Marvel Legends

Hasbro hasn't been bashful about dropping Spider-Man Marvel Legends waves a few times a year. Alongside the Avengers, Spidey has provided the foundation on which the Marvel Legends collections these past few years have been built. With that in mind, it's getting to be a bit of a challenge to find new versions of Spider-Man to include. Using Spider-Verse as a bit of inspiration, Hasbro's turned out a terrifically diverse set that gives us a new twist on Peter Parker, Miles Morales and Venom --- all characters that have been seen in the Legends line before. Coupled with those three, we also get our first Silk, a fantastic Electro and a delightfully creepy Hobgoblin. In a year when we were fast approaching Spider-saturation, Hasbro found a way to keep things fresh.

This year has been all about Captain America over in the Marvel Legends world. That kind of thing tends to happen when you're the star of a blockbuster film that perfectly fits within the Hasbro toy line's purview. On his third wave of the year, Hasbro has turned to some unexpected characters to fill out the roster. Though some have been characters fans have been waiting to see for years, others quite curiously make the cut in a time when nobody could have seen them coming --- Toy Fair previews notwithstanding. Since this is the third Captain America line in the last 12 months, it also happens to be the weakest of the bunch. Ordinarily, a collection of characters like this might rate a little bit better, but having to follow the likes of Cap Wolf and Mockingbird or Black Panther and Nick Fury means this bunch of characters had an uphill battle from the get go.

It's been a long time since the Marvel Legends toy line has dabbled with the likes of the X-Men. There have been a few lines here and there, but the frequency of Avengers and Spider-Man series has drowned out the past efforts rather loudly. This most recent wave of figures bodes well for the future of X-Men at Hasbro though. The last time we saw the X-Men, it was a smaller set with a Build-a-Jubilee available only at Toys 'R Us. This wave is available everywhere, and it's huge. I don't just mean there are a lot of figures --- there are eight in total --- I mean it's physically massive. That's thanks in part to the Build-a-Figure being Juggernaut, who is among the biggest BAFs offered in the line. Still, eight figures is about as big as a collections in the Marvel Legends line get, but it's hard to be disappointed when the roster is as strong as this one.

Back in 2005, Brian Michael Bendis and David Finch teamed up on New Avengers, which spun out of the events of "Avengers Disassembled." The book's first arc introduced an all-new Avengers team --- the first of about eleventy dozen Avengers roster shake-ups in the last decade. "Breakout" served as a reason to get the new team together, but also showcased some of Marvel's most forgotten supercriminals, and it also provided the inspiration for Hasbro's Marvel Legends San Diego Comic-Con exclusive this summer. With The Raft superprison serving as the foundation, the Marvel Legends team crafted a well-made, well-rounded box set focused almost entirely on some of Marvel's notable big bads, and a few that would like never have gotten figures in the standard retail line. Of course Spider-Man is there to keep them all in check, as best he can anyway. We all remember how well it worked when he was the first through the door back in the comic.

Two weeks ago, Hasbro and Marvel announced the final four for this year's Marvel Legends fan's choice. After whittling down the field from holdovers from the Maximum Carnage era and Terror to Typhoid Mary, Citizen V, White Rabbit and Songbird, fans were prompted to vote for their favorite to get an action figure. Well, the votes have been tallied, and Songbird has been selected as the fan's choice winner in the 2016 Marvel Legends poll.

In the days leading up to San Diego Comic-Con, Hasbro once again turned to the internet to open up nominations for this year's Marvel Legends Fan Vote. The elite eight finalists were then pitted against one another during the show, with the results of who would be moving onto the final four kept secret... until today. The four candidates vying for action figure greatness in the 6" Marvel Legends line will be perennial Thunderbolt threats Citizen V and Songbird; longtime Daredevil foil Typhoid Mary; and the ultimate dark horse Spider-Man villain that almost no one saw coming, White Rabbit. Only the winner of the next round of voting is guaranteed to become a future Marvel Legends figure.

If there's one thing we can count on at San Diego Comic-Con, it's getting an update on the next batch of characters to be immortalized by Hasbro in the Marvel Legends action figure line. Still kicking strong after all these years, the Marvel Legends brand has been home to a number of outstanding releases as of late, but this SDCC may have taken the cake as the best for reveals yet. Don't believe me? Feast your eyes on this gallery showing of the latest additions from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, some deep cuts from the comics, and if you can believe it, more X-Men!

Do you like the idea of superjails? Not massive incarceration systems in the real world; the kind that host the worst of the worst supervillains in comic books. If the answer is "yes," then boy do we have the San Diego Comic-Con exclusive for you. Next week, Hasbro will offer up a box set of 6" Marvel Legends themed around characters imprisoned in one of Marvel's most infamous hoosegows, The Raft. Six figures will be included, though only five would actually qualify as big bads... with the final figure mostly being a nuisance for J. Jonah Jameson. Spider-Man's been busy this year, particularly with the Marvel Legends brand. Peter's already seen a handful of figures release in different forms through his waves of the Hasbro figure series, but he'll be appearing here yet again. If this year wasn't already packed with so many, it might not be such a letdown --- there are dozens of other heroes that could have been included in a set like this, particularly given the villain roster --- but he's been so populous, you have to wonder why he's back again. That said, the villains are excellent choices for an exclusive like this.

Though Hasbro has been taking its sweet time making its annual San Diego Comic-Con exclusive announcements, the few that have made it out into the wild have been rather exciting. Not only are we finally getting things like a classic trilogy Obi-Wan Kenobi, but a GI Joe an the Transformers set with transforming vehicles for the Joes and Cobra to ride in. The Marvel side of things has been relatively mum, but yesterday the first Marvel Legends exclusive did manage to break free from the depths of space. Coming to Comic-Con in a few weeks will be The Collector's Vault, a box set of 3.75" Marvel Legends with a bit of a cosmic bent. At the center of it all is the Collector, who you may recall from his brief stints in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or as the man in charge of Contest of Champions (both the comic and the game). He's got a few friends and relics to add to the mix, too.

If you somehow have been living on a derelict space station that only just crashed back down on Earth and you missed out on the months of hype for Captain America: Civil War, I guess it's a little late for a Spider-Man spoiler warning. To be fair, even Marvel couldn't help but spill the beans on the webhead's arrival in the Marvel Cinematic Universe by showing him off in trailers and images well before the film hit theaters. Oddly though, while there is plenty of Captain America and Iron Man merchandise to be found from the new film, there's nary a Spider-Man figure to be seen. That changes this summer.