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Review : Ghost Rider Marvel Select (Diamond Select Toys) Wave/Series : Comic Book Series Released : 2007 / re-released 2014 Price : £19.99 The majority of my Marvel collection is firmly embedded in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but I do occasionally hop over to the Comic Book Select releases. Ghost Rider is a figure I have been sat on the fence about for a while. I love the character and even the Nick Cage movies, and with him joining the MCU via Agents of Shield I finally dropped some cash on a loose Johnny Blaze from eBay. Ghost Rider was originally released in 2007 by Diamond, and was latterly re-released in 2014. He comes on the standard over-sized blister pack with the right hand side wrap around a beautifully designed flaming skull comic book image. Round the back is a full size image of Ghost Rider on his stand and next to this is an overview of the character. Beneath this bio is a wonderful 1970's era Ghost Rider comic cover, and to the right of this a couple of "also available" figure images - Venom and Nightcrawler. Out of the packaging and Ghost Rider stands dead on 7" high. The flaming skull head is brilliantly done with the skull being almost a face plate on top of a translucent flame effect that stars behind the eyes and roars out to the back of the head and down into the neck, giving the impression that the skull is suspended in the fire rather than attached to the figure. The paint on the skull is also impressive, starting with a bone white base colour but with sufficient dry-brushing and washing to an almost black around the teeth, eye sockets and where the skull meets the fire. Replicating any kind of fire effect is difficult, but Diamond have succeeded pretty well with the rest of the flaming head. The base plastic is a translucent orange and onto this is a yellow highlight effect to accentuate the flame. Most people, myself included, picture Ghost Rider in black leather with spiked - where as this figure goes back to the very early days of the Comic Book Ghost Rider with the blue motorcycle outfit. The shape of the body is very "comic" book with the slimmer waist and wider shoulders. The suit is sculpted with plenty of fabric folds and creases and these are then really well picked out by the paint job. This paint job starts with a black base, on top of which the blue is applied, while leaving the black to show through in the depth of the creases. This makes the suit much darker in person than perhaps it appears when photographed. There is a lighter blue trim applied on the chest, down each arm, each leg and around the upturned collar - all really neatly done with a defined dark blue edge to each stripe. The gloves are a black and are sculpted so the right is a fist and the left is an open grasping hand, ready to choke the life out of his enemies. Likewise the boots are black and almost knee high, and yet up close there are further lighter grey shades used to bring out the texture of the boots. This is an older Select figure, so articulation is less than we expect on the newer releases. The head is ball jointed, but won't move too far in any direction due to the flame effect. You do get ball jointed shoulders which can move out to the side and rotate above the head. The elbows are a single 90 degree joint and then the hands have a swivel in the wrist where the gloves meet the arm. There is no ab joint, and the waist is a simple swivel hidden by the cut of Ghost Rider's belt. It is the legs that you notice the biggest articulation differences to more modern figures, with the hips on simple peg that rotate only on the axle of the groin. This is enough though as once you couple this with the jointed knee and ankle there are a range of stances you can achieve - it is just Ghost Rider will never sit, kneel or crouch. As with most standard sized Select figures, Ghost Rider comes with a diorama base. And WOW what a base this is. It is essentially a one inch high plinth which is made up of panels of volcanic rock size chunks and in between the rock is the same translucent orange fire with the yellow highlights. And from this lava are reaching several demonic hand. These hands are clawing upward at the figure and are in the same orange plastic, but this time brushed with black to show how they are cooling out of the lava. The stand has two peg holes to match up to Ghost Rider's feet, and when he is positioned one hand is gripping his right foot while a second is reaching up for his left. It gives the whole thing a statue type look, and is arguably the best base I have come across from Diamond in terms of being an extension of the figure itself. As a £20 figure at retail, Ghost Rider is brilliant despite the lower range of articulation. He easily stands up to any of the more modern releases in terms of sculpt and design and the base is a real work of art and takes the figure to a whole new level. Yes, a motor cycle would have been a bonus - but that would have been very cost restrictive for Diamond and even if it had been included I doubt Ghost Rider could have sat naturally on the bike. I award Ghost Rider a very impressive 5 out of 5, and if you are sat on the fence on this figure (as I was) then do not hesitate in grabbing this one if you get the chance. Buy from Amazon UK Buy from Amazon US

Review : Star Lord and Rocket Marvel Select (Diamond Select Toys) Wave/Series : Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 Released : February 2018 £24.99 Pros : Costume is well sculpted and nicely weathered. The articulation on Rocket is impressive in the most part. Cons : No unmasked head and the masked head is not accurately coloured. Only one blaster. Rocket's jaw is not articulated despite card back image Fans have waited almost a full year to get their hands on Diamond Select's first Guardians of the Galaxy movie figure. After skipping the first movie, the only MCU movie they've missed making a figure for since they started with Iron-Man 2, the team at Diamond planned to bring us four of the five principle Guardians characters in their 7" Select scale. The journey to store shelves has not been easy, with some significant delays and a particularly embarrassing release of an image of Star-Lord with a beautiful Chris Pratt head sculpt - which then had to be retracted as the figure comes with a masked head only. Like all Selects, Star-Lord and rocket arrive in the standard large blister packaging with a very nice light blue nebula type colour scheme and bright gold Guardians badge on the spine under the character name. The side panel is a full image of masked Star-Lord with Rocket above him firing over his shoulder. These are movie realistic, but are illustrated rather than be stills from the movie. On the rear of the packaging we have full length images of the two figures and a short background for Star-Lord in particular and how he and Rocket team up. It is very generic and not necessarily related to the Vol.2 sequel. To the side of this is a more dynamic "also available" panel than usual, showing Drax and Groot - the other release for the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 movie As we have two figures in this set, there is no diorama base included which does make the packaging look a little empty. Once out of the pack this is more apparent although the figures are spaced well with accessories filling the gap above Rocket's head. I am going to start with Star-Lord as the principle figure of the pack. I am already disappointed with the head considering I know there is a stunning Chris Pratt portrait out there - which Diamond themselves showed - but that never made the cut. That leaves us with a masked Star-Lord head only. The mask is well done with a good level of detail around the eye pieces and the face plate. What is off for me is the colouring which is far too bright and very silver. Star-Lord's mask is much darker and almost grey down the sides and this looks off on the figure. Diamond themselves even reflected the darkness of the helmet if you look at their Vinyl Statue of Star-Lord from the same movie. Helmet colour aside, the hair is well done popping out the top and is a good likeness to Pratt. While the helmet is a bit off in terms of accuracy, the rest of the outfit is very well done. The "Yeah Baby" shirt is there (we had thought this had been dropped at one point) and is achieved by means of a decal over a light blue shirt. And if you pull open the jacket the full logo is there, not just the bit you can see. The jacket looks aged and used, not clean like some Star-Lord figures. We have the various panels and lapels and the gold badge and zip. Even the back has some solid detail like the clasps under the collar. The trousers are also nicely sculpted and weathered. They are a touch too red for me and too similar to the jacket colour. On screen the trousers in most of the movie look to be more of a grey colour. The boots have lots of detail, but again are coloured too similarly and that looses some of the visual impact, Articulation is the standard Select 16 points of articulation. The head is ball jointed and therefore rotates as well as ranging up and down. There is a torso joint under the jacket and cutting across the shirt. This means the torso can twist and lean while still displaying the Yeah Baby logo. The arms are ball jointed at the shoulder. We then have a single rotating elbow that bends to 90 degrees. The wrists are pivoted and while these rotate fully they can't really pivot as they are blocked by the sleeve. The legs begin with that T-Joint hip which means Star-Lord can swing his legs out in front or out to the side - although any sitting pose will be quite laid back as the hips don't go to a full 90 degrees. There is a thigh swivel just under the hips and then we have a nicely disguised set of double-jointed knees. This allows the ower leg to bend back on itself. The figure ends with ankle rockers, and this makes standing Star-Lord a piece of cake. Most of the joints are firm and stiff and feel ratcheted. The ups and downs on this review continues now as we take another low as we look at accessories. Star-Lord has always wielded a pair of blasters, and yet Diamond have only given us one with this figure. This missing 2nd blaster prevents us achieving any reasonable Star-Lord weapon wielding pose and this is a huge miss for me. Particularly when you consider every other release from Hasbro, Hot Toys, Figuarts and even Diamond's Comic book release have dual blasters. Looking at the one blaster included, it is nicely done and is very crisply cast with a lot of paint details including a blended blue/purple barrel. It also fits snugly into Star-Lords right hand, albeit you will need to tease the fingers to get the grip sorted. While the comic book Star-Lord had pegs to holster the blasters when not in use, there is nothing on this figure to allow the blaster to be holstered. The second figure in the pack is Rocket. He stands just over 3 inches high, and comes in his blue jumpsuit. The head sculpt is very nice and well painted even down to those angry orange eyes and the teeth inside the mouth. The issue here is that the mouth, which you assume to be articulated, does not move. If you go back to the packaging and take a look at the card back and it specifically shows a closed mouth Rocket - another own goal by Diamond. Rocket's costume is very accurate with the blue under-suit and grey trim and panelling. Round the back is the back pack with green metallic globe. The fur texture is awesome throughout and yet is a dark wash away from being perfect. Despite his size and the lack of an articulated aw, Rocket still packs a whole bunch of articulation - 13 points to be precise. Rocket's head is ball jointed and turns fully, he also has a further ball joint in the torso. The arms are jointed in the shoulder, elbow and wrist. The hips use a miniaturised version of the T-joint hip, swinging the legs out to side and out in front. While the knee joint is skipped, the ankles are still on a rocker to aid in having Rocket stand up. And the finishing touch, a ball jointed tail. This is normally going to be used to pose the figure as a 3rd point of contact to keep Rocket stable, and yet with some work Rocket can stand with the tail raised. While Star-Lord is short changed with guns, Rocket does get two blasters. These are the two handguns he uses when escaping Tazerface's Ravager Crew with Groot and Yondu towards the end of the movie. Each gun is cast in a softer plastic which means some warping and the details being a little soft. They are nicely painted with a silver base and various additions relevant to each gun. While these are nice and fit into Rocket's hands they aren't a secure fit and tend to fall out if nudged. I also can't help but wish Rocket had come with a super-sized blaster like he touts at the start of the movie when fighting the Obelisk. When we put Rocket with Star-Lord the other issue that is presented is the scale of the figures as a pair, and within the wider MCU Select releases. Rocket comes in a bit short for me, in fact he is probably a better scale for the 6" Marvel Legends line. For the 7" Select scale Rocket needs to be a half inch or so higher so his head is the same height as Star-Lords belt. Star-Lord himself fits pretty much OK with the other MCU Select figures - there is no Daredevil type under-scaling here. In fact Star-Lord may actually be spot on coming in a touch taller than Civil War Captain America which is correct when you look up the height of Evans vs Pratt. Once we way up the pros and cons of the two figures I will score this release a 3 out of 5. Had they added in the Pratt head, given him a 2nd blaster and articulated Rocket's jaw we would have been up in 5 out of 5. Sadly that list is at least two too many issues for me in one box - several of which are own goals by Diamond considering it was them who showed the Pratt head and showed a closed mouth Rocket on the pack.

