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2014 was a somewhat crowded year for Marvel films, with not only two MCU entries, but also two from outside studios, making four additions in total.  Kicking things off in April of that year was one of the MCU’s best regarded films, the spy-thriller Captain America: The Winter Soldier.  As was often the case, the Minimates provided for the best overall selection of characters from the movie.  I’m kicking things off today with a look at the film’s two title characters: Captain America and The Winter Soldier!

The Packaging

Much like the packaging for The First Avenger, this assortment takes the standard Marvel-style packaging and gives it the very on-brand appearance for all of the film’s tie-in merch.  It’s not a super exciting design, and the non-Minimate Cap illustration is weird, but it’s not quite as bad as the TFA stuff was.  Additionally, there are bios on the boxes again, which means they don’t look quite as devoid of info.  For pictures, head on over to the Database entry.

The Figures

Classic Captain America

“In need of a uniform, Captain America borrows his World War II outfit from his display at the The Smithsonian, and wears it into battle one more time.”

As the bio touches on, this figure depicts Cap in his “classic” costume from the movie, which is the one he wears during the last act of the film. It’s essentially his uniform from The First Avenger, but it tweaks the stripes on the abdomen, brightens the brown areas, and ditches the holster and side-arm from that film.

Cap features sculpted helmet and belt add-ons to help facilitate the look. Both of these pieces were new to this figure, sharply sculpted and look spot on to the movie.  They do a slightly better job of streamlining things when compared to the pieces from the Wave 40 Cap, and just  generally make for a slightly better looking figure.

The paint work on this figure is a bit mixed. To Diamond’s credit, the detail line work is nothing short of amazing. All the lines are nice and sharp, and the level of detailing is just great! They’ve even succeeded in giving us a pretty great Chris Evans likeness. Unfortunately, the base paint work is not so great. The ends of his gloves are very uneven, the colors routinely go out of detail lines, and you can see that the A on the helmet is pretty far off center. Also, my Cap’s helmet has a smear of silver across the nose, which is incredibly distracting.

Cap includes a spare hair piece, his mighty shield, a hand to attach the shield to, and a clear display stand.

While I’m not quite as happy with the paint on Cap as I’d have liked, the overall figure is pretty solid. I’m hopeful that the issues with the paint are more or less limited to my figure.  As it stands, he’s an alright update, but maybe not the default.

MMC Score — 7 out of 10

Winter Soldier

“Captain America’s friends are being targeted by a highly trained assassin known as the Winter Soldier. Masked and with a cybernetic arm, his identity is a mystery.”

Kudos to DST for not spoiling that surprise identity there.  Six years down the line, it seems funny to think that anyone didn’t know it was Bucky, but it was a thing at the time.  This figure depicts Bucky in the main Winter Soldier look in the film, the same one shown on all the other WS merchandise. There were some other slightly tweaked designs for the character throughout the film, but this was definitely the one everyone remembered.

Winter Soldier features five sculpted add-ons: Mask/Hair, shoulder gear, belt, and a holster for both legs. These pieces all look to be new to this figure, and they all seem to do an admirable job replicating Bucky’s look in the movie. The mask perhaps sits a bit too low, but it’s not so low that it ruins the figure.

Winter Soldier seems to have come out a bit better than Cap in the paint department. Like Cap, all of the detail lines are really sharp, and the work on the legs in particular is quite impressive. The Sebastian Stan likeness is a little better this time than it was on Diamond’s version of Bucky from the first film. On a side note: Am I the only one that didn’t really notice the eye shadow in the movie? I saw it in one or two scenes, but it was mostly absent. Yet, every single figure has it caked on there. Fortunately, it’s handled pretty well here, nowhere near the monstrosity that was the Hasbro version.

The best part of this figure is his accessory selection. He’s armed to the teeth, with a sniper rifle, two sub machine guns, a hand gun, and two knives, plus an alternate hairpiece without the mask and a clear display stand thrown in for good measure! One additional thing I might have liked to have seen is a hair piece without the goggles, to replicate his look from his first fight with Cap, but I wouldn’t want to be too greedy.

Bucky’s appearance from The Winter Soldier is probably his best, so it’s good that this particular ‘mate is also one of the best in his assortment.  Thankfully, he doesn’t have the same issues as the Cap, so he holds up better overall.

MMC Score — 8 out of 10

Agree? Disagree? Why not vote for yourself below, or comment further over at the Minimate Multiverse MMC Review Forum.

Review and pictures by Glantern.

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