Today’s review is the Marvel Legends Infinite Series Absorbing Man wave Jack O’Lantern. This is the primary figure I wanted from this wave. I love Mad Jack in the comics and was so excited to find him discounted on Amazon.
Figures in the Series
Figure Details
Articulation – ★★★☆☆
Overall, the figure can be posed in some really cool looking ways. It’s obvious the articulation was designed for a particular pose (in flight on the broomstick) which is ok. There are some pretty big issues with the hip joints which we’ll see. The figure is still well articulated, but this is the weakest part of the figure.
Total POA’s = 30
- Arms – There are 6 joints per arm.
- Shoulders: Ball Joint as well as a Pin/Hinge Joint. The shoulders have a good amount of motion out and up. The joints are ratcheted and somewhat tight which makes you feel you might break them if you’re not careful.
- Bicep: Peg Joint which works well, but again, this joint seems a bit weak so be careful when moving the shoulder joints or you may break this joint.
- Elbow: Double Pin/Hinge joints provides a decent amount of bend. The forearm cuff seems to impede articulation somewhat.
- Wrist: Peg Joint at about the middle of the forearm. The wrist really needs an additional joint to allow for better posing of the wrists.
- Legs – There are 7 joints in each leg/hip/ankle area.
- Hips: Y-Jointed Ball Joints which are absolutely horrible as well as a Pin/Hinge joint. Good luck getting this figure to do anything but be in a flying pose on his broom stick. Luckily, that’s a pretty cool pose. These joints prevent a natural standing pose. He always looks weird.
- Thigh: Peg Joint. If it weren’t for this joint, the figure would be nearly impossible to pose, so this joint is critical. It can be difficult to work with this joint and the Y-Jointed hips though.
- Knees: Double Pin/Hinge joints in the knees allows for great bend in the knee.
- Ankles: Each ankle has 2 joints. Pin/Hinge Joints. There is almost no forward motion, though backward motion is good. The ankle rocker is ok. I think the biggest issue with the ankles is the peg joint is too far forward on the foot.
- Body – There are 2 joints in the body area.
- Torso: Pin/Hinge joint provides pretty good forward ab crunch as well as backward back arch.
- Waist: Peg Joint that provides good rotation and is hidden very well by the belts.
- Head: A single Ball Joint and a Pin/Hinge disc. I’m not sure if the Pin/Hinge joint does much of anything to increase the head articulation, but it’s there. You’ve got good side-to-side motion. A little bit of upward motion and very little downward motion. There is no tilt.
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Mold – ★★★★★
I love the sculpt work of this figure. I’m not sure what, if any of this figure is new molds beyond the head sculpt, but they did a great job with the parts they used. Jack O’Lantern is a pretty scrawny character in the comics and they nailed that look with this figure. Depending on the way you pose the figure, he can either look really awesome, or really weird. Standing straight is the weirdest look, so probably steer clear of that pose.
The detail work throughout the body is amazing. Everything has some sort of sculpted details from the wrinkles in the pants and shirt, to the awesome sculpt work of the belts.
By far, the best part of this figure is the head sculpt. This thing is just phenomenal, especially for a Hasbro toy. I don’t typically get this excited about the Hasbro head sculpts. They do a decent job, but on this figure, they nailed it x 2. The only issue with this head is they could have given a little more space where the head meets the neck to help with the articulation a bit. Had they hollowed it out a bit, that would have given some more motion.
Overall, they did a superb job and I can’t think of anything that truly warrants the loss of any stars for the sculpt.
Paint – ★★★★☆
The paint app on this figure is just about worthy of a 5 star rating. I wanted to give it to the figure, but there are some minor issues that I wish would have been dealt with, and could have easily been. The good parts are great, however. The head was painted amazingly. The color palate used is just a delight to look at. I might have painted the inside of the mouth and eyes with a slightly darker yellow, but they at least applied the paint really clean.
The other parts of the figure are painted well where there is paint. Most of the body is black with no shading, and that is ok. Where I’d like to have seem some shading of some sort is on the belts and shoulder harness. They painted some of the buckles in silver and they look great, but there are some areas where there is detailed sculpt work, but no black wash, which just makes the figure look a little cheap. Again, I wanted to give this figure all 5 stars, and probably should, but these couple missing points of paint are strong enough detractors that I had to take that star. This is even with the slight color difference in the pumpkin bombs sculpted into the belt. I hadn’t noticed that at first and they look really good.
I could have easily given Jack a 5 here and I doubt many could argue it, but I just couldn’t do it. I wanted to be as objective as possible and I really think the 4 is deserved.
Accessories – ★★★★★
Mad Jack comes with some pretty sweet accessories. I do wish he came with an extra set of hands, but overall, I’m very satisfied with the three accessories he comes with. I’ve listed the accessories below.
- Flame Broom Stick
- Sickle
- Flaming Pumpkin Bomb
The sculpt and paint of each of these accessories is really well done. The flame affects is painted very well and sculpted with translucent plastics to give a really nice flame look. The pumpkin bomb could have used a little extra paint to give it some more detail, but I’m really happy with all of these accessories. The sickle paint was really well done, though perhaps a big over sized.
Considering what we typically get, this is far and above what I would expect.
Packaging – ★★★★☆
Standard Marvel Legends Infinite Series packaging which is great. They’ve updated the look a bit, but overall the packaging is completely the same.
Overall Rating – ★★★★☆
This is one of my favorite Marvel Legends figures now. It actually doesn’t look like the typical Legend fig. It feels like it could be from a different line because it’s so different and so much better looking than most of their sort of reused figures. Whether you like Jack O’Lantern in the comics or not, if you’re a collector of 6″ figures, you really need this figure in your collection. He’s gonna look awesome flying above your spider-man collection ready to drop some pumpkin bombs.
Do you have any of these figures? If so, do you have a review to share? Please share in the comments or link to your review.
TechChucker's Brain Blast 