Review : Drax the Destroyer & Baby Groot Marvel Select (Diamond Select Toys) Wave/Series : Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 Released : February 2018 £24.99 Pros : The tiny Groot is very well sculpted and articulated Cons : Drax head is too small and has been sculpted in an uncharacteristic "glum" look and the lip paint looks like lipstick. Fans have waited almost a full year to get their hands on Diamond Select's first Guardians of the Galaxy movie figure. After skipping the first movie, the only MCU movie they've missed making a figure for since they started with Iron-Man 2, the team at Diamond planned to bring us four of the five principle Guardians characters in their 7" Select scale. Drax arrives in the usual Select blister packaging. As there is no diorama piece included, he does look a little lost within the blister with only the tiny Baby Groot to keep him company. I do like the design scheme and fonts used on the Guardians figures, with the blue space nebula backdrop overlaid with the GOTG2 logo, with Groot sat on top. We also get a flash of gold with the Guardians bag at the base of the wrap around section under the character name which is simply "Drax". The side spine is gorgeous and captures Drax in one of his trademark angry poses as he prepares for battle, with a bemused baby Groot atop his shoulder. It is a pity this angry expression wasn't carried through on to the figure itself. The card back repeats the design principles and the majority of it is turned over to a actual image of Drax and Groot and some bio text which predominantly talks about Drax and his history in the MCU and finishes with how he teamed up with the Guardians and Groot in particular. To the side of this we get the also available section with an image of Star-Lord and Rocket who are the other Select release for the movie. The packaging has to be ripped to access the figure, and once opened you are presented with Drax in the inner tray. He is strapped into the tray with twisty ties and these have to be carefully removed considering the paint on the chest area - not something you want to damage. Groot is taped into his socket as are the spare hands and the knives. Remember that battle angry Drax we saw on the packaging? Well the actual figure is as far away from that look as you can possibly get. The best way I can describe the expression is forlorn. The look really doesn't work for "The Destroyer" and it is such a shame as it has been sculpted pretty well and you wonder what they would have done with a screaming version. There are other issues with the head in that they've given him what looks like purple lipstick. This is a bizarre decision considering how Drax looks on screen and after they've done so well with the facial tattoos and the eyes which do have that purple hint we see in the movie. Zoom out to view the full figure and the other issue with the head is that it looks too small. It is basically the same size as a 6" figure, and if you do some rough measurements vs a screen grab of Drax it is about 5% too small for the width of the shoulders. While you can pose this so the head size is not noticeable, it is more evident when stood with other figures. The rest of the body is proportioned well and the musculature is a good match for Dave Bautista. The skin tone is perhaps a bit too bright in terms of the blue shading, but the tattoos are done well and are relief sculpted so they aren't just a painted pattern. The trousers are nicely weathered with a good wash over the blue. The belt and boots are a deep black with dirty silver clasps and accessories. Drax stands just under 7 1/2 inches tall, which puts him taller than Star-Lord and is consistent with the movie and that classic criminal line up image from the first film. Articulation for Drax comes in at 18 points a couple more than a standard select thanks to the addition of a bicep swivel under the shoulder joint. The trunk of the body has a ball jointed neck and a ball joint in the chest to allow some rotation and forward and backward leaning - not loads though. The arms are very maneuverable with ball jointed shoulders, the aforementioned bicep swivel, an elbow joint which also rotates and a pegged pivot wrist. The arms can move out to eh side and above the head. The elbow bend is not great, and while you can see the wrist pivot it doesn't move too much. The legs utilise the T-Joint hips which swing the legs out to side and in front or any combination in between. you can therefore sit Drax down if you wish. The thigh swivel is pretty clever in that the padding covers this up and yet is only fixed to lower leg so the whole thing still rotates. The knees are double jointed. On the figure I have here the left one bends fine back on itself, but the right is frozen on lower joint - even with hot water it won't shift and I can already see the white stress marks in the joint. Drax comes armed with his knives which are cast in a crisp plastic with two tone silver paint and some intricate red decor on the blades. These can be held either way in both hands. When not in use you would assume that you can slide these in the holsters either side of the boot. After all that should be fairly easy to do shouldn't it and the holsters look big enough. But no, Diamond have made these solid pieces so they do not work and your knives need to go in Drax's hand or the bit box. The hands swap out for three other options included in the pack. As we've seen the gripping hands are for holding the knives and the second set of fists make sense for hand to hand fighting. The final hand is only a right hand and is in a gesture with a pointing finger - it almost looks like a shooting hand with a trigger finger? While I can't say it was ever designed for another weapon, it can be teased to hold Baby Groot if you wish. Baby Groot is an inch and a half high, and is the based on the version we see at the start of the movie and not in the Ravagers outfit we see later on. For his size he has plenty of sculpted detail and this is then painted with shades of green included into the brown. The eyes are black with a white pupil. Groot is even articulated, which is a surprise. He has 5 points of articulation starting with a rotating head. The shoulders are ball jointed, but these are held back from moving out from the body by the shoulder pieces above. The hips are also ball jointed, but with the shape of the groin piece these only move a short way. My only gripe with Groot is that he is very difficult to stand in anything other than a neutral pose. Being so small and lightweight, any movement of the arms will simply overbalance him While Diamond always say they are not a team building line, there is something nice about putting the four figures together on display and collectively they seem to be a little more than the sum of their parts. Gamora is of course a miss and I am not convinced we will see her anytime soon. While £25 is a lot to pay for a Baby Groot, this little one and a half inch figure is perhaps the highlight of this release. While Drax ticks some boxes, that expression ruins the look of the whole figure and the lipstick adds insult to injury. With a decent head sculpt I could look passed the undersized head and the non-working holsters - but when you add up everything wrong with this figure there is nothing that Groot can do more to save this release. After waiting so long for the Guardians figures, both are a disappointment. With this one, the disappointment is considerable and I am scoring him a low 2 out of 5.

