Review : The Winter Soldier
Diamond Select Marvel Cinematic Universe
Wave/Series : Civil War
Released : August (US) / September (UK) 2016
Price : £19.99
For Marvel Select Movie figure collectors it has been a long old wait for new figures. The last releases were over 12 months ago from Age of Ultron, but finally the Civil War trio have hit stores on both sides of the pond.
Our first review will take a look at The Winter Soldier, the debut character in the 7" MCU Select series.
Like all Select figures, Bucky arrives in the jumbo packaging with a beautiful art panel down the left hand side which features a full portrait of Sebastian Stan from the movie.The figure itself sits behind the large blister, surrounded by a set of alternative hands and a pretty mean looking machine gun. The side panel wraps around the front with a blue background on top of which is the Marvel Select logo, the character name and finally the Civil War logo. A triangular flash running off this has a nice black and white image of Bucky with his red star picked out in bold red.
Round the back of the card is a full size image of the figure itself, with a large text box that details the plot of the film - this text is consistent on all three figures. Underneath the figure image is a further image of the background diorama fully built. This built diorama is the full 4 pieces, and to achieve this you will need to buy all three figures, plus either a spare Winter Soldier or the upcoming unmasked Captain America - sold only in Disney Stores. The card back is completed with an "also available" flash, showing the other two figures in the series - in this instance Cap and Ironman.
Out of the box the diorama piece arrives already assembled, and this is slotted behind the figure along with the usual square Diamond advertising booklet. This time there is an extra bag in with the booklet - and this needs to be kept as it contains all the various connections you will need to link up the diorama. This is not referenced anywhere on the packaging so you wonder how many will be thrown away - although once you have two or more backdrops it is pretty simple to work out what is what.
Bucky stands a solid 7" tall, and is on par with previous Captain America figures. The head is a good likeness to Sebastian Stan, but the factory have overdone his 5 o'clock shadow and this looks a tad more like he has a muddy face as opposed to being stubble. This aside the rest of the facial paint applications are really good with very intense eyes and some depth and tones around the eyes in particular.
The body starts with Buckys jacket, which is a good match to the movie prop. It has plenty of stitching and panel detail worked into the sculpt including the two raised collars. This detail continues down Bucky's right arm and the whole piece is painted in a nice muted grey colour with some level of wash over the top to darken the detail and add some shadow.
The left arm is of course Bucky's metal arm, and sadly this is a little undersized. It starts off OK with a chunky enough shoulder, but then tapers off to a very small elbow and a very slim forearm. The metal arm is painted in a metallic silver and with a very neat 5 pointed star decal on the shoulder in a dark red. In my opinion this could have done with being a few shades brighter. The hands on both arms are a finger-less glove, with the left hand showing the silver metal fingers. Both hands can be swapped for balled fists - and while the gripping hand works OK on both arms, the fists do look small and makes the metal arm look further undersized. The mechanism for swapping the hands is smooth and relatively painless.
The trousers are a grey pair of combat trousers, a slightly lighter shade than the jacket. Like the jacket there is plenty of sculpted detail on these trousers including pockets and straps. The trousers end tucked into a pair of military boots and these are particularly crisp with clear definition of laces and lace holes.
Articulation is never massive on the Select figures, with 16 points being a standard. Bucky is one of the better articulated Select figures I have handled.
The head starts with a ball joint meaning the head rotates fully and can look up and down. The torso comes with a chest joint, and although this does cut the look of the coat, it adds some good sideways movement to get Bucky into a few more action poses. Under this is also a waist joint, although this has barely any movement either way.
The arms start with ball jointed shoulders, and these shoulders withdraw nicely into the torso allowing both arms to move out fully to 90 degrees to the body and then rotate over the head. The elbow is a single joint, but bends past 90 degrees thanks to the slimness of the arms - you wonder if the decision to make the metal arm slimmer was driven by getting better movement in the arms? The movement built into the arms allows the figure to hold the provided machine gun in one hand, and cradle it with the other - something not many Diamond figures can usually achieve.
The legs continue the t-joint hips that Diamond have applied on most of their figures for some time now. The joint allows the hip to swing up and outward, and in Bucky's case it means he can sit down and kneel either one one knee or on both knees thanks to the double jointed knee joints. Again, this works well for some action orientated poses with Bucky being able to pose firing whilst in a kneeling position. There is also a thigh cut which allows each leg to rotate at the thigh, although doing so will ruin the line of the leg sculpt.
The articulation ends with a joint built in around the ankle section of the boot. This is not a rocker as such as there isn't much laterally movement but it does mean the feet can be planted firmly and Bucky doesn't have any issue standing on his own.
Bucky's single accessory is his weapon which is a bulky affair cast in black plastic and with no paint applications. The one we got came out a little warped from how it was packed, but in the main the design and detail is pretty good and it sits neatly in Bucky's hand and can be posed in plenty of firing positions, but also pointing upward cradled back against the shoulder almost.
The diorama piece is a beautiful piece, even on its own. It comprises of a contrasting black, white and silver base that is connected to a cream back wall that stands a lot higher than the figure. This fixes too issues I have had recently with similar pieces from Diamond in that it is tall enough to frame the figure and is also not warped or ill fitting. We will look at starting to connect these parts in our next review for Iron-Man...
If I was looking for the perfect Bucky figure, my only addition would have been for Diamond to throw in the masked head from the first movie. Although that wouldn't have matched the outfit it would have allowed fans to purchase two figures and have a Winter Soldier for either movie. Other than that, and the slightly undersized arm and overstated stubble, I am pretty impressed with The Winter Soldier - and the head sculpt under that muddy beard is one of the better ones, an area that Diamond doesn't always do too well on (see unmasked Captain America from 2014 or Ant-Man from last year).
The final positive for me is that Bucky even got a release. Considering all the fan favourites in Civil War, for him to take the 3rd slot behind Cap and Ironman says something about the way Diamond approach this line and the restrictions that comes with it to allow fans to get a character they want ahead of say someone more visually desirable like Vision or another War Machine. Bucky isn't perfect, but for £20 he is pretty damn close and scores a 4 out of 5 from me.
