So when I recently went to Buffalo, NY, I didn't just bring back indigestion from Erie County Fair food - I dropped by a fellow collectors house to pick up something that wouldn't normally be on my radar, but my FOMO activated - presenting the 2023 Target Exclusive Marvel Legends Black Widow. What's funny is that when I went through the effort to preorder this, I never thought that somehow I'd actually make it to the US before they sold out, but there they were, staring at me at the Amherst, NY Target right behind the Trader Joes.
So here she is in all her glory. Like all current Marvel Legends, this figure comes in a windowless box, though it's a white box unlike most of the other ones I've seen. Per the box, this figure fits into the Avengers: Beyond Earth's Mightiest series, and celebrates 60 years of Avengers.
Unlike the glory days of past, where you'd get a tray with all your accessories, you instead get random lumps packed in wax paper bags. It's actually quite impressive how random the parts are packed together in the bags. I guess I shouldn't be surprise, as Transformers are effectively packed this way, but it looks like I'm trying to smuggle drugs into the country.
She comes with a good number of parts, and is priced as a Deluxe figure ($28 USD). There's three heads, two sets of Widow's Bites with effects, two pistols, two sets of pistol effects, and six total hands. Unsurprisingly, most of these parts, if not all of them, are recycled. I don't even collect these figures and I recognize a good number of the parts.
Unwrapped from her Cocane Condom. Pretty standard looking in the sense that there are very few Marvel Legends figures that don't look like malnourished teenaged boys. The general body sculpt isn't terrible for Black Widow, as she's athletic and wears skin tight clothing, and I can live with the boyish hips, but that chest is just disrespectful. Arms featuring bicep swivel end up giving Natasha a bulky shoulder appearance which fits with the the overall expectation of the character.
Head sculpts were nicely done. Expressions, detailing on the hair, all quite exceptional given the price point of this figure. Looking back at the figures I've handed in recent memory, it feels like that Hasbro took existing heads used through the years, and remastered them, which might be why they feel both familiar and new to me.
Jumping ahead, lets take a quick look at Paint and Build Quality.
As one would expect, the amount of actual paint work is minimal. It looks like they stepped up the faces by using the digital paint tech that their live action figures seem to utilize, possibly using various comic art as reference. Worked out quite nicely.
Of course, it wouldn't be Hasbro if something stupid didn't happen.
The only other paint app I can think of is the silver used along her collar, which appears to be competently applied. With regards to the rest of the body, it's the base plastic colours and all that, but I don't think it has a top coat like Figuarts and the like to keep costs down.
Build Quality wise, it's pretty typical Marvel Legends. Stiff and tougher plastics are used where necessary, and fortunately it appears the age of crappy soft elbows and knees are over due to material choices and joint thickness. Having said that, you can immediately tell which parts are softer, even without touching, just by how crisp detailing is on them. In this instance, it's everything except for the main body, guns, and the heads. For the hands, it makes sense as the gun holding hands should have a bit of give so they don't break when you're slipping the guns into the hand. But due to tolerance issues the pistol effects can be hard to get into the guns, and the various bracelets can be a bit floppy.
The actual body itself appears to be well built, with no joint or limb size issues. Stability of the figure is not a concern. There are artifacts of the manufacturing process, which again is not aesthetically pleasing, but doesn't affect the playability of the figure and is par for the course.
Articulation was saved for last because, honestly, I was quite impressed with the body for once. Not sure if this is a new iteration, or if things had changed in the past year or so - I'm not really a collector. The last few I got had some pretty basic articulation, and even my most recent She Hulk lacks a few things this body has.
So this body features ankle tilt/swivel, double jointed knees, elbows, butterfly shoulders, bicep and thigh twist, base of head, chest twist/swivel, and while there is no waist joint you get ab crunch/back arch. The legs don't go backwards, but the overall range of motion and poses the figure is capable of is quite good, and because there's that lack of paint you're really not concerned with pushing the body to its limits. To get the most out of the articulation, though, you'll want to use the head with the short hair - all the other heads don't let you tilt the head or really rotate it.
So overall, expectations were tempered, product line and all, and I'd say Hasbro did a pretty good job. I feel for the asking price, you get a very solid set of accessories and a body that actually be posed in Black Widow relevant positions. I'd say so much as to actually suggest Widow fans dip their feet into this line for this figure, even if it's not your regular thing. Of course, actually GETTING one might a bit challenging. While I did run into two while browsing that one Target in Amherst, the figure is sold out online at Target, the US carrier. I'm also not aware of any Canadian distribution, so you might end up having to either make a friend who does Target hunts in the US, or get it from Australia.
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