Review : Doctor Strange Diamond Select Marvel Cinematic Universe Wave/Series : Doctor Strange Released : January (US) / February (UK) 2017 Price : £19.99 - £22.99 Like many Marvel Select Cinematic releases, Doctor Strange has arrived just ahead of the DVD/Bluray release of the movie. Unlike Hasbro, who seem to be in a position to get their movie based figures on shelves while (if not before) the film is playing in Cinema's, Diamond do like to keep us collectors waiting. Doctor Strange arrives in a full size Select Package resplendent with a red through blue swirling colour design. The left card panel carries the Doctor Strange character name, framed with the Marvel Select logo above, and the Dr Strange movie logo below. The subtitle reads "Special Collector Edition Action Figure". The triangular panel that cuts out from the right of this side piece into the window carries an image of Benedict Cumberbatch in character casting a spell. There is no text on this panel, which is consistent with the change made with the Civil War figures - figures prior to this, back as far as 2013, had been carrying the Avengers Initiative logo in this panel. To the side spine, the artwork from the triangle is blown up to a full image of Doctor Strange from the movie. Like the Civil War figures, this image is presented not as photographic but almost as a painted piece and I can see why many Select collectors display the figures in the packaging with this side art on display. The back initially feels a little different to normal, but this is a one of release for the movie so is missing some usual elements like the "also available". It is also missing an actual shot of the figure, instead going with another Cumberbatch image. I wonder if the figure wasn't quite ready for photography when the card art was drawn up? The bio text does survive with some background on Stephen Strange and the origin journey he undertakes in the film. Out of the pack and the blister is brimming with accessories, and there is a pretty nice looking diorama base tucked in the back that we will explore shortly. Strange sits front and centre of the inner tray, posed with his arms out to either side to fill the blister. To the right, as you look, are the accessories. A circular magical effect and two further sets of hands. Stephen Strange stands 7 and 1/2 inches high out of the box, and is a hefty piece of solid plastic. To date, the best MCU sculpt that Diamond had put out had been the 2013 Wolverine figure (yes I know its not quite MCU), but got very close with the recent Civil War Captain America - the masked version. For me Strange just about edges both of these to be the best yet. Pictures don't do the sculpt justice. I was very unimpressed by all the images I had seen up to getting this figure in hand, and now I am blown away. It's not only a spectacularly good sculpt of Cumberbatch, it is painted extremely well with shading around his cheeks, varying colouring on his lips and piercing blue eyes. The beard and hair are realistically sculpted and well painted. The only criticism being how harsh his grey sideburns are vs the rest of the hair section. The costume is equally as impressive with a flowing blue robe cutting down the torso and to the waist. Here is an intricate belt made up of a number of strips and buckles and with another sash slung lower still with yet another texture and paint application. The robe then continues, albeit now as a separate skirt section on the figure. This whole piece is shaded to bring out depth and texture, while also not making it look too clean - a complaint we had on earlier figures, but that Diamond now seem to be nailing. The arms are part of a further garment, and therefore are a slightly variant blue. They are similar sculpted with creases and folds galore down to the wrapped fore-arms. These wraps are another two shades of blue, one bright and striking and when you look up close with a 3rd blue in the border. The eye of Agamotto hangs from Stephen's neck. Rather than just painted, it is a 3D sculpted piece and is painted in a gold colour. Like the arms, the legs are a touch darker in blue shade than the main robe and are full of sculpted creases and folds. They end in a pair of dark boots, wrapped again in blue cloth. The boots even come with a full tread under neath and peg holes on both. The cloak of Levitation is a separate piece that sits around Strange's shoulders, covering his left more than his right. The collar then bends upward around the head section. On first glance the cloak looks a flat red colour, but look closer and you will see some subtle differences around the shoulders. There is also a hige amount of texture and designs built into the cloak, even round the back which you would argue will very rarely be seen. If I had one build (rather than complaint) at this stage of the review - I think the cloak could have been designed as a removable piece. However, I am not sure how many of us would ever display Strange without his cloak. There are three sets of hands that you can fit into the figure. These all pop in and out smoothly and without issue. The set that comes pre-fitted are a flared hand with all fingers outstretched. The second set are balled fists, and the third are the spell position. With the initial set of flared fingers in place, you can also deploy the spell effect. Now this is not as impressive as perhaps the one that comes with the Hasbro figure, and no where near what we look to be getting with the Figuarts version. It carries the runic look of the spells we see in the movie, but Diamond have gone for functionality over looks and the disk is far too thick. The thickness is because they have made a socket on the flip side into which you can simply place the outstretched hand - no need for plugs or loops. But by being so thick the light doesn't penetrate the disk enough and it looks too much like a solid object than a magical projection. Articulation on Doctor Strange is advertised at 16 points, and Diamond have made sure every one of these adds something to the pose-ability of the figure. The head rotates and looks up and down within that flexible cloak collar. Both shoulders are ball jointed but only his right can raise up fully and rotate, the other being held in by the cloak. The elbows are very well disguised, but still bend 90 degrees and rotate. The hands each contain a peg and a pivot, and this means they truly do bend to 90 degrees for that ultimate spell casting pose. While the cloak doesn't make a torso joint practical, a waist swivel has been added instead and is secreted behind the belt. It allows some twist motion for the upper half of Strange. The legs are a T-jointed hip, and even with the lower part of the robe they have quite a bit of movement for more action orientated stances thanks to some strategic splits in the skirted section. Strange won't really kneel or sit down, but he still comes with double jointed knees. We finish with ankle rockers. The figure stands perfectly well thanks to these ankle joints. There is no evidence at this stage of the floppy joints that have plagued Diamond Select figures previously. The other good thing that Diamond have built in is the ability to point the feet downwards. As weird as this pose sounds, it is essentially if you want to put Strange in a levitation pose. There is no stand provided to do so out of the box, but with a sufficient flying stand you can get some decent poses of the good Doctor putting his Cloak of Levitation to good work. It seems when we get a really awesome Select figure, the diorama tends to be a let down as Diamond try and balance the development costs. That is certainly not the case here. The diorama arrives in two pieces that slot together to create a plinth and then the circular window from the Sanctum Sanctorum. The base section is a dark brown and the whole central circle is made up of runes in a vibrant orange. This is printed, so the level of detail is spectacular. The back section is more a bronze colouring, with sculpted paneling in the base and round the window. The Window itself is clear and then decorated with black and yellow lining. One compliant usually levied about Diamond Diorama's are their size, often being undersized to the figure. This is probably true of the window which is much larger in the film, however they have ensured that it still scales and Strange looks just perfect stood on the display. Many collectors, like myself, will also want to put Strange alongside other MCU Select figures - especially when we reach Infinity War. Thankfully the good Doctor scales well with other recent figures, standing the same size as the recent Civil War Captain America. The only one he looks odd with is the Mk46 Iron-Man, but that issue lies with the IM figure itself which is a good inch shorter than it should have been. By now you can probably tell that I don't have much to fault on the Doctor Strange movie figure. The sculpt is amazing, in my opinion the best of the MCU to date from Diamond. The hand options are well thought out and add some character and assist in the posing. The base is also a thing of beauty. The only criticism you could throw at the figure is the fact that magic effect doesn't work too well and the cloak doesn't come off. So is that enough to warrant a 5 out of 5 score. Of course it is.... Is that enough to be the second only figure in the history of the Mephitsu Archives to score a 5+? Well we asked our friends on Facebook and Twitter for their opinion and the response was unanimous…. Well Done Doctor! Buy from Amazon UK Buy from Amazon US

Sponsored by Review : Daredevil Marvel Select (Diamond Select Toys) Wave/Series : Netflix Released : November 2017 £24.99 Pros : The sculpt is fantastic with a great likeness (even with just the chin showing) of Charlie Cox Cons : Daredevil is sadly undersized vs other Marvel Select figures. The "action" stand is just plain useless Diamond's Select range is 15 years old, and after doing a wealth of both comic book and Marvel Cinematic Universe figures over the years, we now see them dip their toe in a new Marvel avenue with this Netflix release of Daredevil. As always with Select figures, Daredevil is a single release rather than be a part of a larger wave or case assortment. The packaging is the usual oversized blister card with the wrap around side panel to the left. While Daredevil is probably more akin to the Marvel Movies - Diamond have chosen to go with the standard comic book design to the box art with the large orange character name on the side panel - above this sits the Marvel Select logo and beneath it a new 15th anniversary badge. The first mention of the Netflix series is on the triangular flash across the base of the blister. Here we would normally see some character art, but instead this is a deep dark burgundy with the Daredevil and Netflix logo's on top. The large side art panel on most MCU Select releases sees an image of the character taken from the movie. For Daredevil the look is more comic art as they use the concept comic art of Joe Quesada that was used on the Season 2 poster and on the subsequent UK steelbook release. While striking and still linked to the Netflix series it sits more comfortably with the other comic book releases from a MIB collection. The card back is more familiar for MCU collectors and we see a larger Daredevil logo ahead a bio of Matt Murdock and his journey to becoming the Devil of Hell's Kitchen. Aside this is a full image of the actual figure and the diorama base. Once opened the diorama sits behind the main plastic insert. In this sits the figure, the stand, a spare pair of hands and the billy clubs. After years of Select figures being notoriously long winded to unpack with multiple twisty ties, Diamond appear to have changed the approach on Daredevil and while there is a twisty tie at the waist - the limbs are held in clear elasticated bands. These are easier to remove and do pose less risk of damaging the figures paintwork. Immediately out of the pack you can see what a brilliant job the sculptors have done with the Daredevil head. Even though we lost the unmasked head in development due to costs, the masked head still carries a brilliant likeness to Charlie Cox. The horns are proportioned well and the lens of the eyes a glossy deep red. The paneling on the helmet is filled in with a black wash and this adds a darkness to the