Pros : Well conceived figure, with neat paint job
Cons : Feels "half a release" until you track down the wings. Legs are a little slim. No weapons or accessories.
The Spider-Man Homecoming wave of Marvel Legends gave us three key figures from the movie, the two Spidey costumes and the key villain from the movie, Vulture.
The issue was that Hasbro could not put a full Vulture figure, complete with that enormous flight suit, as a single release. While a deluxe box set might have been an option, Hasbro chose to make the flight suit the Build-a-Figure for the line. That meant that if you wanted a complete Vulture in your collection you had to purchase all 7 figures in the wave, four of which were comic book releases.
The Spider-Man packaging is a little off when you look at it as it has a deep red outer box theme, but the figure is then placed against a blue sky backdrop, and the two don't seem to go well together.
Vulture is packed into the inner sleeve with the BAF part behind him. The BAF part is the backpack for the suit, and a clear stand for displaying the wing set as a separate piece if you wish.
The obvious "miss" to start with is that Vulture only comes with his helmeted head. Considering he spends a good proportion of the film unmasked it might have been nice to get a Michael Keaton head as a swap out option.
The helmeted head is well done with a huge clear plastic visor over the eye details which gives a good depth to those glowing green eyes beneath.
The outfit for Vulture is essentially a fur collar flight jacket and this collar and jacket top section is well sculpted, although painted a touch glossy for my liking. Around this jacket are sculpted straps with neatly painted bronze metallic clasps and clips.
The lower section starts off as flight trousers in a military green and these then turn into metallic vulture legs with the clawed feet. When you view the figure these legs are perhaps a little slim when you consider what this would be physically like in real life with the prosthetics and armour strapped over human sized legs. The metal parts are a touch too dull and one tone and a wash would have gone down a treat.
Vulture gets 18 points of articulation, one less than normal as he has not been given the T-jointed chest piece - most likely to keep the torso solid enough to support that huge flight suit.
The head is ball jointed and moves a fair bit until the lower sections and piping start to hit the fur collar. The arms are ball jointed at the shoulder with a bicep swivel, double jointed elbows and a wrist pivot. The waist is a swivel joint which can swing the torso to either side, although doing so ruins the look of the waist.
The legs start with a ball jointed hip which is very maneuverable. We the get a thigh swivel and move down to double jointed knees. THere is a form of ankle rocker, but this has less range than usual thanks to those huge clawed feet.
The posing on the legs come into their own when we you get Vulture in a flight pose, so checkout the flight suit review to see how this works.
Vulture feels like half a release as I cannot see how collectors would stop with just the figure and not go after the full flight suit. If you are a completist, this isn't a problem. But ff you are MCU collecting only then you will need to track down some parts, or buy the full 7 figure wave to get the suit - sticking the figures you don't want back on eBay to offset some of the £140+ the wave will have cost you.
If we look at Vulture in isolation, he is a 3 out of 5 release. Everything is done well, but not brilliantly. The legs look too slim, there are no weapons or accessories to make him stand out - where is the weapon he had on the Ferry? Or give him an Iron-Man helmet to brood over?
