Toy Review: Secret Wars Storm & Nightcrawler

Secret Wars Storm & Nightcrawler

I recently decided to streamline my Marvel Universe collection. There are 3 sets I want to continue collecting when it comes to these 4″ figures and they are Iron Man, The Hulk, and the X-Men.

X-Men issues comprise the majority of my comic book collection, from the late 80’s to about the mid 90’s. I stopped collecting when the prices of the books started eating into my lunch money, around the time I hit high school. Still, I never lost my love for that team of misfit mutants.

So when I saw this 2-pack with the teams most capable leader (in my opinion anyway), Storm, and the “furry elf” Nightcrawler, I couldn’t pass it up. I was lucky to find it. With the reduction in Playkit’s orders of Marvel items, it’s been a hard year for collectors. Toy Kingdom in Podium only had 2 pieces of this and none of the other branches got more than a handful. Both this set and the Doctor Doom and Absorbing Man sets disappeared quickly.

Like the rest of the Marvel Universe line, Storm and Nightcrawler are both about 4″ high. The good thing about this size is that they are easy to store and easy to display because of their small size. They are also closer to the proper scale when posed with the various X-Men Build-A-Figure toys we’ve gotten from the Marvel Legends line over the years; the Sentinel, The Brood Queen, Onslaught. Maybe not Apocalypse, Blob, or Mojo, but the first three, yeah, definitely some display options there:

Just like all of the Secret Wars 2-packs, this set has a clear winner and loser. Storm is the better of the two in this case.

In my opinion (which is heavily influenced by my growing up in the 80’s), the mohawk Storm was the best Storm ever. Claremont really began to give her a personality other than the fish out of water foreigner. She played the really cool aunt to Wolverine’s cigar-smokin’, trash talkin’ grumpy uncle.

The figure captures artist Paul Smith’s punk redesign of Storm perfectly, from the outrageous mohawk, to the incredibly badass leather jacket. Even without her weather powers, you don’t mess with Ororo Munroe.

Articulation is ok; somewhat limited by a few lacking joints. Since the Marvel Universe female mold is used, this figure has all the problems of all the previous female characters we’ve seen. She lacks both upper arm and thigh swivels, which hampers posing. While the ball-socket hip joint works better here than on the male figures, it’s still a step back from the ball joint that Marvel Legends popularized. She also lacks any wrist articulation, which is another sticking point.

Aside from that, you’re going to have to keep a stand handy to help her stand. Due to her absurdly small foot print, she’s almost impossible to pose without one.

Paint is ok as well. There were two examples I saw and the other was pretty bad. There were several white splotches on the black portions and her eyes weren’t properly aligned with the face’s sculpt.

The sculpt however works well with the figure. With the new head,the belt and jacket really sell this figure as a real 80’s Storm. Sadly she doesn’t have any other accessories. Even if she didn’t have powers when she wore this costume, a lighting bolt or two (Electro had ones that could have been re-purposed easily), or a knife would have been welcome.

She fits in well with the leather GI Joe girls. They’re pretty much in scale with each other, so if you want a black female to join your Joe team, here’s your chance.

Despite her low points, Storm is an excellent figure and well worth the trouble I took finding this set.

Nightcrawler, however is a different story.

He’s pretty tall for a Kurt Wagner figure. I don’t imagine him being bigger than Colossus, but he’s about the same height. Maybe the Showdown Colossus is too small, but I feel the proportions of this Nightcrawler figure are all wrong. Too far past lanky.

He’s got more articulation than Storm does, but again, he’s missing neccessary joints, including that required thigh cut. The biggest dissapointment is his ankle joint however. Since he’s got the weird three toed foot,the joint that connects his foot to the leg is in the middle of the foot rather than the end. The way it’s designed means that he can only really swivel his foot around. If you want him to move it forward so he can squat, you’re out of luck.

He’s NIGHTCRAWLER. He’s supposed to squat in the shadows.

In addtion, he shares that same ugly hole in his torso that is visible when you bend him too far forward. It’s an eye sore, and since his torso joint isn’t all that useful due to the lack of other joints, makes it unfogivable.

There are two other things that peeve me. The first is the glued-on shoulder pieces. They do not reach the bottom of his chest. Both sides terminate right before the joint between the chest and stomach. They aren’t even cut right, being horizontal while the seam of the two pieces is slanted. As it is, he has this obvious black strip between the two red plains.

The second is his tail. It’s so blah. It does not look like a natural curve at all, like it was being whipped or curled, or as if it had any muscle in it at all. It just hangs there looking useless.

Poor, poor work, Hasbro.

Despite my like for the Storm figure, the sorely lacking Nightcrawler really kills this set for me. Retailing at Php 900 (about $20), I think that it’s unacceptable that a possibly great set is ruined like this.

If you have an X-Men collection, you’ll need to pick this up, but otherwise, don’t bother.

Related Links

Secret Wars Doctor Doom/Absorbing Man
Hammer Files Colossus
Hammer Files Kitty Pryde
X-Men Origins: Wolverine with Jacket
X-Men Origins: Iceman and Cyclops