mask. The body of Daredevil doesn't quite match up to the head sculpt and looks a little gangly and thin. The outfit is detailed well enough with the same paneled sculpting as the helmet. The base colour is the rich burgundy with black inserts and washes. We get some silver detail on the belt buckle and round the side of the torso where fastenings are sculpted. The thigh holster also gets some silver highlights. The boots feel oversized to me - as though they are too big for the figure. These are black coloured, but have some weathering to dirty them up. Standard articulation for a Select figure has been 16 points for recent years. Daredevil does move on from this standard and has 19 points throughout the body. The head is a ball joint with a pivot at the front. The head rotates fully and can look down to the point Daredevil's chin is on his chest. The torso has both a waist joint that swivels, and above this a torso ball joint that allows further rotation as well as the ability to lean forward and backward. From a visual perspective the forward position closes up the gap between chest and stomach - leaning backwards does open the joint up and looks a bit odd. The arms have the standard combination of a ball jointed fully rotating shoulder, a single rotating elbow and a pegged wrist which rotates and pivots to 90 degrees - any further and it pops out of the socket. The legs use the t-joint hips that Diamond have used for a number of years now. This means the legs can swing forward to be sitting as well as spread out to the side. While not as easy on the eye as say a ball joint hip, this combination of joints does allow a lot of leg movement. The hips are supported with a thigh swivel and double jointed knees. At the boots there is a rotating joint at the point the boots end and the legs begin. We still then get an ankle rocker. All of this allows Daredevil to do plenty of moves including kneeling, action stances and even some martial arts moves which we will see later on when we get the stand into play. The one thing he does struggle with is standing in a neutral pose as his right leg is longer than his left. That means when the legs are straight he has an odd lean to one side. The added height seems to be in the thigh segment and it is bizarre that in a time where we have such technological advances as body scanning and computer sculpting that we can make a human leg a good 5-6mm longer than the other? Daredevil comes with a stand, which is a fantastic idea in principle considering the type of action we see in the show. The stand is a two part affair with a segmented arm and a circular base - the two clip together easily. This is the same stand used on the Ghostbusters series - Slimer and Library Ghost - and sadly the flaws have come with it First off the stand is not heavy enough for such a large figure, the base needs to be wider or heavier. The other issue is that each of the joints is far too loose - they are screwed so can be tightened, but not by much. The stand plugs into a socket on Daredevil's back - the same principle that was used on the comic book Star Lord figure earlier this year. The hole is strategically placed in a section of black colouring on the outfit so isn't noticeable when the stand is not in use. Once the figure is in the stand - all those flaws them come to haunt you, and it is frustrating as hell trying to get a decent pose. With those weak joints the stand comes apart in multiple places, and with the lightweight base - even if you get the arm to stay secure the figure more often than not over-balances the stand. That being said with a lot of patience (a lot) some poses are achievable as we can see above - but be warned they will not hold for long on a display. If you are desperate to have Daredevil in these type of mid-action poses then my advice is to either glue the stand, or pay for a better quality aftermarket stand. I have found a lot of Select figures lately have come with lots of hand options - and many of these are not of any use, or not that wildly different from each other. Daredevil keeps it simple in that he comes fitted with a pair of clenched fists to beat up the bad guys by hand. There is then an alternative pair of gripping fists should some additional force be needed in the guise of his billy clubs. The hands pop in and out easily and there is no obvious paint rub being cast in a black plastic anyway with just red panels. The billy clubs themselves are pretty plain, but they are a nice shape and show no signs of warping - a common issue with action figure weapons recently. They are cast in differing sizes, accurate to the show, and appear to be a silver plastic cast with the red painted on top. They fit into the gripping hands really well, and work with the articulation for even more action shots. When not in use the two clubs will slot into the thigh holster. Sadly, the holster is a touch too tight and on the first use they scratched the red paint off one of my clubs as you can see in the top left picture above. While the paint so far has been very good and robust, the red on the clubs looks to be that flat flaky paint we often see on Select figures. As we alluded to earlier, Daredevil is a very diminutive figure by Select standards. He stands 6 3/4" high, that is 17cm. If we assume the closest scale on Select is 1/10 then Daredevil should be a touch closer to 18cm based on Charlie Cox's listed height of 1.78m. Now Select have had varying heights and scales for a while, and say themselves they are not a team building range and don't adhere to a strict scale. For me Daredevil is not too bad, and he scales OK to some of the older figures like Widow and Hawkeye. What is an issue is how he looks against the more recent "oversized" figures like Civil War Cap and Dr Strange. The issue looks worse when you compare him to Marvel Legends versions of the same figure as they are near identical - but we should remember though that Legends themselves have been getting bigger and if you stick Daredevil next to a 6" Star Wars Black Series figure, for example, he looks huge. I guess in the end size is relative and you can get round it with some clever posing or positioning. The frustration is that I would love Select to choose a firm scale and stick to it as I don't for a minute buy or accept their "not a team building range" comment. On to the diorama piece that is a trademark of the Select line. Daredevil comes with a two part base that clips together to make a lift door diorama. The plastic is solid enough and the decor is pretty good with some weathering on the walls and some defects and cracks in what is meant to be the concrete floor. The piece is also a decent size and Daredevil looks right and in scale once placed into the diorama. This piece is designed to be more of a static stand, and it has 5 sockets on the base into which you can insert the arm of the stand we talked about earlier. Three sockets are on the upright lift door, with two more on the floor. Again this is innovative, but it fails in practice. The stability is better as the diorama becomes the base and this is weightier and broader than the circular stand. The issue remains with the weak joints on the segmented stand. These still can't support the weight of the figure easily and while they can help action poses, most of time you will need one or two of the legs of the figure in contact with wall or base to help keep the pose. As a package the Daredevil figure is not a bad release and has loads of great new ideas from Select. The articulation has taken a few baby steps forward and the sculpting and paint jobs just keep getting better. The stand is an innovative idea, but fails in practice and a more robust solution is needed if they are going to use this again. The thought process on the thigh holster is also in question being so tight it rubs the paint on the billy clubs. The diorama is OK but mine, like many, will go the way of the spares box. I am not sure if the dioramas are written into the Select deal to differentiate them from Legends - but if not I wouldn't be adverse to seeing them disappear and for us to get an extra head (one was dropped from this release) or better quality stand or accessories. In terms of the size concerns, they are not as bad as you may think once the figure is in hand. Yes he could do with being a touch taller, a touch broader and having his boots scaled better - but he doesn't look massively out of place and there are lots of great things on the figure to be impressed with. I just hope that the number of negative responses to Daredevil doesn't put any dents into Diamond looking at further Netflix type releases - would love to see a Punisher next, and maybe a Jessica Jones after that.... I score the Diamond Select Netflix Daredevil a 3 out of 5. Checkout the Diamond Select figures available at Toys in the Attic

Review : Spider-Man Marvel Select (Diamond Select Toys) Wave/Series : Spider-Man : Homecoming Released : November 2017 £24.99 Pros : The sculpt is fantastic and captures the build of Tom Holland. Articulation is great. Cons : The base is not too visually impressive and the one we got was warped. 2017 was an odd year for Diamond's Marvel Select range with releases few and far between due to delays and unforeseen circumstances. We had been due to get 5 new Marvel Cinematic Universe figures from the three movies released in the year - Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Spider-Man Homecoming and Thor Ragnarok. After the Guardians figures were delayed it was only Spider-Man that made a Winter 2017 release and we will review him here. The packaging construction remains unchanged for Spider-Man. We have the large blister on top a cardboard backing card with the card wrapping round the left hand side of the blister to form an art panel on the side, and the character detail panel on the front. The theme for Spider-Man is predominantly bue with a sky blue backdrop that fades almost to a white and a blue side panel that starts quite dark with the Spider-Man suit texture and fades to a more Iron-Man stye blue print design. Over the top of this is the name "Spider-Man" and this is subtitled with the "special collector edition action figure". Above this text sits the Marvel Select logo and beneath it the new 15th Anniversary badge to celebrate 15 years of the Select collectors line. The triangular insert that comes from the side panel and across the bottom left of the blister carries the Homecoming logo, but unlike previous MCU releases there is no character image in this slot. This move from an image to the movie/series logo seems to be a permanent change as it was the same on the Daredevil figure (2017) and is the same on the upcoming Guardians figures of Drax and Star-Lord. The back of the card see's the theme move more to a red hue. It carries a large image of the figure on its rooftop base. To the side of this is a red text box with a very general overview of Spider-Man, and while it fits with the plot of Homecoming - it could be about any incarnation of the web-slinger. To the side of the figure image is a "Collect Them All" insert with images of the Star-Lord figure (unreleased as of Dec 2017) and Doctor Strange (who was released back at the start of 2017). Hanging over all this is the banner style Homecoming logo. The side panel feels a little different to usual. The blueprint type background actually wraps round onto the side and on top of this is an image of Spider-Man mid-swing. The Homecoming logo sits to the top. This feels like another departure to what we have seen previously where the side panel is a self standing piece of art and usually includes a blown up image of the character. Once opened you are presented with Spider-Man in the standard tray insert. Behind him sits the rooftop scene. The figure is strapped in with twisty ties, and be very careful removing these as they can rub the paint far too easily. There are three sets of hands just below Spidey, all held in with a length of sticky tape. The end of 2016 and the start of 2017 has been a real breakout year for Marvel Select in terms of sculpting. While the figures have always been good, the likeness and detailing has always fallen a touch short. Recent figures like Civil War Cap and Dr Strange have taken this to a whole new level - and Spidey thankfully continues that trend. The mask is beautifully done with the webbing being