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Captain America (Heroic Age)

March 5, 2012 | By Errex More

After the “death” of the original Captain America in the comics, there were more than a few candidates to occupy his place, but ultimately the mask and shield ended up in the care of another comic book character that has had some experience returning from death, James Buchanan Barnes, a.k.a. Bucky, a.k.a. Winter Soldier.

How Bucky ended up as Captain America is a rather convoluted tale, but what matters is that Hasbro decided to include this version of the uniform in the comic-style segment of the Captain America: The First Avenger movie toy line, despite having already produced one for Marvel Universe less than a year before.

Unlike the MU version, which used a generic body template, this Heroic Age Captain America uses a complete new sculpt. The body proportions are simply better than those of the Marvel Universe release and the construction is way sturdier too.

The costume doesn’t have a lot in terms of sculpted textures, being a rather tight fitting garment with only the cuffs on gloves and boots having some wrinkles on them, but the muscle groups under the fabric are clearly visible and from I can see in the mirror (yeah, right) appear to be correct.

The head sculpt seems similar to the heads used for the other Comic Series Captains, but I don’t think it’s the same face sculpt. This Captain America wears a utility belt with a holster, a sheath and a bundle of pouches at the back. This belt piece doesn’t go all the way around the figure’s waist. It actually is a half-belt piece glued to the lower back of the figure, leaving enough slack to allow the hip joints to have full range of motion.

And speaking of joints, Heroic Age Captain America has:

• Ball jointed neck.

• Pegged hinge shoulders.

• Pegged hinge elbows.

• Swivel wrists.

• Floating torso.

• Pegged hinge hips.

• Upper thigh swivels.

• Double hinged knees.

• Pegged hinge ankles.

All the joints on my figure are tight and work well, allowing this Cap to achieve a variety of stable, dynamic poses.

As a whole, the paint applications on my figure are good. The use of metallic colors for the blue and red sections of the costume looks definitely great, but it’s not without issues; There are some minuscule spots at the back where the paint flaked off, and the separation between the flesh color and the metallic blue cowl isn’t perfect, but I’d say I managed to find one of the better-painted copies out there.

Heroic Age Captain America comes armed with a pistol and a knife, both molded in silver plastic and with some black paint decorations for grip and handle. The two accessories fit well in the figure’s hands and on the belt. The other accessory included doesn’t really do it for me, though.

Since we are talking Captain America here, there has to be also a shield included, Right? Problem is, since Hasbro decided this figures need some added value to be attractive for kids, they went for the dreaded inclusion of action features.

The feature built into this shield is that at the press of the star at it’s center, four blades deploy from the shield’s edge, turning it into some sort of ninja star.

I will admit that the feature works well, and that I actually spent some minutes fooling around with it, but as an action figure accessory, it just doesn’t add much value because the thing is way too bulky and heavy to be displayed on the figure as intended.

Still, leaving the shield gimmick aside, I can say that this is among the best figures in the Captain America: First Avenger line.