Welcome to our review of Thor from Avengers Infinity War. This new version of Thor, and his new hammer Stormbreaker, were released as part of the Marvel Legends 2nd wave of Avengers figures in 2018. He arrived alongside Black Widow from the movie, as well as Ant-Man and Wasp from their standalone film. The wave was finished with comic book figures of Malekith and the Black Knight. The Build-a-Figure is Cull Obsidian, part of Thanos' Black Order from Infinity War.
Packaging 3/5
The packaging retains the usual shape for Legends with the scooped sides. The colour scheme is a little confused with a yellow backdrop to the figure and the Infinity War logo, but then with purple tones on the character name and on the two side illustrations. The side art is very good with an imposing view of Chris Hemsworth as Thor all drawn in purple shades with a touch of yellow in the backdrop.
The rear of the box shows an image of the figure, and this is obviously an early promotional image as it is not a great match to the actual figure in hand. The armour on this image looks silver and the head sculpt does not look overly impressive. There is also an odd choice of showing Thor with Stormbreaker in his left hand - when he actually wields it in his right hand.
The text on the rear is quite brief and reads "When the state of the universe is thrown into chaos, Thor sets out to protect Earth and beyond". This is obviously generic and worded not to give away any spoilers.
Sculpt & Paint 3/5
The Marvel Legends team had struggled to give us a particularly good Chris Hemsworth likeness until the Ragnarok figures, which were pretty good - and yet they haven't tweaked that sculpt here and have created a new one for Infinity War.. The figure still uses face print technology, but like Captain America from Infinity War, it doesn't give us a good likeness.
From the front the likeness is OK with good shading obvious around the nose and eyes. The eyes are actually painted to look different - reflecting Thor's new "eye". There is also scarring around the eye which would be natural from the injury Hela gave him - although it wasn't too pronounced on screen. From the side the jaw juts out a bit too much and the beard looks abit false - not helped by the fact it is not painted the same as the hair which has a lot of depth and darker areas.
For those who like to tweak figures I can confirm that the head for this release is interchangeable with the Infinity War Eye-Patch Thor and the Ragnarok figures - which means you can play around with what head looks best for your display.
The costume is spot on and a good match for the onscreen appearance. The trunk of the body is cast n black plastic with the chest piece having gun metal added to the circular discs. There is similar colouring on the front of the boots. The two arms are chainmail and painted silver, and work down to two wrapped bracers on the wrists. The cape is a darker red than we've seen previously on Thor figures. It is cast in a harder plastic and hangs well off the back of the figure - although by doing so it impedes articulation as we will see shortly.
The figure shares parts with the 3-pack Thor released at a similar time. The legs are a direct re-use while the torso is shared, but retooled to affix the cape. While I initially though the arms were from the recent Dark World Thor, they are different.
Articulation 4/5
Thor has 18 points of articulation. The main bulk of the torso includes a ball jointed and pivot head and then another ball joint in the chest section. Arms are ball jointed shoulders followed by a bicep swivel. The swivel then allows the elbows to be double jointed, and we end with pivot wrist joints.
Legs follow the same pattern with ball joint hips, thigh swivel, ball joint knees and ankle rockers. The cloak does sadly make much of he leg articulation difficult to use and pose. Once you go beyond a wide stance the cloak simply starts to impeded the posing.
Accessories 5/5
After losing Mjolnir, Thor arrives in this release with his brand new hammer - Stormbreaker. This is the first inclusion of Stormbreaker in any Marvel Legends release. It is a brand new sculpt and a very good one at that with a crisp and angular axe head and a shaft that looks like timber with wraps around the axe head.
The plastic is not overly soft and there is no issues with warping. The paint on the head is good with a gun metal finish. The wooden shaft might have benefitted from a dark wash to bring out more detail.
The axe fits in either hand,and with the arm articulation double handed posing is also possible.
Thor also comes with a lightning FX piece that is designed to wrap around Stormbreaker. We saw a similar piece in the Ragnarok Thor 2-pack and this is cast in a similar translucent flexible plastic. It is cleverly designed to wrap around Stormbreaker and hold in place without the need for any plugs or hooks. While these pieces are not everyone's cup of tea, it is good to have the option included and an option that can come off without impacting the weapon underneath.
Summary
This Thor is a brilliant figure from the neck downward with a brilliant accessory and an FX piece that works really well if you like displaying your figures with them. What lets it down is the head sculpt which doesn't quite look right thanks to the very light beard and the dark eyes. Had there simply been a re-use of the Ragnarok Thor head here with some adjustment for the eye colour and scarring then we would be talking about a top scoring addition to our Marvel Legends collection.
As it stands, I score this Thor a 4 out of 5. The head does let it down, but the rest of the figure is impressive and who doesn't love a giant axe/hammer with lightning effects.
