Toy Review: Secret Strike Loki

06/1/11

Secret Strike Loki is one of those figures that surprises you.

It doesn’t look like much on the shelf. Being a 3.75″ figure means that there are limits to the amount that a sculptor can fit onto the canvas of the figure. The filigree and wrinkles of his costume aren’t going to be as sharp as something from Sideshow or Hot toys, or even Marvel Select. There isn’t going to be much in the way of tonal graduation or washes in his paint applications, either. His accessories are going to be few and won’t be as impressive.

Despite that, Secret Strike Loki turns out to be one of the better figures in the new Thor Movie line.

At first, I passed on Loki when I first saw him at the launch of the Thor Movie toy line. He just didn’t seem like a toy that I really needed. But after seeing a few reviews of the figure and seeing Tom Hiddleston’s excellent performance in the movie, I found myself wanting one.

You can imagine how happy I was that my girlfriend got one for me *insert beaming smile here*

Like the rest of Hasbro’s Marvel 3.75” figures, the toy comes packaged in a carded bubble pack, with boring product shots on the back and the same generic Thor portrait in front. The design is obviously phoned in and does nothing to enhance the figure’s attractiveness on the pegs (which is sad since this line needs any attention it can get).

It’s easy to remove from the card. If you’re the kind of guy who keeps packages, then you might want to cut between the plastic and cardboard with a knife. The figure is housed in a plastic tray that fits into the bubble. There aren’t any twist ties (thank you, Hasbro), but I’ve found one or two of those clear rubber bands holding a few of the figures in position; you can just quickly slice right through those.

This version of Loki isn’t much to look at if he’s just standing there. Without Odin’s Gungir and his horned helmet, he’s basically that weird guy who wears leather pants and a skirt. Once you get to posing him, though, that’s when the fun begins.

All of his joints are of the useful sort and every one of them has great range. He’s got double-hinged elbows and knees, a swivel-hinge neck, a nice torso crunch that doubles as a twist to replace the missing waist. The best thing about his joints is the hips, which feature the double swivel-hinge joints that Marvel Legends used to such great effect. There’s a difference, however; the ball portions are smaller, giving the thighs better clearance.

The smaller ball portions in his hip joints might have been unsightly (if you remember the 6” Movie Ghostrider line, you’ll remember what they looked like) but the figure’s rubbery skirt effectively hides the worst of it. The skirt also acts as a kind of cheat when posing the figure. Since the foot print is small, it can be difficult to balance him properly. However, with the skirt acting as a third leg, you can get him into wide stances even without a stand.

The sculpt is, as expected, not stellar. At 3.75”, it’s hard to get the likeness of a real life actor right. Most try too hard and we get awful looking stuff like Rise of Cobra’s Cover Girl or the unbelievably bad Tron line. This effort, though, looks sufficiently close to the source material. Or at least close enough to not look like a mutant. I would have loved it if he had more of a smirk, though.

His suit is basically what he wore through the first portion of the film, until he got his crown. He doesn’t have a whole lot going on in the detail department here. The olive green tends to blot out any other color in his costume. On film, it looks great, but at this scale, you can’t really see the texture of the costume or all the stitching that we saw on the big screen. A wash might have made it more acceptable.

We also have to talk about his accessories.

First, let’s get his ridiculous BLADES COMBINE TO FORM GIANT SWORD! weapon out of the way.

You know what… never mind. Just look at the pictures. They’re self explanatory.

The Thor movie line figures usually have one accessory with the action feature for the kids, and one for the adult collectors in the proper scale. Loki’s 1/18th scale weapons are a pair of tiny throwing daggers.

The proportions of these two knives may look silly, with their giant pommels and tiny blades, but they fit perfectly into his hands and don’t fall out easily. This makes it very easy to get him into a variety of positions. I’ve got a feeling they’re reserving other accessories for the upcoming “King Loki” in the next wave of figures, which is fine with me, since I’m getting that anyway for the horned helmet.

So all in all, this is an excellent figure to have in your collection. Though he doesn’t look like much at first glance, he’s a lot of fun to play around with and pose, especially if you got the Battle Hammer Thor to pit him against. If you have the Warriors Three and Sif, along with several dozen Frost Giants, you can even re-enact that Jotunheim action set piece from the film.

What Loki lacks in presence, he makes up for in playability. The toy is just undeniably fun to fiddle with. Like the Battle Hammer Thor, he is of sturdier stuff than the Marvel Universe Loki with better articulation all around. His accessories, while few, are perfectly made for him and fit the character nicely.

Definitely a thumbs up.