a very subtle part of the sculpt and not just painted. The eyes are expressive and are ridged around the frames as we see in the movie. Body shape and size has been a debate for Select collectors recently after the Daredevil release, and Spidey has a similar body sculpt being quite slim and slender. This is perfect for Spidey who is of course a teenage boy in a suit. The details on the red of the suit, like the mask, are sculpted and painted really neatly. There is a small black spider logo at the front and a larger red one round the back. We also get some larger black lining down the arms and at the waist and some wrist bands around each wrist. Sadly we do need to mention what is not in the figure - and that is any form of piping or lining on the blue parts of the suit. While this is very subtle in the movie, it is a miss by Diamond in not including it on the figure. Thankfully it doesn't detract too much from the look of the figure. Spidey has 18 points of articulation, and Diamond have really thought about what poses Spidey needs to achieve and upgraded some joints to suit. The head is a ball joint and rotates fully, you can also see a pivot under the head piece on the neck. Sadly this does not move to much and the head pretty much has to stay at the same looking forward angle. We then get a torso joint which is much more maneuverable and can lean the figure forward and backward, ready for those ready to swing poses. The arms are ball jointed at the shoulder with a bicep swivel just underneath. We then get upgraded double jointed elbows, and these are a godsend for posing allowing Spidey to almost fold his arm back on itself. The arms finish with the hands which have a pivot peg at the wrist and that allows hands to be bent to 90 degrees - essentially for web slinging action. The legs start with the usual Diamond crotch design where the legs are slotted into a peg that swings out to the side as well as forward. Now this may not be the most attractive hip joint out there, but it does do the job and gives our figure a huge depth of leg movement. These are followed by a thigh swivel and double jointed knees, so kneeling and crouching is dead easy. The figure finishes with ankle rockers that also move really well, allowing the feet to be pointed downward. These are a touch looser than I would like - but at this stage standing Spider-Man is not a problem. Spidey comes with 8 sets of hands in total. In the pack he comes with one fist fitted and one web slinging hand. The other hands are a gripping hand and open palm. While I like the open palm for perhaps a wall climbing pose, they are a bit jazz hand in other poses. There is a gripe with the open palms in that the web shooter is not included - it is on the web sling shooting hands - and I think these are recycled from another figure and painted t match the costume. The gripping hands seem a bit of an odd inclusion as Spidey has no accessories he can hold or grip. Agai these feel like they are painted and thrown in and certainly for me don't add much value. The web sling hands do carry the web shooter, although if they were truly accurate there would be a section that joins up to the wrist section. The fists are a good set of hands too as Spidey is quite often getting into fistycuffs with the bad guys. All hands slot in and out easily and click into place and hold really well. I am getting a little bid jaded with the DIamond Select diorama bases. While they have been a staple of the line across the past 15 years, most just end up in a box and perhaps controversially I would like to see them dropped and replaced with more figure value adding parts like other heads or accessories. Spidey's base is not really movie related. It is a cut out of a generic red bricked rooftop with chimney and slate tiles. It is hefty enough and pretty well painted with the bricks being particularly well done with the grey mortar between each red brick. Sadly my base arrived warped and won't sit on a flat surface. There are no peg holes for Spidey, so unlike the Daredevil figure where some thought had gone into posing the figure on the base dynamically, with this you will either have Spidey standing or sitting on the chimney. I think back to the base with the Amazing Spider-Man and while this was again not film accurate, it was innovative in that it could be hung on your wall and allowed Spider-Man to be posed as though he was climbing the wall. Something similar here would have been awesome. Spider-Man is small against other recent Select figures - but for me he should be. While he can be posed on his own well enough - with or without the base - he is best suited I think for a Civil War type display, particularly as he is the sole release from the movie so there is no Iron-Man or Vulture to pose with him. Homecoming Spider-Man was probably one of the most anticipated figures of 2017 for Select collectors, and in many ways he does not disappoint. The sculpt, build and general paint job are all well executed and the articulation is about as good as it gets at this price point. There are some bits missing on the paint job like the blue lining and the web shooters on one of the hands. The base is very meh and underwhelming and is going straight into my big box of parts. The negatives are quite minor in the overall scheme and this is as good a Homecoming Spider-Man as you can currently get from any mid-range company. while I am sure Figuarts and Mezco will outshine this figure eventually, this is a £25 figure and that makes it awesome value for money. I score the Diamond Select Netflix Daredevil a 4 out of 5.

Review : Unmasked Captain America (Civil War) Diamond Select Marvel Cinematic Universe Wave/Series : Disney Store Exclusive Released : January 2017 Price : £19.99 To understand this Disney Store exclusive release of Captain America we must first go back to Summer 2016 and the figures released by Diamond from the Captain America Civil War movie. These three releases - Cap, Iron-Man and Winter Soldier - were packed with a diorama base and each base connected to the others to make a larger Avengers facility backdrop. Once fans started receiving their releases they soon found that perhaps things weren't quite as had been promised, and that the three figures combined to make 3 parts of a 4 part display? Roll back even further to the announcement of these Civil War figures at Toy Fair 2016, Diamond clearly showed a 4 segment display - but only three figures. When quizzed they confirmed that three figures were all that was required to build the base. But we now know that wasn't strictly true. With me so far? So back to Summer 2016 and when now asked about the missing 4th section, Diamond simply commented for fans to buy a 2nd Winter Soldier and reverse his piece to build the diorama. Soon after it was then announced that the 4th piece would actually be packed with a Disney Store exclusive Captain America. It's common now for Disney Store to commission their own tweaked version of a Diamond release, and an unmasked option is usually the one they go with - either that or battle damaged. The question we will probably never know is what Diamond had planned for this 4th piece originally? So here we now are with this Disney Store exclusive release of the 2016 Civil War Captain America. While the Cap packaging looks identical to the normal Diamond releases it is worth noting that this is a slimmer box design. You also get the Disney Store stamp on the bottom left of the character name panel, just under the Civil War logo. In the window the shield has dropped to bottom of the pack with the alternative hands above. The spare masked head then sits above. The side panel wraps round to the left hand spine and a stunning image of Cap from the movie, but stylised to look painted rather than a direct photograph and these panels alone look awesome when lined up on a display alone, or with other MCU packaging. Round the back is another big change vs the standard release. There is no bio or movie blurb, only a blown up image of the figure stood against his diorama base. Something isn't quite right here either as the head sculpt on this rear image is NOT the one packed in the box. This is frustrating as the illustrated Chris Evans sculpt looks pretty impressive, and is so much better than the repacked 2014 Winter Soldier sculpt that we actually get. Out of the box and Cap stands 7 1/4 inches high - exactly the same as his Winter Soldier release, and consistent with Chris Evan's on screen height. The unmasked head is not a great likeness for Evans and is the same one we got nearly 3 years ago with the Disney Exclusive Winter Soldier Captain America. While the sculpt is the same, there is some improvement in the paint. The hair, while still very yellow, isn't as vibrant as the older 2014 version. The skin tone is also improved and the eyes much more realistic. While you can argue that this unmasked head is packed in extra vs what you got with the vanilla release it is a bonus. Sadly it doesn't feel that way. First off it's not the one shown on the box, and I cannot fathom why Disney Store and Diamond allowed an improved but un-produced head sculpt to be plastered on the packaging. And secondly the unmasked head does not stand up to the sculpt of the masked version in the same pack. Diamond have come on leaps and bounds recently with head sculpts, and to the untrained eye the two heads could be from two different companies they vary so much in quality. Moving to the Masked head now, and although Cap is masked on this figure, you can spot the Evans likeness from just the nose downwards. It is a huge step on from the Evans sculpts we have seen on the previous two figures, and for me is on par with that wonderful Hugh Jackman sculpt on Wolverine from a couple of years back. What also helps with the sculpt is the paint detail. Not only is cap skin-tone spot on, it also has some subtle washing to bring out the sculpt details. The lips are neat and not overly blushed and the eyes are blue and intense behind that mask. The mask is also well sculpted and painted, with that silver A logo on the forehead and the silver wings down either side. At first I thought I had some paint splodge on these wings, but it turns out its a painted rivet and exactly where it should be. The helmet moves down into brown leather straps with painted silver buckle. Moving down and into the costume, and this two is a full re-work from previous suits - there is no re use on this figure despite te temptation to do so from the Stealth Suit at least. The top chest section centre piece is the silver star, and from this the suit runs outward with sculpted lines and panels rather than simply relying on paint detail. Around this are the shoulder straps, again in brown leather and with silver buckle detail. The blue isn't washed as such on the suit, but a darker shade is used for contrast on the Cap's under-suit around the neck and around the star to make that pop even more. This same dark blue is used subtly on the arms in a couple of areas, as is the brown leather strapping. The arms are crowned at each shoulder with a red and silver Avengers logo. I thought at first this is decal, but it has a relief to it that I am still not sure if this is actually part of the sculpt and hand painted? The hands on Cap are brown finger-less gloves and he comes with the gripping set fitted. These two have a lot of sculpted detail, with a ribbed section to the back of the hand and cut outs for each knuckle which is then painted in the skin tone. They are also washed to bring out the depth and my only minor grips is that this brown wash is also used on the fingers and here it makes them look dirty - although I guess while fighting Iron-Man in that Soviet bunker that is exactly what Cap's hands would be. The best bit on the entire figure for me is the midriff where the red and white comes in on the costume. Diamond have resisted the temptation to make this bright and shiny - something that both Figuarts and Hasbro did with their Civil War Cap. Instead this centre section is muted and the white dirty and used, again giving the Cap some character. Within each muted white panel is some more washing that brings out even more depth. The belt, like the Winter Soldier Cap, is loose to the figure and you can see why when we start to look at the articulation. This belt is a brown leather matt colour and with a