Grapple Blast Black Widow

September 17, 2012 | By More


 

One of the characters I had been expecting for quite some time for Hasbro to make an action figure of was the one played by Scarlet Johansson in both the Iron Man 2 and The Avengers movies. I’m talking about Natalia Romanova, a.k.a Black Widow.

 

Of course, that is not what Hasbro calls the 14th figure in their 4 inch  Avengers  action figure line. Following the convention of attaching the name of an accessory to that of the character, the figure I’m reviewing today is none other than Grapple Blast Black Widow.

 

So, first things first, the head sculpt on this figure does resemble somewhat Ms. Johansson. It is not an exact likeness, but the underlying bone structure seems correct and even the hairpiece was tweaked from what can be seen on the back of the card to a more movie-accurate hairdo. The end result is actually quite gorgeous.

 

The body is also an entirely new sculpt, Her uniform is rather simple, consisting on a skintight jumpsuit with a few panels and zippers sculpted on, and with only a few extra rubber pieces like the wristbands and belt piece added for extra detail.

 

While the body proportions look correct, the really great thing about this Black Widow is her articulation, which consists of:

 

• Ball jointed neck.

• Pegged hinge shoulders.

• Pegged hinge elbows.

• Swivel wrists.

• Ball jointed hips.

• Upper thigh swivels.

• Double hinged knees.

• Hinged peg ankles.

 

And that is the most articulation we are going to get from the Avengers line. All of these joints work flawlessly and even though the ankles are forward/backward hinge, the peg that connects to the foot does provide something of a rocker ankle effect for some poses.

 

The paintjob on the Black Widow is almost non-existent, since the figure is almost entirely molded in black plastic. The uniform display a few dark gray accents, silver for the front zipper and the shield crests on her shoulders and a teeny tiny dab of red for her trademark Black Widow belt buckle.

 

The skin areas are all painted in a fairly vibrant flesh tone, with the eye and lips deco applied very neatly.

 

While the figure is great, the included action accessory is quite the opposite. The Grapple Blast thingy looks really dumb and doesn’t even work that well. I am not entirely sure what is the logic behind carrying an anchor on one’s back, but even as a “portable” ramming device it just doesn’t make sense.

 

The other accessories given to the Black Widow are a couple of black rubber pistols. These weapons have a sighting attachment sculpted on top that gets in the way when holstering them, but the material of the non-removable belt is pliable enough to allow the guns to stay in place. Fortunately there is a lot of accessories available for figures in this scale, so the Widow can have weapon load outs tailored for specific assignments.

 

Back when I reviewed Hawkeye I said that he was not the figure that would make you go back and buy into the Avengers line if you hadn’t done so already, and I still stand by that affirmation. However, if there were ever such a figure, the honor would clearly go to this Black Widow.

 

 

Errex Score: 95/100

 

 

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Category: Featured, Marvel, Other Film, Toy Reviews

About the Author ()

I've been collecting action figures since the original Kenner Star Wars days. Nowadays, I still collect pretty much anything that catches my eye.

Comments (2)

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  1. Engineernerd says:

    I got to wonder if she was put together by the GI Joe design team. She really has that look.

    Great review as always, Errex!

  2. Kelly Jean says:

    great reading!