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Doc Samson

May 26, 2014 | By Errex More

Well, in my Gray Hulk review I mentioned that at some point in his story, Bruce Banner had a split personality disorder. Well, guess who diagnosed him with that? Why, none other than the subject of today’s review, Dr. Leonard Samson.

Doc Samson is one character that was introduced into the Hulk’s life way back when writer Keith David was at the helm of The Incredible Hulk book. Samson got his powers by exposing himself to gamma radiation while he was working with Banner/Hulk, and ended up getting bright green hair as well as superhuman strength and resilience, although not quite to Hulk levels.

Doc Samson has been a recurring character ever since and Hasbro included him as part of the first wave of action figures for Marvel Universe Series 3.

For Samson, Hasbro used the tall, muscular male body mold, adding only the boot cuffs and belt as a way to personalize the costume. Doc Samson’s head and hair were unique molds at the time, but both were reused later on for the Ages of Thunder version of Thor.

Articulation for this character is good, consisting of:

• Ball jointed neck.

• Pegged hinge shoulders.

• Upper biceps swivel.

• Hinged elbows.

• Swivel wrists.

• Barbell mounted torso.

• Ball jointed hips.

• Double hinged knees.

• Pegged hinge ankles.

Even though the hairpiece limits somewhat the range of movement at the neck, the rest of the joints works pretty well, considering these early generation body molds still had some kinks to be worked out.

Doc Samson

Even though most of the pieces that form Doc Samson were molded in the final color of plastic, there is still quite a bit of paint applied to him, as several costume elements cross over areas made of a different colored plastic, like the sleeves, the upper calves or the exposed chest/neck area.

In addition to that, there is subtle shading applied on the red shirt and a neatly painted lightning bolt on his chest.

Doc Samson comes with no accessories he could use, which is good and fine considering he has a genuine, AFB-compliant Punchy Hand at the end of his left arm, He does come with a plastic display base which has the distinction of having the name of the character spelled incorrectly, but I don’t see Hasbro doing a running change on this account.

In the end, I found Doc Samson to be a decent, somewhat generic action figure. It feels a bit like a lazy kitbash of parts, but the overall result is unique enough to warrant a spot on my shelf.