Review – Marvel Universe Secret Wars Ultron and Mr. Fantastic

“As Galactus assembles the vast machine that will eventually consume Battleworld and all that exist on its surface, Mr. Fantastic and the other heroes lay their plans. The leader of the Fantastic Four knows more about Galactus than any man alive, and his advice on the coming battle is priceless. Back in Doombase, Ultron stands guard over his master’s interests while the other villains go about their assigned tasks.”
— from the back of the card

I’m sure many of you feel that it has been far too long since we last looked at a Marvel Universe action figure*. Sorry about that; I’ll try to work through my collection and get more of these guys up. Let’s start with this Secret Wars 2-pack that includes a great figure and a terrible piece of junk.

We Meet Again . . . Again, Daredevil

First up is Mr. Fantastic, an action figure that is far from fantastic. The awful Daredevil (review here) body is back, last seen here at battlegrip.com when we looked at the Marvel Universe Vision action figure (review here). Seriously, Hasbro, it’s time to throw this body away. You’ve gotten enough use out of it and I’m ready to see this guy retired. Hell, I’d happily buy a another Daredevil if Hasbro gave us a better body.

Mr. Fantastic’s only new sculpt is the head, which is a decent enough likeness for the character, but it’s hard for me to get excited about this guy since the body blows and I’m not a huge fan of the Fantastic Four. Trying to be objective about the head sculpt I can say it will do, but Hasbro should have worked harder at this head since they were sticking it on such a terrible body.

I’m sure Fantastic Four fans will buy this pack just to get the next quarter of the set, but unless you’re desperate I recommend waiting for a little while. With luck Hasbro will produce a Fantastic Four box set and give us a better body for the character. At this point I think the best thing we can do, as a community, is stop buying any figures that use this Daredevil body. Maybe together we can convince Hasbro to throw this sculpt in the dumpster. Sorry to whoever sculpted it, but the more I play with this sculpt the more I hate it.

Ultron

Damn, I’m a bit torn on what to recommend here. I want to suggest that you skip this Secret Wars set and spend your money on a few Iron Man 2 action figures, but Ultron is so amazing that I almost think any Marvel fan should grab this set just for the Ultron. The sculpt is tight with only a few flaws . . . the biggest of which has to be the fact that Ultron’s head joint design has him always looking down. It sucks — especially since this seems to be a common problem with the line — but it’s not so bad that it makes me dislike the figure. Just a little tilt back at the ab crunch joint and the figure looks just fine on the shelf.

The paint on my Ultron is as good as the sculpt; take a look at the pics and notice the black detailing and the red on the eyes and mouth. This is the classic Ultron, and with so few villains in the Marvel Universe series it’s great to see Hasbro give us a robotic villain. I love robots. I love villains. And I love Ultron’s evil head design . . . which is captured perfectly here.

Closing Thoughts

Mr. Fantastic is a skip, and almost makes this entire set a skip, but if you like the look of Ultron in these pics enough to ignore the less than fantastic Fantastic then this is a decent buy. $13 or so is a lot to pay for one good and fun 3.75-inch scale action figure, so if you’re short on cash then flee and hope that Hasbro releases Ultron as a single figure in the future.

It’s sad that my return to the Marvel Universe series has to be so negative, but I figured I should get this set out of the way so I can get back to some of the fun figures (like the entire Iron Man 2 series). Don’t judge the line on this one release, but whatever you do don’t buy this unless you absolutely love the look of Ultron.

Philip Reed is gonna have to crack open his Iron Man 2 War Machine now in order to get the “taste” of Mr. Fantastic off of his mind. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Hasbro for such a great job on the Iron Man 2 series.