Review – Marvel Universe Handful of Heroes

So those M.U.S.C.L.E. fans in the audience have probably already heard about these little 1.5″ to 2″ tall Marvel Universe toys. Those of you who aren’t familiar with the M.U.S.C.L.E. should hop on over to Nathan’s M.U.S.C.L.E. Page and then come back. For the three or four M.U.S.C.L.E. fans who aren’t aware of the new Marvel Universe Handful of Heroes toy series . . . well, you guys may just find something here that you need to grab. Now.

Or, if you’re like me, you may find something that’s a cute toy but not one that’s cute enough to collect.

Packaging

Eight tiny plastic toys crammed into your typical blister on card packaging, the Marvel Universe Handful of Heroes come randomly packed eight to a card. The graphics are clean, the layout decent, and overall there’s nothing great or terrible about the packaging design. It’s not so gorgeous that you’re gonna want to display a sealed pack but neither is it so ugly that you’ll shriek in horror. Workhorse packaging design. Just enough to get the figures onto store shelves.

It is nice to see that the photos of the toys on the card back aren’t all that great. I had some trouble shooting the clears and I don’t feel so bad about the quality of my shots when they’re compared to what’s on the card back. After all, I’m using less than $300 in photography equipment to take my shots and I bet the Hasbro art department has way more than $300 in equipment.

Clear toys are just difficult to photograph.

The Itty Bitty Toys

The toys themselves are single-color pieces of plastic, a total of 40 different designs each one of which has been released in three different colors. I’ve no idea which colors are rarer than others, but I promise you that anyone trying to collect all 120 figures may very well go insane; you see, one figure in each pack cannot be seen until the pack is open. So when you decide to collect these guys you should expect to spend time trying to trade, since finding all 120 by buying pack after pack could become very expensive, very fast. At 8 figures for $6 these aren’t a bad deal, but be careful that you don’t go insane. Moderation, boys. Moderation.

In my pack I got . . .

Abomination – Mine is — appropriately enough — green, even if he’s a clear green. The sculpt is a little rough, as are the sculpts for many of the toys in this series, but it’s perfectly acceptable for a little desktop trinket.

Armageddon – Cast in translucent blue/gray, Armageddon has a nice, crisp sculpt that’s pretty much at the high end of what I’ve seen so far for this series. I’m not sure how well these toys would take paint, but a minis gamer could no doubt turn this particular figure into a beautiful piece (if he was an excellent painter).

Black Panther – My least favorite figure out of this bunch, I dislike that they sculpted him in a crouched position. Smokey translucent plastic with silver flakes, the Black Panther has an okay sculpt but he doesn’t excite me at all. I would have rather had a Hulkbuster Iron Man.

Dr. Doom – You know, Doom’s body and cape are pretty good, but his face brings the sculpt down from a “pretty good” to an “ehhhh.” I know it’s tough working on tiny stuff like this, but the rest of the body is so good that the face is a real disappointment.

Hawkeye – The classic Avenger, Hawkeye is one of the weaker sculpts, with most of his detail quite soft and little green army man like in its execution. The face, especially, is buttery and without any decent definition.

Iron Man – There’s a lot of detail packed into this tiny sculpt, with the face the only area that looks like it could have used more work (I’m seeing a trend here). Take a look at the wire/thigh detail in the photo above and then keep in mind that this toy is between 1.5″ and 2″ tall.

Juggernaut – Hey, even his face isn’t all that bad! Juggernaut is in his classic costume and looks almost great, with the only real problem being a little more flash on the seam line than I’ve seen on the other toys in this series. Juggernaut proves that scale isn’t important to this line, since his toy stands just a hair shorter than Iron Man.

Sabretooth – This cheap Wolverine knock-off character is a bit ugly and is definitely my (second) least favorite in the collection. Ug. Ug. Ugly.

The “Game” “Board”

So the packaging promises “Kapow! in Every Pack” and I had no idea what that meant until I unfolded the included poster. One side is a checklist showing photos of all of the toys while the second side, shown below, is a “game” “board” (I put each word in quotes because this is so very lame) without any instructions beyond a drawing of kids flicking the toys at each other.

I guess the game is: Line up your toys. Shoot your toys at the opposing toys. Try not to take an eye out.

Lame.

Closing Thoughts

I was excited about these when I first saw them in stores but, after a little time with them, my excitement wore off. I’m not a fan of the hard plastic — even if that does mean the toys stand very well — and the sculpts and sizes vary so much that the quality of each toy is almost random.

The pack I bought wasn’t a waste, since these are cute enough that they’ll look posed in my collection, but unless you’re a major fan of tiny toys without articulation — gumball machine figure collectors will absolutely love these — I think you can pass on this series.

Until it hits clearance. Once you start seeing these for $3 a pack then have at it and go crazy. At that price they would be a steal. At $6/pack they’re just not good enough.

Philip Reed thought he was gonna need a bunch of these but, now that he has played with them for a week, they aren’t quite as cool as they looked at first. These guys are cute, but not cute enough to try to collect a set.