[Boy Blunder]

So, with only a month left in the year, and the odds of me grabbing any further MLs before the end slimming, I'm gonna stop putting off my Top 10 of 2016 and take care of that right now.

10 - Black Panther (MCU)
Being #10 on the list doesn't mean that he's a bad figure by any stretch, because there's very little about T'Challa I don't like. First, he's got that great MCU 'this figure is pretty much 100% new' thing going on, with the careful attention to detail sculpted across his entire body to mimic the film's costume, not to mention those splayed-out, clawed hands. Second, the minimal use of paint is key - I'm a sucker for minimalistic costume designs, and this is as striking as last year's White Tiger, with only a bit of silver to break up the black in the right places. Third, the heads - not only is the Panther head solid and scree-accurate, but the T'Challa head, while maybe not the best sculpt of Chadwick Boseman, captures enough of him to look excellent on the figure, and makes it genuinely hard to decide which head to display him with. The thing that brings this figure back to this spot is the articulation - while pretty good overall, something about the sculpt keeps his arms from being able to come down all the way, resulting in them always being pushed out 'away' from the body. This can be mitigated through posing, but it's noticable enough to knock him down a peg or two. The figure is still great, though, and well worth the price I paid.

9 - Rogue
"Y'all better behave, sugah." I know a lot of people who were first introduced to Rogue via the X-Men cartoon from the 90s, myself included, so her Jim Lee-era costume is possibly her most recognizable look, if not her most popular. We got that Rogue as one of the earlier ML offerings from Toy Biz, but with the changing times, aesthetics, and sensibilities of the hobby, that figure is incredibly dated. So, we have Hasbro to the rescue, dropping a nearly-perfect version of that Rogue into our laps. Deco work is strong across the board, though I've seen a number of Rogues with uncentered eyes or smudging where the green meets the yellow on her tights. The body tooling is fantastic, with her iconic bomber jacket well-sculpted and liberal use of accessory pieces to make the 'loose' parts of her costume (boot tops, belt, and glove cuffs). The head is wonderful, with a mass of 80s-volume hair and the green headband (though I wish there was a little more care taken with the headband - it stands out from her head in a bit of a glaring way). And the lone accessory is also one of my favorite accessories of the year - her ungloved, open hand, to mimic all those times she stole someone's powers/memories or knocked them out with a touch. I love when Hasbro includes accessories that matter - I'll take those over a sack of guns any day.

8 - Captain America (Sam Wilson)
Sam has a glaring issue that keeps him from being higher, and we all know what that is: a lack of wings. After all, it's part of his shtick, regardless of his costumed identity - Sam Wilson is a flier. It's part of what gives him a much more recognizable sillouette compared to other people who've held the title of Captain America - even Bucky still looked like Steve from a distance. However, I'm willing to forgive the lack of wings because the figure makes up for them. How? Tooling. I can't even tell what the base body is for Sam, because from what I've seen, his body is either 100% new, or so retooled as to be considered new. Almost all of his costume details are sculpted, in addition to his deco. And sure, his bulk may be a slight problem for his articulation, but you'll never notice because you're too busy staring at how intricate the figure is. Sam is definitely a standout, and only needs a winged backpack to push to the front of the pack.
EDIT: It has been pointed out that Sam reuses most of the Marvel NOW! Cap from the Mandroid wave. I was unaware of this. Nonetheless, my points still stand, even if the retooling is much less than I thought it was.

7 - Namor
First, let's get the elephant in the room out of the way - the 'trident' (and we all know that's just a repainted Gungnir from Odin) was the wrong choice for an accessory. Way too big and awkward-looking for the King of Atlantis. All right. Now, that said, Namor is an excellent figure that makes good use of the deco-and-tooling that being a store exclusive allows. The metallic fish-scale pattern across his outfit is executed wonderfully, with minimal fuzz or paint bleed across the examples I've seen. His skin tone conveys a certain sheen to it, fitting of someone who's often fresh from the ocean - I can't be 100% certain, but maybe there's some pearlescence in his plastic or as a very light overcoat? His additional tooling details are perfect - the open vest/collar top, the belt, the bracelets, and of course, his ankle-wings, which surprisingly doesn't hamper his articulation much. And, of course, the fantastic head-sculpt, which conveys the right amount of 'heroic arrogance' that was a staple of Namor during this design's use. Throw in the swappable 'swimming' hands and you've got a sure-fire winner, even with that giant hunk of gold plastic spear (which, even then, has a very nice new deco for its trouble).

6 - Miles Morales
Sure, we've gotten a Miles figure from Hasbro before, but that was a while before they perfected the current 'House Style' for Marvel Legends, and he had a number of issues, especially when comparing him to more recent figure releases. The new Miles makes up for nearly every misstep of the old figure. One of the two figures that mark the debut of the 'teen male' body-type, Miles has everything a Spider could need - an alternate unmasked head (with a great sculpt), and three sets of swappable hands (fists, open hands, and web-slinging - the Spider trifecta of necessity). Articulation is the only place where he could use some improvement, but given that he's at a slightly smaller stature, it's very easy to forgive the lack of the butterfly joint that's been a welcome addition since Pizza Spidey. All in all, Miles does the job he was made to do, and does it well.

5 - Nico Minoru
I won't speak on Nico's articulation, because it's the 'teen female' standard that we're all very used to. She makes it this high on the list for different reasons. For one, the headsculpt is perfect - hair is soft enough to not present problems, but also hard enough to keep from falling in the other direction, while her face is Nico - it would look like Nico with the paint stripped off. Second, her deco nails the details of Nico's look - from her particular style of makeup to the lace accents on her sleeves, too delicate for sculpting but somehow done just right with paint. Third, her additional tooling is right on the money - the right lines to give her a corset top, the skirt with lace hem (or petticoat - not sure), and the full knee-high combat boots. And finally, it's friggin' NICO MINORU. Who expected that we'd actually get any figures of the Runaways? Not me, that's for sure, but Hasbro thankfully proved me wrong. The only thing I'm not big on is the accessories, but that's due to personal preference - I would have gladly done without the mystical energy piece and alternate arm in exchange for the original, longer-handled Staff of One.

