Products You May Like
As we march toward the new year and the impending arrival of 2024 Marvel Legends figures, I want to backtrack and finish my in-progress reviews of a couple of this year’s waves. And first up, we’ve got the penultimate figure review in the Hasbro 6” X-Men ‘97 Marvel Legends Series: Storm! Ororo has received a multitude of new action figures in recent years—will this one add anything fresh to your collection?
Over the last couple years, we’ve gotten new toys of Storm from Hasbro clad in costume colors ranging from black to white to blue and yellow, and now we’re back to white once again. That’s not a bad thing, though, as white is probably the most recognized color for a Storm costume and one that should be on shelves fairly regularly.
The twist with this latest white costume Storm figure, though, is that it’s specifically an X-Men 97 animated style figure! The rest of this wave has been rather good—does Storm follow suit?
We just had a pretty swell Retro Storm Legends action figure in white costume available in stores over the last 1-2 years (not to mention a black costume one as well), so you might be asking if there’s any big updates for this Wind Rider to bring to the table. Thankfully, there are.
The biggest enhancement to this new release is the integration of fully pin-free articulation on Storm’s body. As good as the recent 6” Retro figure was, the knee pins really stood out on the white and marred an otherwise beautiful figure.
Thankfully, the modern pin-less articulation on this new Storm fixes that problem entirely—without visible pins messing her up, the figure looks seamlessly magnificent. This is the white costume Storm body you’ll want to rip the heads off your old figures and pop onto to upgrade them.
Storm’s shoulder pads have been tweaked slightly to match the way the yellow stripes are aligned in the new cartoon (and they’re also soft plastic and pegged in to allow Ororo to raise her arms high to fly), but the other big update for this release is the head.
In a rare instance for merch of this character, Storm’s eyes have pupils. I’m a big fan of the classic whited-out eyes, so seeing Ororo’s baby blues peering out at me is a mite disconcerting. If nothing else, it feels different, although I suspect only fans of the upcoming cartoon will really like this innovation.
Likewise, the hair style is a bit unconventional for Storm (or really, any character in the Marvel Legends lineup ever). X-Men 97 Storm is sporting what my wife is calling a “mullet hawk”, which is basically a long Mohawk with a big ponytail. We’ve had Storm with Mohawks and long hair before, but this is something new. It feels very unique, but I’d be lying if I said I thought most fans would prefer this hairstyle on a ML Storm toy.
The way Storm’s cape attached to her wrists via fabric loops looked awkward on the Retro white costume figure, and it doesn’t look any better here. The fabric loops are chunky and ugly. I’m not a toy designer and I’m not sure how to do it better without unique tooling, but I do know I’m not big on the look of how the cape attaches.
The rest of the figure looks rather lovely, though. Her joints move smoothly and stay in place, and standing her up stably is easy enough. Her arms and hands work swell for reaching out to make gesturing poses pretending to summon the elements, although there are definitely no representatives of such elements included.
Like all of the X-Men ‘97 Legends figures Hasbro has put out, Storm is in the lovely blister carded packaging with unique art. Also like the rest of the set, she unfortunately comes with a dearth of accessories. She has just two: a fist and a gesturing hand to pair with the corresponding ones she has by default. The extra hands are… fine… but it genuinely does feel like Hasbro phoned in the bare minimum again here.
This is another instance where I’m outright stunned Hasbro hasn’t included any additional accessories despite the preexisting tooling for lightning and other effects we’ve been given with (cheaper) Storm figures in the past. This whole wave has felt like a below-par value, and I dearly hope Hasbro has better extras planned for the next X-Men Legends set.
Overall: Hasbro finally gives fans the pin-less Storm figure they’ve been waiting for, but I think the lack of accessories and niche animated head will hinder the popularity of this release. The cape’s wrist attachments also look clunky and unappealing. I think this figure does just enough to rate an above-average score, but I still know Hasbro can (and almost certainly will) do a definitive comic-styled white costume Storm Marvel Legends figure within a couple years. This is a solid figure and I don’t regret picking it up, but it is my least favorite in the X-Men ‘97 Marvel Legends series.