brushed silver buckle - again not bright and shiny, but dull and world worn. The legs continue the detail started in the upper areas, although here you can now see a movement to reflect real cloth not armour of sorts. The legs are therefore sculpted more with fold and ruffles of cloth and not clean lines - building to a real stuffing of the trousers into the top of Cap's military boots. These boots are painted a darker brown and are sculpted with three straps round to the side where there are well defined and painted buckles. Lets look at the Shield next, always an import part to any Captain America figure. The shield is also not a re-use and has been shrunk down since the Winter Soldier figure by a good half inch to 2 1/2 inch across. The shield had never bothered me before on the two previous releases, but not you see the proportions of this one to the figure then the WW2 and WS versions now look over-sized. The shield is a high gloss finish, particularly the red which is even glossier than the Mk46 armour on Iron-Man. Each ring is neatly painted and finishes with the blue inner circle and five pointed silver star. The detail continues round the back with a brushed silver (vibranium) reverse and then two sculpted straps which then turn into flexible straps for Cap. At first I struggled with getting the shield to fit snugly on the arm - and the key is to use the flat hands for the shield poses on whichever arm you see fit. These flat palms swap in and out neatly and allow the shield straps to slide into place and far enough up Cap's arm to keep it tight in position. The other set of hands are the fists, and sadly the size issue we had with Bucky continues here and both fists look tiny to the body. Articulation now, and so far the Civil War range has seen impressive articulation on Bucky, and not so impressive on Iron-Man. I am happy to say that Cap actually surpasses Bucky and is one of the best articulated Select figures I have ever owned or reviewed. We start with a ball jointed head, with the ball also on a pivot so the head can rotate, tilt and look up and down - so much so that Cap can actually look at his feet with his chin touching the chest of his suit. The arms are a standard ball jointed shoulder with the arms reaching out to the side to a full 90 degrees and then of course they rotate so can be raised up above Cap's head, or any combination in between. The elbows also give a full 90 degree bend, and with a rotation built in too. The hands are pegs but with a hinge between peg and hand and this allows the hand to bend also nearly 90 degrees - regardless of which hand combination is in place. Unlike the previous Cap, there is now a torso joint that is neatly hidden where the red & white midriff meets the upper armour. This opens Cap up to a lot of action poses, particularly throwing his shield of leaning in to strike an opponent. The waist is then also jointed to rotate, hidden by that flexible belt, adding more movement to the torso. The legs remain the T-joint hinge used on most Selects. This means Cap, like Bucky, can do the splits but sadly thanks to the sculpted rolls in the trousers they are blocked from getting much past half way to a sitting position. That being said they move far enough to work with the knees to allow Cap to adopt some kneeling and sliding action poses, and even to make him look like he is jumping with an appropriate stand. The knees are double-jointed and can be bent fully past 90 degrees, with the joint cleverly built into a knee pad of the suit. And if you need it there is also a thigh swivel to adjust the legs and therefore feet out or inward to the body. The figure ends with rockers on the ankles, hidden in a split in the boot, to allow you to plan the feet securely in a number of poses and keep Cap standing. My one issue with all this articulation is some rubbing paint on the hands in particular, and rubbing where the top of the legs start hitting the torso when they are bent. For me the most important part of finding and buying this figure wasn't Cap, it was the ability to finish the Avengers Facility backdrop that has been sat unfinished for nearly 6-months. The base for unmasked Cap is packed in two parts, with a small bag of clips and connectors taped with the Diamond mini catalogue in the inner tray. To assemble the base the small slots on the base section are lined up with two X shaped connectors, and once these are in place the larger cream back wall can be slotted into position. Once the single section is build it can be slid into place with the other pieces, and linked in using the connectors. Once built the base runs 21 inches across, and stands nearly 11 inches high - meaning even your Select Hulk will still stand without his head sitting above the top of the backdrop. The Avengers logo now sits dead central and while you could leave it displaying the four figures it comes with - it has the ability to house many more. I scored the basic release of Civil War Captain America a very hefty 5 out of 5, and even said at the time that a good sculpted unmasked head would push it to legendary status and I would have scored it a 5* rating here in the Archives. You would argue this Disney Store exclusive should get at least the same score. But I want to consider the issues with this figure. First up is the fact you are having to double dip on Cap just to build the diorama base. Secondly is the baited good sculpt on the back of the packaging, and an older inferior sculpt packed in the box. And third is the gap in getting this out to fans. I've had, as I said earlier, an unfinished diorama for close to 6 months - only now (nearly a year since the movie) am I able to complete it. All that considered, I am going to score this Captain America Disney Store Variant a 4 out of 5.

Review : Captain America (Civil War) Diamond Select Marvel Cinematic Universe Wave/Series : Civil War Released : August (US) / September (UK) 2016 Price : £19.99 Prior to this this release, we had been given two different Captain America figure from his first two movies in Diamond's Movie Select range. The first World War 2 release was a relatively early figure for the range, but still stands up well today and matches his look from the first movie. The decision was made to skip Avengers in 2012 in lieu of other characters like Hulk and Hawkeye, so the next Cap was from Winter Soldier - and here they went with the Stealth Suit, with a battle-damaged unmasked variant also released via Disney store. Come Age of Ultron and again Cap was skipped, and that has left Avengers team builders left without a remotely screen accurate cap to lead them. So we are now at 2016 and with Civil War, Cap is back as the lead figure - and finally collectors of the MCU Select figures have the Captain America they deserve - and arguably one of the finest released to date across the range. Like Bucky and Iron-Man, Cap arrives in the bulky blister pack with the left hand panel in a variating blue with the Captain America character name in bold white font with the Marvel logo up top and the Civil War at the base. Shooting off this panel on the front is the triangular flash that contains a head and shoulder action shot of Cap and his shield. The side panel wraps round to the left hand spine and a stunning image of Cap from the movie, but stylised to look painted rather than a direct photograph and these panels alone look awesome when lined up on a display alone, or with other MCU packaging. Round the back and all three Civil War releases share the same text overview of the movie, and to the side of this is a shot of the Cap figure himself. Under this sits an "also available" piece with images of Iron-Man and Winter Soldier. Back around to the front and you will see Cap in the large blister window and the space of this window is nicely filled around Cap with two sets of spare hands and a large metallic Avengers "A" logo - more on these a bit later. Out of the box and Cap stands 7 1/4 inches high - exactly the same as his Winter Soldier release, and consistent with Chris Evan's on screen height. Although Cap is masked on this figure, you can spot the Evans likeness from just the nose downwards. It is a huge step on from the Evans sculpts we have seen on the previous two figures, and for me is on par with that wonderful Hugh Jackman sculpt on Wolverine from a couple of years back. What also helps with the sculpt is the paint detail. Not only is cap skin-tone spot on, it also has some subtle washing to bring out the sculpt details. The lips are neat and not overly blushed and the eyes are blue and intense behind that mask. The mask is also well sculpted and painted, with that silver A logo on the forehead and the silver wings down either side. At first I thought I had some paint splodge on these wings, but it turns out its a painted rivet and exactly where it should be. The helmet moves down into brown leather straps with painted silver buckle. Moving down and into the costume, and this two is a full re-work from previous suits - there is no re use on this figure despite te temptation to do so from the Stealth Suit at least. The top chest section centre piece is the silver star, and from this the suit runs outward with sculpted lines and panels rather than simply relying on paint detail. Around this are the shoulder straps, again in brown leather and with silver buckle detail. The blue isn't washed as such on the suit, but a darker shade is used for contrast on the Cap's under-suit around the neck and around the star to make that pop even more. This same dark blue is used subtly on the arms in a couple of areas, as is the brown leather strapping. The arms are crowned at each shoulder with a red and silver Avengers logo. I thought at first this is decal, but it has a relief to it that I am still not sure if this is actually part of the sculpt and hand painted? The hands on Cap are brown finger-less gloves and he comes with the gripping set fitted. These two have a lot of sculpted detail, with a ribbed section to the back of the hand and cut outs for each knuckle which is then painted in the skin tone. They are also washed to bring out the depth and my only minor grips is that this brown wash is also used on the fingers and here it makes them look dirty - although I guess while fighting Iron-Man in that Soviet bunker that is exactly what Cap's hands would be. The best bit on the entire figure for me is the midriff where the red and white comes in on the costume. Diamond have resisted the temptation to make this bright and shiny - something that both Figuarts and Hasbro did with their Civil War Cap. Instead this centre section is muted and the white dirty and used, again giving the Cap some character. Within each muted white panel is some more washing that brings out even more depth. The belt, like the Winter Soldier Cap, is loose to the figure and you can see why when we start to look at the articulation. This belt is a brown leather matt colour and with a brushed silver buckle - again not bright and shiny, but dull and world worn. The legs continue the detail started in the upper areas, although here you can now see a movement to reflect real cloth not armour of sorts. The legs are therefore sculpted more with fold and ruffles of cloth and not clean lines - building to a real stuffing of the trousers into the top of Cap's military boots. These boots are painted a darker brown and are sculpted with three straps round to the side where there are well defined and painted buckles. Lets look at the Shield next, always an import part to any Captain America figure. The shield is also not a re-use and has been shrunk down since the Winter Soldier figure by a good half inch to 2 1/2 inch across. The shield had never bothered me before on the two previous releases, but not you see the proportions of this one to the figure then the WW2 and WS versions now look over-sized. The shield is a high gloss finish, particularly the red which is even glossier than the Mk46 armour on Iron-Man. Each ring is neatly painted and finishes with the blue inner circle and five pointed silver star. The detail continues round the back with a brushed silver (vibranium) reverse and then two sculpted straps which then turn into flexible straps for Cap. At first I struggled with getting the shield to fit snugly on the arm - and the key is to use the flat hands for the shield poses on whichever arm you see