Guardian
Well, once I stated that a collecting focus of mine consisted in getting superhero figures whose costume was patterned after flag designs, the more obvious one being Captain America, of course.
However, there are just not that many figures to collect following that guideline, and more often than not, poor distribution makes it particularly difficult to procure action figures that are not in this year’s assortments.
Then again, weirder things do happen, so imagine my surprise when a few weeks ago I walked into a gift shop to discover a Marvel Universe Series 1 Guardian staring me in the face, at regular retail price.
Guardian’s costume is a deceptively simple one, consisting basically in a skin-tight attire with a cowl and a color scheme patterned after the Canadian flag. The only original piece of sculpting is the head, which is well detailed, although a little bit on the generic side of things.
The figure uses the generation 1 athletic male body, which I think holds up rather well in this day and age, despite the more recent improvements to the leg articulation. Speaking of which, Guardian has the following articulation model:
• Pegged hinge shoulders.
• Upper biceps swivel.
• Hinged elbows.
• Swivel wrists.
• Floating torso.
• Ball jointed hips.
• Double hinge knees.
• Pegged hinge ankles.
The articulation works flawlessly, all things considered. The newer figures usually get a couple of redundant swivels at the upper legs and calves, but Guardian doesn’t really suffer much for the lack of them.
Being a relatively simple figure, what really makes Guardian a stand out is his paintjob. The entire figure is made from white plastic and given a light gray shading wash to bring out the muscles, with a small amount of airbrushing in the same color applied to the legs in order to add depth to the less detailed areas.
The shading is a bit untidy in spots, but it makes for a rather nice contrast with the neatly applied red paint.
The red pattern was applied using a really nice metallic red color, and the overall finish is much more consistent than what we saw in the Iron Man 2 line.
Since Guardian is a Series 1 figure, no accessories were included in the package, other than the tan paper envelope containing his Fury File. Inside the envelope comes Guardian’s dossier and a memo from Agent Hill to Tony Stark, regarding the difficulty to ascertain the origin of some piece of tech detected in Guardian’s armored suit.
In the end, I am quite satisfied with this figure in my collection. I am still not sure about what criteria does Hasbro use to decide which characters to reissue in their revised cases, but I am certainly glad this time it worked to my benefit.
Errex score: 95/100
Category: Featured, Marvel, Toy Reviews
I keep hoping they will do an Alpha Flight box set, or at least a three pack.
That would be sweet. With Puck slated for this year, I think is is actually very likely we’ll get to see something along those lines.
Just curious, who are you hoping for in the box set/3 pack?
I’d like to see the set with Puck, Guardian and Vindicator. But, would love to see Sasquatch and Box. I actually think you could kit bash box from the Titanium Man from the Iron Man 2 line.