Toy Review: Secret Wars 2-Pack - Thor & Enchantress

Marvel Universe: Thor & Enchantress

Since I bought the Marvel Select Thor, I kind of felt he needed a few buddies. After all, I’ve only got the King Thor and Beta Ray Bill. Until we get that Legends 6″ Valkyrie later this year, there’s not much else Thor related. I figured 3.75″ is better than nothing, so I picked up the Secret Wars #11 2-pack with Thor and Enchantress.

I didn’t really have much hope of finding this set. The boards I frequent have been buzzing since wave 3 pics were released. Everyone wanted a Thor. Thor Thor Thor. I knew that as soon as units were shelved, they’d be scooped up. When they hit Toy Kingdom in Megamall, my hypothesis proved out. They were short packed (2 pieces while the other sets had at least 6 each) and gone within an hour of being taken out of the case.

About a week later I stumbled back to Megamall and lucked out. The satellite branch of Toy Kingdom in the department store had just gotten a shipment of Marvel Universe with 2 pieces each of the Thor and Hawkeye sets. This serendipitous occurence convinced me that I had to buy them, decision to quite Marvel Universe be damned.

The bubble pack is the same as most stuff that’s been coming out of Team Hasbro these days; a boring looking card with boring looking product photography with a huge boring Marvel logo in red. Sigh. I can’t believe that these are the same guys who came up with the Sigma 6 packaging. Say what you will about Mattel, but their DC Universe Classics and Masters of the Universe Classsics come in some pretty neat looking boxes. Marvel Universe comes in some pretty blah looking boxes.

But me, I’m a toy collector, not a mint-in-box guy.

First blush… these aren’t very good toys. If we were back in the days before the 25th Anniversary Joes, they would have been amazing. Now there are some glaring mistakes that drop their rating with me.

For one thing, they’ve both got the dullest looking faces I’ve seen on a toy. You’d think they could have gone with a stern, determined look for Thor, sort of a clenched jaw. With Enchantress, given her talents, you’d think they’d given her a more seductive look. Bit of lip. Less tight mouthed librarian. The headsculpts really skew my perception of the two figures, bringing down their scores in my head. They make them look like cheap toys. Believe me, at Php 900 a pop, these 2-packs aren’t cheap.

Paint might have made them better, but what there is of it isn’t all that great. Thor’s pretty much cast in color except for a few details. Enchantress suffers the most, with the aformentioned tight lipped face, mis-matched skin tones and a paint chip or two with some sloppy edges.

Plus her knee ws paint locked.

Thor gets more points, but the doughy face and simplistic sculpt really bring him down. Since this is a classic costume, there aren’t really any details to it, but all the same, he looks… boring.

I do like his boots though. His boots show how even simple costumes like this can be made interesting. They look like wraps, with wrinkled material wound around his shins, and shadows between each length. Nice.

His hammer, too, seems to be given much more attention to detail than the rest of him. It suffers the same shortness that the Marvel Select Thor had, but it’s got a trump card. If you look closely on one of the faces,you can make out an inscription; “Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor”

Of course this is 1:18 scale, so you won’t actually be able to read it, but you can tell it’s written there. That’s enough to bring most of us to a nerdgasm.

His cape is also removable, but in this case I would have preferred that they had glued it. It comes off way to easily, since it’s only held in place by two short rubber posts. And Why would you want to display him without his cape anyway? Would you display Superman without his cape? Or god forbid, Batman? That’s sacrilege.

Both of the figures have decent articulation (at least once I fixed Enchantress’ paint locked legs). Thor’s kneepads and Enchantress’ squiggly lines hide the double knee joints well. However, Enchantress is missing an arm pivot. It’s really annoying that she can’t twist to gesture in different poses.

They also have those annoying ball-socket joints that all the Universe figures are using now. They feel like they’re going to fall apart and they aren’t as useful as the old ball post joints. As much as I hate the new Hasbro articulation, I have to admit that at this size, it doesn’t make much of a difference.

All in all, this is one of Hasbro’s worst showings in their Marvel Universe line. If you’re a Thor fan, wait for the single packed figure. If you want an Enchantress… well, just ask one of the guys to custom one.