man was excellent. He’s a simple design executed perfectly.

Mojo was very well-done.

M.O.D.O.K. was stupid. How could they have done something bad well? It was doomed from the getgo.

Annihilus was okay, but Hasbro was still tooling up.

Blob is great! I just saw a few pieces, we’ll have him soon!

I remember when The Giant Man Wal Mart series was first released and suddenly there were “prototype” figures floating around. There was some story that they were accidentally released by ToyBiz, all of them would be extremely rare! What more could a collector ask for?

I don’t know, maybe that it was true!

Toyfare, in the article above, just clarified that only three Sentries exist. Bright yellow bearded and non-bearded figures, then orange non-bearded figures. The caption below the picture above reads that the photographed toy is actually a prototype. (One of these elusive prototypes perhaps?) The truth is, toys change mid-run now and then, like the early Hulk with articulated fingures that was replaced by the later one with bendable fingures since the early one’s figures kept breaking.

In this case, I think the change was for the worse, since that bright yellow is pretty scalding. If you believe the article and that the bearded/orange costumed figure is really an unreleased prototype, you can buy a few of them from us here. I certainly won’t raise their price because of another bogus “prototype” story.