Pros : There has been an attempt to make the shield a metallic finish
Cons : Body shape is all wrong with odd sized legs that akes standing tough. Sloppy paint in areas and a very generic head sculpt
When Avengers Assemble hit cinema's in 2012, the 6" figures released at the time by Hasbro were done so outside of the established Legends line and on movie specific card backs. The line up included Thor, Hawkeye, Hulk, Iron-Man, Loki and Captain America. In the US these were exclusive to Walmart, and for UK collectors these were pretty tough to get hold of.
By the time we hit Age of Ultron in 2015 Hasbro took the opportunity to re-release a number of these figures within a Best of the MCU wave that hit stores in 2016. The figures were now packed with parts of the Hulkbuster Build-a-Figure, but in the main were identical to their first appearance.
The packaging, just uses the generic Avengers logo and therefore avoids the confusion of an Avengers Assemble Cap packed with an Age of Ultron Hulkbuster arm. The rear of the packaging shows a blown up image of the figure and shield above a checklist of the other figures in this best of MCU lie - Iron-Man (Mk43), Hulk, War Machine (Mk2), Black Widow, Hawkeye, Loki and Thor. Thor did not come with a BAF piece.
This best of MCU line was only officially released in the UK and Europe and the BAF was a darker red, making it more sought after to many collectors - including those in the US.
Out of the box and what appears to be a boring white insert is now revealed to include a subtle grey Avengers logo. For boxed collectors this may have been more visual if the contrast in colours had been greater so it was visible behind the figure.
This was essentially the first Chris Evans Captain America sculpted by Hasbro, and the likeness to Evans was not great - and hasn't got much better in subsequent sculpts. If anything this is a more generic "hero" head and is a flat skin tone with no shading or lip colouration.
The helmet looks well proportioned and the eyes are painted neatly beneath it. The central "A" is aligned and painted silver, and to either side are silver winged decals.
The costume Cap was given in Avengers, the one designed party by Coulson, was not particularly good to start with and the figure is a representation of what is a pretty average movie outfit. It captures the essential elements like the textured sections along the chest and the straps around the shoulders and arms. The mid-section is red & white striped - but it is a bit too slim and makes the figure look skinny with a huge chest planted on top.
Cap's legs are a bit bow-legged also and the boots are too thin again round the ankles. The length of the legs looks too long for the truck of the body and while Cap comes in at 6 1/2 inches high, it looks like the legs have been stretched to make hi this tall.
The paint job is relatively simple with one tone colouration across the red, white and blue. We don;t have any weathering at all. Areas like the gloves and boots look unfinished as you can see more detail than the paint covers such as straps and buckles. We also have paint bleed issues around the central silver star, the focal point of the costume, which looks sloppy.
While the body shape may be a bit off, his articulation is impressive with 18 points overall. Head and torso are ball jointed and give both rotational as well as forward & backward motion. Our Cap's arms start with a ball jointed shoulder with full movement, a bicep swivel, double jointed arms and a wrist joint where the glove meets the sleeve that allows the wrist piece to rotate. Legs have rounded ball jointed hips, another factor that throws out the body shape, with a thigh swivel underneath. The knees are a double joint and we finish with an ankle rocker.
While the leg joints are tight and it looks like Cap should stand easily, there is something wrong with the feet and the ratchet in the ankle so that it is tough to get the feet flat to the floor without being too far one way or other to over balance the figure. The right leg even looks longer than the left which makes the issue worse - I'd drop Cap onto a stand for posing in your display.
In order to face off against the Chitauri, Cap comes with his shield. This is cast in a softer red slightly metallic plastic. The silver and blue are then painted in, with more sloppy bleed around the centre star. Round the back we have a glued strapping section which is much more complex than any Cap's shield I had seen to date.
The reason is that the straps are designed to be flexible and worn like a backpack so Cap can wear his shield on his back - which to be honest is a good look. The straps take some teasing into place to make them look natural around the shoulders.
So while we applaud the ability to wear the shield on he back, the downside does kick in when you want Cap to hold his shield. The straps can be adjusted to act as arms/wrist straps - but that of course then leaves a large amount of slack hanging loose from the shield. While it is possible to roll that up and tuck it out of the way, it is an unwieldy tasks and does impede the posing of the shield.
We should appreciate this is a 6-year old figure now, and was essentially one of the fore-runners to the MCU Legends we have now. But we should also remember that Hasbro still deemed it fit to repack into Legends packaging just 3 years ago and sell at the same price as the other figures of the time.
While the movie costume was not the best, the figure fails in recreating this faithfully - not so much in terms of the costume but more the body shape which is too slim in some areas, to wide in others and with legs that seem too long and are actually differing lengths. When we add in the generic head sculpt, paint issues and unpainted areas like the gloves this is a figure that scores quite low and perhaps is due a do-over at some point if the retrospective releases we are seeing for the 10 year anniversary can continue.
I score Avengers Captain America a 2 out of 5.