4 - Mockingbird
Bobbi's weird, because looking at her critically, there's nothing particularly special about her. She has a solid deco, with subtle differences of blue, black, and gray broken up by a very brilliant white. She's got a nice head sculpt, even if the hair if a bit too stiff for my tastes, and the removable glasses/goggles are a nice touch (though the paint's a bit sloppy on many examples). Good individualized body tooling - the buttons and armor pieces set her apart from other female molds in her size range. Resepctable articulation, as is to be expected - could be better, but perfectly funtional for the figure. Minimal accessories, and they've been reused a few times before making it into Bobbi's hands, but they fit the character, and are using a harder plastic, so the end result is good. And when you combine all these 'pretty decent' aspects, the end result is surprisingly good. I don't mean she's an acceptable figure, I mean she's a great figure. Even after having her for months, my love for her has not gone away, and even with other figures being arguable 'better,' none of them have surpassed her in my book.

3 - The Eel
What? The Eel? What's he doing this high on the list? Simple: he demonstrates the power of the redeco. Most ML figures pull from the same library of body molds, but use unique hands, heads, and additional pieces to do the heavy lifting of making a new toy. The Eel has no such luck - he's 100% recycled materials. Not even reuses from different figures - he's a straight redeco of Blizzard, with the addition of ASM2 Electro hands. And yet, with a straight-up eye-slamming deco, he not only stands shoulder-to-shoulder with his predecessor, but he outdoes the original. Blizzard looks almost dull standing next to The Eel, and shows that even a figure of a jobber villain can shine like the sun.

2 - Scourge/Demolition Man
Yeah, who was expecting this to be one of the best figures to be released this year? Aside from the color choices for his weapons (which are a nice homage to the 'classic' Demolition Man costume), the Scourge of the Underworld takes the ASM2 Electro body (which looked like it would be a one-time use mold) and makes just the right tweaks to make it a fantastic figure in deco and tooling, even if you're not familiar with the character. Add in the fact that, even with the colors, he comes with a decent smattering of accessories (two of which he can even store on his person!) and you've got a runaway hit that no one was expecting.

1 - Dreadknight
I'm very biased, because Dreadknight was the most standout design in my childhood memory from the 90s Iron Man cartoon, but leave it to Hasbro to deliver a top-notch figure from the relatively obscure villain. A stunning deco (that metallic blue is delicious) on the new Goblin body (before it had even hit retail) made this figure worth looking at, but then you get to the new head, which is flat-out perfect (even with the soft fins). Add in a good reuse of Baron Zemo's belt and sword, and you're already there to an acceptable spot. But Hasbro went the extra distance and, while Bram's still missing his Hellhorse, he gets his iconic (and taller than the figure itself!) power-lance weapon - and a 'fencing' wrist-joint on his right hand to properly wield his arsenal. For being a 'low-demand' character compared to the others in the SDCC set, Hasbro obviously put a lot of love into him.

BAF: Juggernaut
I know there's been a lot of people who aren't happy with Juggy, for whatever reasons, but I gotta tell you why I am happy, and it's three words: Marvel vs. Capcom. While Juggernaut has varied wildly from artist to artist in how big he is, I've always held him to the MvC standard of 'bigger than the rest of the cast, in every direction.' And this Juggy nails that, without looking too big to be out of scale (*coughMarvelSelectcough*). The contrast of texturing (helmet and arm bands, belt, and boots) and smoothness (the rest of his costume) gives him a 'realistic toyetic' look that brings the original 5" Juggernaut toy to mind, while making him fit the modern aesthetic of the ML line. His articulation takes a hit due to his bulk, but the fact that he can all but balance himself in 'Nothing Stops the Juggernaut' running poses helps mitigate that.

Honorable Mentions:
Scarlet Witch (MCU) - Great details in sculpt and deco, wonderful headsculpt, but the accessories are crap and the articulation could be better.
Taskmaster - Fantastic new parts and the alternate UDON head help balance out some minor flaws in the (well-used) base mold.
Whirlwind - Articulation is a little hampered by his design, but visually the figure is executed to near-perfection.
Punisher - With a nearly-perfect deco and a more-than-decent arsenal, Frank's only shortcomings are his neck joint (the post is way too long and sits the head too high up), the white shotgun (it just looks odd), and the FRIGGIN' LACK OF TRIGGER FINGERS.
Iron Skull - Nothing fantastic or terrible about the figure, but I love how utterly toyetic the 'Iron Skull' concept is. Almost takes me back to the 5" Toy Biz days of gimmick figures.
Wolverine - Love the new body type, the articulation, the costume choice, and everything done with the hands/claws, but there's something lacking about the figure. Not sure what, exactly.
Deadpool - There's the entire accessory budget for the X-Men wave, and the fact that he can store most of the weapons on him is just amazing. But he has a few minor articulation issues that keep him down, and I'm just not that big of a Deadpool fan overall.
Onslaught (with Classic head) - Another flashback to Marvel Vs Capcom (also just one of my favorite X-Villains, design-wise), Onslaught has better-than-average articulation for a BAF, and knocks it out of the park with the simple-but-effective deco. But the armor pieces pull him back a bit, and even though I love the deco, there's an air of 'plain-ness' to him as well.