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Oooh, this is the first review of the new packaging. The window has been expanded so you can see both characters along with the accessories in the middle. Similar to the old Street Fighter promo poster the box is done in a dark blue color with the rays of blue light. The character names and control art bust shots are below the windows. The sides have individual control art of each character. On the back are the mini-bios of each character along with group picture of all figures in this wave. The peg hook part has been redesigned and work better taking off or putting on the pegs. The top shows a cool piece of art of Wolverine and Ryu up close in battle. The silver “TRU exclusive” foil mark is also on the front. 

 

 

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Most everyone knows the bio for Hulk by now and this version is as he appears in the new Marvel vs Capcom 3 video game. This figure is quite different from the Hulk that came out in the first Marvel wave in 2003. It’s amazing how minimates have evolved over the years and how we’ve gone from a simple block figure to looking like the character walked right off the page/screen.

 

Hulk has a short cut hairpiece and even though I’m not a fan of this hairstyle, it is game accurate. He has a great expression, lots of anger, furrowed brow, and you can almost hear him yelling “Hulk Smash!!!”

 

For the torso cover, instead of trying to have the shoulders as part of the torso cover, they just have the main torso. Then there are two sculpted shoulder pieces that give a more natural appearance to the arms; well natural for being massive Hulk arms. One warning with these extra pads; don’t take them off. With my figure the pads stayed pretty much in place for arm movement until I took them off, then they started to slide down all the time.  Hulk also has large hand pieces that have improved from the oven-mitt looking ones on previous bulked up attempts (Gamma Hulk I’m looking at you). Overall the upgrades to the arms with the separate round sculpted pieces vastly improve the bulked up look.

 

There have also been big changes to the lower part too, although you may not notice. We’ve seen the thigh pads and large feet, this time well sculpted to show his torn pants and bare feet, but the waist piece is not your typical one. The waist piece is actually just the torso peg with the two ball joints for the legs. There is a waist cover that sits on the peg to give the illusion of Hulk’s waist but the gap underneath allows for the larger legs/thighs to have a greater range of motion. He also has a torso riser to add to his height.

 

You’ll also notice the color of this figure is a darker green & purple than one seen in wave 41’s Hulk. But this is not a bad thing as it is more akin to the Player 1 color in the game.

 

Hulk doesn’t come with any accessories but with all these new sets they are starting to put in a clear flat base with foot peg to help with displaying/posing your figures. This is a great addition, kudos to AA/DST for including them. Add that to parts that work great as a base to create other bulked up characters and you have a customizers must have figure.

Haircut aside, Hulk looks Smashing! 

MMC Score – 9 out of 10

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Mike Haggar

Mike Haggar is a politician (mayor of Metro City) and former professional wrestler; interesting combination, I wonder if that would work in the real world? He was a playable character in Capcom’s Final Fight video game series and was brought back to battle in MvC3.

 

I’m honestly not sure if the hairpiece is a reuse or not but it works well on Haggar. He has very good details for his face, good job on the mustache and grimace. His expression looks exactly like it did in the Final Fight games.

The torso cover is similar to Hulk’s just with flesh color and has a sculpted brown buckle strap suspender; because if you’re going to kick some butt you got to make sure your pants stay up! Now the torso cover on its own looks good but the lack of extension for the shoulders makes the arms look a bit puny. Either just the shoulder pads like Hulk had or using a different cover where the shoulders extended would have been better. Pairing him with Hulk makes this stand out a bit more, had he been paired with someone else I would not have noticed it as much. Anyways underneath is a flesh colored blank torso with regular flesh colored arms and hands. He has green khakis colored legs with black feet.

Haggar comes with two accessories a pipe and dust cloud base. The pipe is so simple yet well executed, what’s not to love. The dust cloud base helps to recreate his dash move from the game. The base is a repaint of the ones we’ve seen with Nightcrawler and Azazel. These accessories are great to use for lots of different characters. For customizing Haggar has a lot of useful parts: flesh colored torso/arms, regular pants, and a great looking angry face.

Overall Haggar is a fun character to add to your collection. The torso is not as well executed as Hulk’s but you can’t expect a brawlin’ politician to be perfect can you?

MMC Score – 7 out of 10

Review and pictures by Lurch77

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