Toy Review: Marvel’s Destroyer

Marvel’s Destroyer

Now that the X-Men mania has died down and Jon Favreau’s Iron Man are done, we’ve got other Marvel franchises to keep us up to our ears in comic book geekiness. First up is Kenneth Branagh’s Thor, starring Chris Hemsworth coming up in May.

To whet our appetites, Playkit, Hasbro, and Toy Kingdom decided to launch the Thor movie toy line a bit early. These babies have been out in the States for a few weeks, but I’m glad to see them on shelves here. Unfortunately, there’s quite a lot more miss than hit for me, and looking at how many Thors were clogging the pegs at Megamall last Saturday, I’m not the only one.

There isn’t anything wrong with the design of the movie, which from what I can tell from the trailers is really great. It’s more of an issue of porting those ideas into plastic form. The new figures just look kind of… dull.

There are several subsets in the new line, from roleplay toys (probably the best bet if you have a kid) to a 3.75″ line of figures which seems to be plagued with issues (more on that in a later review). Until the 6″ figures arrive, the only one I was gunning for was the 8″ Rotocast figures.

There were 3 figures from this line at the event last weekend; two Thors whose only real difference was one lit up and the other didn’t, and Destroyer.

Destroyer was the one I was really looking forward to. At 8″, he’s a nice height to pit against my 6″ Marvel Legends Asgardian.

He comes in a pretty nice package that displays him well, but since it’s an open box, he’ll take a lot of abuse on shelves. It’s probably a good thing these kinds of toys don’t stay too long there. Remember the 8″ Rotocast War Machine that dissappeared from shelves in the span of one morning? I’ve got a feeling that these will be the first to run out, especially since Playkit doesn’t stock many of them.

It’s easy enough to remove the figure from the card. You just need a pair of sharp scissors to cut through the paper twine that’s holding him in place. Two snips and he’s out.

Standing on your desk he’s a beauty to behold, all shiny paint and brutal musculature. In the comics, Destroyer is an enchanted suit of armor forged by Odin to defend Asgard. It requires the life force of the wearer to remain mobile, but has the strength to best Thor and the power to destroy everything in it’s path (even at one point, the Fourth Host of Celestials).

Now we’ve gotten a Destroyer figure before in the Marvel Legends line, a variant to the Thorbuster Ironman, but it just doesn’t stack up. Next to the King Thor from the Hasbro Marvel Legends, or the Marvel Select Thor, that old armor just doesn’t impress.

This new one does much better in that regard:

The sculpt is very nice, mirroring the movie design quite closely. It helps that Hasbro wasn’t hampered by the need to include any useful articulation. The proportions are appropriate and the thing is covered with small spikes that poke out of it. They’re dulled down (toy safety laws and all that), but they still look wicked. He LOOKS like he could take out a god.

The paint is okay. The silvery parts have a good, nice patina to them and are appropriately shiny while not being mirror like. It’s a far cry from the gun metal gray of the first Destroyer figure. It’s not like there’s a lot they could really screw up since he is basically just one color. I do have a gripe about the darker shade that was used in the middle of the figure, I guess to add depth. It works in some lighting, but for most it’s just weird.

Sadly, he’s only got the “fab five” in terms of articulation; head, shoulders, hips. The neck is a ball joint, thankfully, but you’re limited to crappy swivels (or the equivalent thereof) for his other joints. This means that if he was competing in the stand-there-and-look-menacing event of the Olympics, he’d win, but if he had to do anything else he’d be laughed out of the stadium.

I realize this in my head, but my heart knows how much better this toy would have been with simple elbow, knee and wrist articulation.

And maybe a better pose for his left hand. That limp wrist and those relaxed fingers look so boring.

At Php 700.00 (about $15.50 US), this thing isn’t a particularly great value, but I’ve got to give it points for it’s size and for it’s sucess as a desktop decoration.

If you’re looking for anything else, forget it.