Sideshow’s Wolverine Figure is Straight Out of the ’80s, and We’re Totally Cool With That

As the third figure in Sideshow's sixth-scale Marvel collection, the classic Wolverine is hardly a bad choice. While it's certainly true there's never been a lack of Wolverine merchandise and action figures available, that's not entirely true at this scale. To this point, there have been a few different Hot Toys pieces celebrating the Hugh Jackman iteration, but next to none based solely on the comic version of the Canadian mutant.

Wolverine will join the recently released Deadpool and upcoming Punisher figures in Sideshow's line, but while those two have been based on what you could consider recent incarnations, Logan here is decidedly dated. The brown costume made its debut back in Uncanny X-Men in the '80s, and has been a fan favorite ever since. There's just something about that period in Wolverine's history that gives this outfit a bit more prominence over nearly every other suit he's worn. It's an inspired choice for Sideshow to use here, and helps make this Wolverine stand out.

With this interpretation, Sideshow's design team has taken some liberties, and put the spandex through a bit of a real-world lens. It gives his clothing a more lived-in appearance, and the tailoring adds nice, subtle details that would otherwise have been smoothed over in a stretch fabric. Though the bracers and boots are sculpted, they too follow suit and are more than just gloves and whatever the hell Wolverine's boots are made of in the comics. The steel toe on the boots and the straps on the bracers really do give an air of realism absent from the costume in the pages of his numerous books.

Wolverine will come with two head sculpts, one masked and one unmasked. Both look terrific in prototype form, and I love that Sideshow went all out with the huge fins. I'm a big fan of the big fin look Wolverine used to have, though the shortened fins look okay in some cases. The unmasked Logan has a perfect grimace, and also includes a little folded-over mask to hang off the back of the costume. There's also some pre-flexed arms to attach in addition to normal, articulated ones. I guess the point of those is to keep the musculature in tact for certain poses. It's nice to have the option, but I honestly don't know why you'd ever use the non-articulated arms.

Sadly, there's only one set of hands that comes with the claws extended. Some of the open palms would still be logistically possible for the claws to be out, but it looks like Sideshow just wanted to focus on clenched fists for that particular aspect of Wolverine's powers. The exclusive version will also include a red Muramasa blade for even more action posing, but it doesn't look like any of those wolves in the promo shots will make the cut.

The Wolverine sixth-scale figure will be available for pre-order starting Dec. 17 at Sideshow's website for $249.99.

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