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Super Shield Captain America

January 21, 2013 | By Errex More

Well, I must confess that I pretty much ignored the first wave of figures from The Avengers line by Hasbro in 2012. The reason was that most of those figures were fundamentally non-movie, concept or comic based versions of the main characters, and while I don’t normally shun such figures, I’d rather wait for the actual movie designs to come out.

Also, a few of those figures were actually repacks of the Deluxe action figures offered in previous Marvel tie-in lines, only without the big accessories. That is the case of the subject of today’s review, Super Shield Captain America.

Super Shield Captain America is intended to be from the Ultimates continuity, as attested by the slightly more down-to earth attire. The overall level of detail is excellent, with good body proportions and the upper torso scale texture, along with the seams and straps added to the rest of the costume.

The more detailed elements are the utility vest and belt, which are not intended to be removable. These pieces are made from flexible rubber and glued shut which is a shame because the handle of the knife at Cap’s back is bent outwards by the vest and it would have been nice if one had the option to tuck it under.

This version of Captain America looks so good that I began to wonder why I hadn’t picked it up earlier, but then I took it out of the package and it all came back to me. While I had softened my stance regarding the proper amount of articulation 3.75-inch scale figures should have, there are a few things that still irk me beyond reason. Super Shield Captain America has the following:

• Ball jointed neck.

• Pegged hinge shoulders.

• Hinged elbows.

• Swivel wrists.

• Ball jointed hips.

• Upper thigh swivels.

• Hinged knees.

So, no articulation at waist or at the ankles. Check. Those I can live without. The simple hinge designs for knees and elbows do look kind of ugly, but the joints are functional and the upper thigh rotation offers a good leg movement range, overall.

However, the lack of a similar joint at the biceps means that this version of Cap will never hold a rifle with two hands or put his shield in front of him properly, also diminishing the usefulness of having swivel wrists.

And the included Super Shield accessory only makes matters worse, because not only it is a stupid concept, the built in C-clip is way too narrow to work with Captain America’s limbs at even their narrowest point, and the whole contraption is too heavy to carry around on his back.

The action feature of this “super shield” is that it has a button on one edge that causes a couple of attachments to flare out while it is pressed. Now, these attachments are touted to be “boosters”, but it is rather obvious from their shapes that these are meant to be some sort of made-up automatic weapons.

The paintjob is actually pretty good, although there is not a lot of it. All of the leather apparel received a fairly heavy shading wash that brings out the textures nicely and on the rest of the figure the colors are neatly applied and work well together.

In the end, this figure gets a passing grade mostly because the only flaw it has is the lack of biceps swivels, feel free to add 10 points to the score if that doesn’t bother you as much as it bothers me.