fit. These flat palms swap in and out neatly and allow the shield straps to slide into place and far enough up Cap's arm to keep it tight in position. The other set of hands are the fists, and sadly the size issue we had with Bucky continues here and both fists look tiny to the body. Articulation now, and so far the Civil War range has seen impressive articulation on Bucky, and not so impressive on Iron-Man. I am happy to say that Cap actually surpasses Bucky and is one of the best articulated Select figures I have ever owned or reviewed. We start with a ball jointed head, with the ball also on a pivot so the head can rotate, tilt and look up and down - so much so that Cap can actually look at his feet with his chin touching the chest of his suit. The arms are a standard ball jointed shoulder with the arms reaching out to the side to a full 90 degrees and then of course they rotate so can be raised up above Cap's head, or any combination in between. The elbows also give a full 90 degree bend, and with a rotation built in too. The hands are pegs but with a hinge between peg and hand and this allows the hand to bend also nearly 90 degrees - regardless of which hand combination is in place. Unlike the previous Cap, there is now a torso joint that is neatly hidden where the red & white midriff meets the upper armour. This opens Cap up to a lot of action poses, particularly throwing his shield of leaning in to strike an opponent. The waist is then also jointed to rotate, hidden by that flexible belt, adding more movement to the torso. The legs remain the T-joint hinge used on most Selects. This means Cap, like Bucky, can do the splits but sadly thanks to the sculpted rolls in the trousers they are blocked from getting much past half way to a sitting position. That being said they move far enough to work with the knees to allow Cap to adopt some kneeling and sliding action poses, and even to make him look like he is jumping with an appropriate stand. The knees are double-jointed and can be bent fully past 90 degrees, with the joint cleverly built into a knee pad of the suit. And if you need it there is also a thigh swivel to adjust the legs and therefore feet out or inward to the body. The figure ends with rockers on the ankles, hidden in a split in the boot, to allow you to plan the feet securely in a number of poses and keep Cap standing. My one issue with all this articulation is some rubbing paint on the hands in particular, and rubbing where the top of the legs start hitting the torso when they are bent. Like all the Civil War figures Cap comes with that off-white Avengers facility backdrop. This comes complete and works nicely on its own, although like the Iron-Man figure it does have a hole in the face of the wall. Once assembled, using the clips provided in a baggie with your Diamond Select fold out brochure, all three bases link in to make a pretty impressive back drop. And it is here that the silver Avengers A comes into play as this slots into the corresponding holes on the Cap and Iron-Man base. It does however become apparent at this point with the base fully built that it needs a further left hand piece to finish it off. What Diamond originally had planned for this 4th piece is not known, but you can finish off your diorama by purchasing a further Winter Soldier and reversing the base - or waiting for the upcoming release of the unmasked Captain America, and we will be taking a good look at this figure when it hits stores. I stand by my opening statement at this point that Captain America Civil War is the finest Marvel Cinematic figure released by Diamond to date. As much as I love Ant-Man, Falcon or the previous king of the pile, Wolverine, this Cap blows all of them way in terms of sculpt, painting and articulation. I considered if this Cap was good enough to be the 2nd ever recipient of our 5* rating - but it is probably not quite there. If they could replicate all of this plus a new Evans head sculpt for the Disney version, then that would clinch a 5*, but it looks like the Disney Store version is only getting a recycled Winter Soldier unmasked head. Captain America therefore walks away with a 5 out of 5 and will take some beating to the title of best Select Movie figure (although Dr Strange is already looking impressive). Buy from Amazon UK Buy from Amazon US Buy from Forbidden Planet

Review : Iron-Man Mk46 Diamond Select Marvel Cinematic Universe Wave/Series : Civil War Released : August (US) / September (UK) 2016 Price : £19.99 Diamond Select's output for 2016's Captain America Civil War consisted of three figures - The Winter Soldier, Captain America and the figure we looking at here Iron-Man. Iron-Man arrives in the usual oversized Select packaging, with a blue theme that is consistent across all three Civil War figures. Down the left hand side of the large blister is the character name, specified as Iron Man Mark 46. Under this, in the flash triangle is a head and torso shot of the Mark 46 armour - this doesn't look to be from the film, but rather an artist's interpretation. Round the left hand side is the gorgeous art panels that Select figures are famous for - and here too the image feels more like a piece of artwork and not an image from the film and to be honest it works better and sits perfectly alongside the images on the Bucky and Cap packaging. Round the back the card is identical across all three releases in terms of the wording in the large text panel that talks about the premise on which the Civil War movie is based. To the side of this is an image of the figure itself, and underneath a checklist of "also available" and here you get images of Bucky and Cap. Out of the box and Iron-Man sits in the huge inner tray and looks a little lost with only a single pair of hands as accessories. Behind him sits the base piece, which we will get too shortly. Iron-Man stands dead on 7 inches high, and as we will see later on this is a tad short for my liking. I must admit at this point I am not a huge fan of the Mark 46 design. I think the Iron-Man armours hit their high point around Mark 6, and these more modern "Apple-esque" designs are not to my taste. That being said this is not the figures fault, and the figure faithfully represents the armour as seen on screen. It starts with that more streamlined head which retains the usual faceplate. Down to the chest is the arc reactor, around this are a number of panels and joints all of which are crisp and angular. The arms are quite chunky around the biceps and again are made up of various sculpted and interlocking panes. The forearms thin out a little and end in the open paled hands, compete with repulsors. The waist and hips are quite slim, and you this is where the figure starts to look more like a robot than a man in a suit. The legs continue that panel detail down through some wide calves and into the feet - again with repulsors built in. While I have some concerns with the proportions I can have no fault with the paint applications which are high gloss across the red and gold and with trimmed silver and elements of blue. The paint is crisp and with no bleed, but where I can find a fault is around the joints where the paint is already flaking and I do wonder what the longeivity of this high gloss paint will look like? The elephant in the room, which I have skirted round a couple of times now, is Iron-Man's height. He is tiny and is the smallest Iron-Man figure to date - even against the very early Mark 4/6 sculpt. He also looks bizarre stood directly next to The Winter Soldier or Captain America who both tower over him by a good quarter of an inch. I do not understand the decision to make this figure so small. Even if you look at the actors height, Robert Downey Junior stands 1.74m compared to Chris Evans at 1.83m and Sebastian Stan at 1.83m. It is as though Diamond have forgotten to factor in the suit and have proportioned the figure directly to the actor. Iron-Man should stand closer to 2m (7 1/2 inch at least) for me in the armour and be taller or at least on par with Cap when face to face. There is a fix if you want and that is to heat the hips and pull out the hip joints and then plug those with some tissue - this will gain you a bit, but not enough. Articulation is also quite poor on the figure, especially compared to the movement we can get on Bucky and Cap. The head rotates fully and can look down, at least when it is positioned forward. The arms are ball jointed at the shoulders, and these can get out to almost 90 degrees. They also rotate but watch as this is one of those weak spots for paint rub and flaking. The elbows bend partially, but not to 90 degrees as the armour prevents this. This wasn't an issue on early Iron-Man figures like the Mk42. Here again the paint will start to flake as the elbows are moved. The hands are on pegs but will only rotate, and this is a shame as you can't bend the open palm back on itself to get that iconic firing position. The hands are swapable with open handed and closed fist options. These swap out easily enough and, unlike the fists on Cap and Bucky, are well proportioned. The legs start with a ball jointed hip, and not the usual T-joint that Diamond like to use. This swings fully out to the side if you wish - although why would Iron-Man be doing the splits? It can't however do the same in front and stops at about half way to the right angle - this means Iron-Man won't sit, and more importantly has zero chance of that fist down Iron-Man Super Hero landing pose. There is also a feeling that these hips are also going to suffer from getting very loose very quickly. Even in the short time I've had and been posing this figure for the review the hips are already swinging quite freely. The knees are better being a double joint, neatly hidden behind the knee armour. This double joint allows the knee to bend past 90 degrees and this does at least allow Iron-Man to kneel on both knees. And finally into the feet and these are on a rocker to aid stability. And the good thing for anyone wanting a flying pose that the feet can be pointed down slightly, just not as much as you may like. Iron-Man of course comes with no other accessories aside from those spare hands. Purists would have wanted to see a swap-out Robert Downey Jr head, but this is not forthcoming - not even as a Disney Store Exclusive. The other thing that might have been nice was a flying stand, as this would have gone some way to mitigate the height issue. He does however come with part of that nice Avengers Facility display as well as the connecting pieces that you will find in a baggie attached to the Diamond advertising booklet. The sections do marry up neatly with plenty of connectors to square the whole thing up across the base and across the back of the section. The Iron-Man section also includes the hole for the Avengers Logo that you will need to buy Captain America to obtain. Iron-Man Mark 46 has some positives, but also plenty of negatives. The height is the biggest and a poor decision by Diamond. The paint flaking may be a bigger issue going forward, we will have to see - but I do get the fact that high gloss metallic paint is difficult to apply on a figure costing £20. Articulation has gone backwards from the Mk42, although the joints on the 46 are better looking. It's difficult to score a figure that on its own would be pretty well received, but once included in a display with it's peers it looks undersized and wrongly scaled. To that end I am going to go with a score of 3 out of 5. Buy from Amazon UK Buy from Amazon US Buy from Forbidden Planet

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. Buy from Amazon UK Buy from Amazon US Buy from Forbidden Planet

