REVIEW: Marvel Universe's Havok

Produced by Hasbro | Released April 2010

This week sees the release of X-Men: First Class, the prequel to the popular X-Men movie series that focuses on the origins of the mutant superteam. In a break from regular comicbook continuity, First Class sees younger brother of Cyclops, Alex Summers, AKA Havok as part of this original line-up. In recognition of this, we present our Review of the Marvel Universe's Havok.

Packaging

Havok uses the standard Marvel Universe blister pack packaging. It's worth noting that the figure comes in two variants (with different heads) but both use the same ''modern'' head design on the figure's card.

Havok

Havok isn't a bad representation of his comicbook counterpart but unfortunately Hasbro cut a few corners in his production.

Havok uses the basic ''skinny'' body type, as seen on various Spider-Man and other ''athletic'' characters.  The sculpt has a reasonable amount of detail to it - the musculature is nicely defined and although he's perhaps a little on the thin side, the proportions are fine. It's just unfortunate that there's really not much detail to it.

The head sculpt is an improvement, with Havok's open-faced mask looking pretty good and his hair having a nice spiked effect to it. There's also a bit of a scowl on the figure's face, which I like, as it certainly gives him a bit of character and attitude.

Articulation is pretty weak. I still don't understand how the GI Joe toys (which feature great articulation) and the Marvel Universe line (which are pretty poorly articulated on the whole) can be from the same toy manufacturer and I wish the latter would adopt the former's approach to joint construction.

There's no waist articulation, the hip joints are very limited (and you'll often find the legs popping-off as you pose him) and the foot articulation is particularly lacking, thanks to the ''cuff'' on his shin that prohibits movement substantially.

The paint design is, however, impressive. The energy lines running from his shoulders to his chest and across his back are a great touch and I like that the shoulder ball-joint can be rotated to keep the lines in-tact. It's an impressive design and the application is pretty good, although there is a brush deposit on my Havok's shoulder.

The head's paintwork is fairly reasonable, but his hairline is a little undefined around his mask and there are a couple of flecks of skin-tone on the mask's cheek. They're only really noticeable up-close, so I doubt anybody would see them unless they were looking for them.

Extras

Havok comes with a base, HAMMER file (not shown) and a blue clip-on energy blast.

The energy blast is OK for what it is, but I wish Hasbro would come-up with a better way to attach these accessories. The Iron Man 2 figures feature blasts that fit over the fist/hand, which I think would look a lot better in this case.

Final Thoughts

Havok is another Marvel Universe kitbash and repaint figure that's just really there to make-up the numbers.

The body sculpt is one we've seen time and time again and - given it's not a very good one anyway - I don't get why Hasbro insist on re-using it. Well, I do - it's an expenses thing - but it would have been nice if they'd invested in a better stock body to begin with. On the plus-side though, the paintwork is nicely designed and the blue/white energy lines really do look good and it's this paint-job that saves the figure from being a C+ toy.

There's nothing massively wrong with this figure but at the same time, it's not the most inspiring of toys. As it stands, this is simply another OK figure that you'll probably only pick-up if you're a Marvel Universe completists or a fan of the X-Men/Havok.

Scores

Sculpt	B-
Paint	B+
Articulation	C+
Production Quality	C+
Final Score	B-

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