[RAC]

A trio (or quintet, if you count Ant-Man and Wasp) of retooled figures to more closely match the art in Avengers #1, I think this is a pretty good value for the $20 it ran me.

Thor uses the first-version MU articulation and is mostly reused from the Secret Wars version, the exception being a new head that really does a good job of capturing a more Kirby-styled look. As with a lot of the figures prior to the thigh swivels, his legs feel really stiff, so perhaps it's a good thing that his cape is a solid enough plastic to essentially serve as a third leg. One thing I didn't notice until after I finished my initial text review- he has a very pinkish fleshtone paint wash that doesn't quite do whatever it is it's supposed to do. It doesn't provide highlights or shading so much as make his skin look inexplicably splotchy.

Iron Man is the character I have more Marvel figures of than any other, at any scale. Big fan. I'm really pleased and impressed that they remolded the head to reflect the domelike helmet Kirby drew on this armor from the second appearance onwards, and thrilled they gave this suit back its antenna, omitted from the Granov-influenced Iron Man 2 release. (I'm also glad they didn't even try to implement the metal skirt Kirby installed- I'd like the accuracy, but not the restriction.) Articulation is largely the best of the lot here, and though it takes some convincing you can swivel the head. His gold paint wash skews a bit orange, but it's not too bad. There's some molded-in dents and scuff marks that look more incongruous here than they did on the rusted-up gray version.

Hulk is a remold of MU Juggernaut, which I don't yet have, so the body was a pleasant surprise. He has a head that's definitely Kirby-inspired, but actually has a little too much detail to match the King's artwork as well as Thor and Iron Man's new heads do. (For one, Kirby nearly always drew teeth as a solid bar.) But he's a decent Kirby-Hulk overall, wearing purple trunks to match the cover of Avengers #1. The articulation is decent overall though the tiny plastic ball-joints inside the huge legs concerns me a bit. Also, the shape of the arms means the bicep swivel does intersect the torso sometimes- movie-line-style pre-elbow swivels would be a lot more practical. But he's better articulated than Thor by a good bit. The only paint issue I have here is that his neck hasn't been painted like the rest of the figure, so it sticks out a bit in some poses.

Ant-Man and Wasp are unsurprisingly fixed-pose minifigures, with Ant-Man being inexplicably a lot more "mini" than Wasp. (Is she a reuse from someplace else, maybe?) The paint's decent for their size but doesn't hold up to super-close photographic scrutiny. Ant-Man also comes with a flying ant for him to ride, which makes a lot more sense than the two wingless ants he is somehow riding through the air on the cover of Avengers #1...

Overall, a great set. I'd recommend it to anybody who loves Kirby especially.

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