Up until very recently I didn't know very much at all about Ant-Man, and in a way that is why I am very excited for the movie as opposed to some of the prior Marvel Cinematic Universe Movies having no prior knowledge or expectations of the character. This review is being written (6th July 2015) before the release of the Movie so there will be no real reference to the film or storyline - this also means the review is spoiler free (other than the look of Ant-Man himself which has been revealed already within trailers and film posters). Ant-Man is arriving from Diamond Select in two versions. The first, announced back at New York Comic Con 2014 is a standard release containing a masked Ant-Man with mini Ant-Man accessory. This was then followed up by the announcement in June 2015 of a Disney Store Exclusive Ant-Man. It is this exclusive that has arrived in stores first and that we are reviewing today. Ant-Man, in his Disney store exclusive guise, arrives in slimmed down Marvel Select packaging which may frustrate seasoned MOC collectors. It is then interesting that the standard release (without the Paul Rudd head) is the normal full size packaging. The side artwork has however survived on both and Ant-Man remains badged under the "Avengers Initiative" which you can speculate with all you want as to where he will go after his stand alone origin film On the rear is a blown up image of Ant-Man but none of the usual blurb about the movie or character. With no other figures being released from the Ant-Man movie there is also no advertising of other figures in the range. Talking Disney Exclusive First - Once unpacked you are greeted with Ant-Man with his Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) head attached. In the inner insert you will also find his masked head, two additional pairs of hands and a mini Ant-Man. It is worth mentioning that at the time of writing, my Ant-Man has a faulty helmeted head with part of the side completely missed at the factory. Disney Stores customer service is awesome and a replacement is forthcoming, but have pressed on with the review. I hope to update the gallery with additional images when the replacement arrives. Ant-Man stands dead on 7" high, so the same 1/10 scale as the other MCU figures released to date. The body sculpt is very good and includes the various panels and trim that you see on the movie costume. There is plenty of detail built into the suit like the neck and shoulder machinery and similar details on the wrist and across the belt. The masked head is really nice and is a decent representation of the new movie mask, with panels either side of the head that connect into breathing pipes that are part of the back of the figure. The alternative Paul Rudd head is not a bad likeness considering DST's track record on head sculpts. Yes, its not up to NECA standards - but they are certainly getting closer to emulating the results they got on the 2013 Wolverine. Paint wise the head is neat enough but I am really not sure if the chin is meant to be stubble or dirt? He also comes with 3 sets of hands. The first set are fists. The second set with open palms and the third set with a wider grip. With no accessories as such to hold, the hands seem to be purely for poses with the exception of the wider grip which can hold the masked head as though it were a helmet - a pose I kind of like. Paint across the rest of the figure, at first glance, looks great with the figure being made up of a predominantly black suit, red panels and silver trim. All the areas that needed to be painted are all neatly done, but sadly the factory seem to have been over generous with the red and silver paint. There is no bleeding of paint as such between areas, but there are messy splotts of paint which is disappointing. The majority of these are silver spots, but on my figure is a huge splodge of red on the left shoulder as you look at him. The paint defects are the first I have seen to this degree with a DST figure and I may have been unlucky, or was the factory rushing to fulfil getting this into Disney Stores ahead of the film (and standard figure) release? Articulation is the usual standard you expect from DST. The head rotates side to side and looks up and down, and is pretty easy to swap out. Ball jointed shoulders allow the arms to move out perpendicular to the body and then rotate around that axis, so they can even get almost vertical above his head. There is then an elbow joint and swivel and pivot wrists - with the hands all coming off and going back on very neatly with little effort or that feeling of "am I going to break this" The chest joint simply allows you to rotate the torso left or tight, it has no back or forth movement. If you wish the torso can rotate a full 360 degrees, but as the red chest panels are meant to line up with those on the stomach I sense that the chest joint wont get move too much by collectors. The hips are a two way joint so can move out to the side, or swing up, although not quiet enough to get into a sitting position or that Iron Man-esque fist punching floor pose we have seen in a couple of trailers. The knees are jointed, and the rockers on the ankle make him easy enough to stand. But what of the 2nd figure? Well this is a lovely touch, a 1.5" non-articulated Ant-Man. As you can imagine at this scale the sculpt is not as good as that on the main figure, but its pretty close with visible detail in the helmet and belt area. He is also pretty nicely painted, but like big brother also has a couple of silver spots in the wrong place from messy painting. The missed opportunity for me however with the whole figure is the lack of that signature DST base, which would have been brilliant as a miniaturised set like a shower plug or similar. If you look at the vanilla release (masked head) there is no difference at all to the Disney exclusive other than the thicker packaging. When I saw both figures I was unsure why anyone would buy the basic version, but if you are a MOC collector then I can see why the bigger size packaging would fit with a collection. For marking I am going to ignore the helmet issue which is a factory error and is being resolved by Disney without fuss. The sculpt and articulation are great, the paint not so much and it is those lazy paint drops and the missed opportunity of a diorama base that stop Ant-Man getting top marks. 4 out of 5 from me for both versions.

It has taken a little over 4-years, but Diamond have lived up their commitment to bring us a Black Widow figure and allow fans to finally Assemble the original 6 Avengers, albeit in varying outfits from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Widow arrives alongside two tweaked figures in Thor and Hulk, and one might speculate that Diamond had to go with re-use figures in order to support a Black Widow figure - particularly when other companies never go much further than what they class as the Big 4 Avengers (Iron Man, Cap, Hulk and Thor). Widow arrives in the standard Select packaging and in the matching grey colouring they have used in 2015 for the Age of Ultron figures, and for the 2015 Ant-Man. The Avengers Initiative logo sits in the bottom left of the front panel and the character artwork panel is as striking as any I have seen so far. On the rear of the packaging is a small bio of Black Widow along with an action shot. What is interesting is that unlike other releases, the main action shot on the reverse is of Scarlet Johansson as Black Widow and not a shot of the figure - this was also found to be the case on the back of the Hulk & Thor packages. We can speculate as to why, but the simplest answer is probably the packaging went to print before the figure was signed off. Once out of the box Widow stands 7" high and when lined up to fellow Avengers she fits, albeit I would have expected her to be shorter than Hawkeye... Widow comes packed with the other half of the Age of Ultron themed base that we saw in the Thor pack (see above) more on this at the end of the review. Also packed in are a set of alternative hands, a pair of batons and a hand gun. Even though sculpted in the main by Gentle Giant, face sculpts have never been really strong with Diamond figures (Wolverine aside) but in this case it is a good likeness for Johannson and the hair in particular is really well sculpted. They have used a slightly too pale skin tone for Widow which does throw the face off a little, but the eyes and mouth are neatly done and the temptation to go with a ridiculous red lip gloss has been avoided unlike other female characters we have seen in other lines. The eyes on mine are looking to her right which you can see in many of the images below. I am not sure if this is intentional, but I think it adds character for my display. The hair is a good colour match and has both darker wash and brushed highlights to give it real depth. Onto the body and the proportions are pretty much right - so Widow doesn't look like a Barbie. The jumpsuit itself is very plain and painted a flat black, and the sculpted has "unzipped" the top a little further down than maybe Scarlett would have liked. When you start looking the jumpsuit is brought to life with varying panels and gadgets around the wrists and an electric blue stripe down the sides of the torso and down the arm. A separate belt piece sits neatly at the waist and provides a holster for the hand gun. Down into the legs and there are sculpted knee panels and a thigh strap which I think is meant to look like part of the holster. Instead of leaving these black they have been painted a different shade which is a nice touch. The boots are the most complex element of the costume and finish the costume nicely. Well done so far Diamond. The batons that are supplied are a representation of the ones Widow uses in Age of Ultron. Sadly the blue paint doesn't work. It is too light and in no way represents the electric batons we see in the movie. The gun therefore is my preferred weapon of choice, but there is only one. I would have loved to see two of them and allow fans to have a go at that famous two handed weapon pose from the first Avengers movie. Articulation starts with a ball jointed head that can rotate a full 360 degrees. Shoulders are ball jointed, and with Widow being in a tight fitting jumpsuit there is a massive range of motion both out to the side and up over the head. The elbows are jointed and the hands on both a swivel and a pivot. I am not 100% clear why a 2nd pair of hands has been provided as there isn't much difference between the two. They swap out easily enough, but I have found the set fitted in the packaging is sufficient to hold both the batons and the gun. Widow has a torso joint with another good range of movement allowing her to lean forward and lean backwards and to swivel her top torso to either side vs her waist. The waist itself is fixed as are most Select's nowadays. The hips are ball jointed and can move to the side to a splits position and also forward to an almost seated position. There is a thigh swivel which helps if you are going for an action pose - but sadly once turned the blue line of the costume doesn't line up and the thigh starts to look a peculiar shape. The knees bend on a double joint, as do the ankles. The cleverest part is a pivot half way between the ankle and the heel of the shoe which lets you get the leg out to the side while having the foot still planted flat to the floor. This allows for some nice crouching positions. The base that comes along with Widow is "OK". It's nothing special and doesn't scream Age of Ultron too me. Perhaps with some smashed Ultron drones in place it would have been elevated, but as it stands it is pretty average. There is no complexity in connected it to the Thor base, they simply but up against each other with no fixings. My only key issue as I write this review is quality, something I haven't really ever had a problem with on Marvel Select figures until this year. The Widow I received came out of the box with a removable left leg. It is not snapped, but rather the joint is mis-formed which means the leg pops on and off at will, mostly off when am trying to get her posed. As a one off I would put this down to factory error, but I had a similar factory mould issue on Ant-Man a month or so ago and have heard similar stories from other collectors. At this point I am awaiting a response from the store as to what to do with this problem - hopefully it will be resolved and is not inherent on all the Widow figures out there. Putting the fault to the side (it is a watch out for you though if you are going to pick this figure up) then Widow comes in with a 4 out of 5 score. Good sculpt, paint a little flat and too pale, very good articulation but the base is a bit "meh" and the accessories feel lacking - would it have cost too much for another hand gun? So that pretty much ends the Marvel Select offerings for 2015 in terms of the Movie figures. Our eyes now turn to 2016 and Civil War and the hope that the repacks & repaints were a one off this year, and 2016 will see a strong line up of figures to bolster our collections.