[TAO's Note: We're taking advantage of the recent Iron Man 2 hysteria to bring you this Iron Man 2 toy line crossover with AD's biggest review yet! Ewan pulled out his Marvel Legends Fin Fang Foom figure for a fantastic review including lots of shots with Marvel's smaller scale figures. Enjoy!]
Name: Fin Fang Foom
Line: Marvel Legends Build-A-Figure (Hulk Series)
Manufacturer: Hasbro
Released: 2007
Price: Online: $90-$100
Scale: Figure is 15 inches tall
Accessories: None, he is one! Or eight...
He is known as "He Whose Limbs Shatter Mountains and Whose Back Scrapes the Sun", he's the mythical Chinese dragon of the Marvel Universe(s), he's actually an alien crash-landed from the planet Maklu IV in the Andromeda system, and he's one of Iron Man's most fearsome enemies. Forget Iron Monger, forget Crimson Dynamo and forget Micky Rou...er...Whiplash...because it's none other than FIN FANG FOOM! While he's not got anything to do with the Iron Man 2 3.75" toy line itself, he's got everything to do with Iron Man and if you can believe it, is inevitably tied to the movie and thus the Iron Man 2 toys. For now though, it's unlikely we'll ever see a toy of him in an Iron Man line. So thank goodness we've got a great Marvel Legends version!
"Holy Bejesuses would you look at the size of that thing!" is what Tony Stark would say if they decided Iron Man and Foom should ever clash on the silver screen and I ended up writing the script. Well, it's what I said for sure when I first saw this beast of a "figure," since it's the size of grandma's pet cat. Standing at 15 inches tall, this baby is perfectly in scale with your 3.75 inch Iron Man 2 figures! Well, maybe he might be a little small, but I don't expect them to ever make another version that's gonna be bigger.
Fin Fang Foom is probably the largest Marvel Legends Build-a-Figure to date and his parts comes with 8 different figures:
Savage She-Hulk - Head and Neck
Skaar - Upper torso (chest)
Doc Samson -Lower Torso and Base of Tail
King Hulk - Tip of the tail
Absorbing Man - Right Leg
The (Classic or Savage Grey) Hulk - Left Leg
Wendigo - Right Arm and Wing
End Hulk - Left Arm and Wing
Once you get past his humongous size, you'll notice his fantastic body detailing--not one inch of him is not covered in some form of tooling or detail. For starters, there's great leathery skin all over his face, neck, and tail. There are scales all over his body ranging from very large on his belly to tiny on his upper lip and to even tinier on his ear fins. The head is especially fearsome, with his giant fin-like ears and curved horns. His brow ridge and nose are also beautifully molded, while the fin "mustachios" really bring forth an oriental dragon look. And these fins frame a mouth that reveals some nice sharp teeth and a nice textured mouth floor/tongue all ready to taste the of some super human genes.
All the main parts of this guy is cast in sturdy plastic, with his horns, ears, moustache fins, inside of his thighs, hands, and feet made of slightly more rubbery stuff. But yet the paint and color is seamless, so it really lookss like they didn't cut any corners in making this bad boy.
Sculpt Score: 10 / 10
Fin Fang Foom is mainly two main shades of green. His whole body is cast in a plastic green, while the undersides and highlights painted with a lighter lime green. The whole shebang is then painted with a greyish green wash. The effect is rather impressive, as you can see, with all the texture of his scales, leathery skin and details like the veins in his wings brought out.
One of the few areas of FF that are not green are his eyes, which are red with faint orange irises, a tiny white higlight in each eye, and nice black shading at the edges. It's all very sharp and when I first saw it, thought they had cast the eye separately in a translucent red. But as it turns out it's just a great paint job!
They really didn't pull any punches with the horns, nails, and claws, which are a nice white washed in thin, yellowish bone paint. I'm also glad they made the distinction by keeping his teeth a pure white, setting it apart from the "less used" claws, nails, and horns. The inside of the mouth is also painted a healthy pink for his mouth floor and black for the ceiling, which gives the mouth real depth, like he could really swallow that Mark III figure you wished you hadn't bought. All this comes together really nicely for a fearsome visage.
Paint Score: 9 / 10
Fin Fang Foom's got 28 points of articulation by my count. And probably my favorite has go to be the hinged jaw! I also always love a good chest pivot and FFF has got a great one that allows almost 180 rotation side to side. The double elbows were a pleasant surprise, allowing him to touch his own collarbone, as were swivel/hinge wrists. These are simply magnificent and allow Finny some pretty intricate hand movements to look like he's casting a spell or simply talking with hand gestures, like he's really articulate. (Hey-O! That's my pun for the day...)
Unfortunately, his knees are not as flexible, being able to only bend from a 95 degree angle to 70,75 degrees or thereabouts. So he can't straighten the leg past 90 degrees. It's just as well that Fin's got great hip swivel/hinges, with swivel/hinge ankles and some huge feet. These really save the lower body articulation on the figure and with the help of the tail, provide a really stable base to pose him on.
The tail itself has 2 points of its own and I much prefer to use it as an extra limb or simply just to add movement to whatever pose I put him in, rather than use it exclusively as a balance. But the bottom line is that he's not toppling over anytime soon, which is exactly what a figure of this size needs.
The wings have ball joints but are limited, with their best movement together towards each other. They don't spread out to the sides too well, and if you look at him from the top of his shoulders, the wings move out to 45 degrees towrds each arm at best.
At first found the head/neck combo a little tough to maneuver but once I got the hang of it it was easy to manipulate. Finny can't look up too well, though you can turn the length of the neck without moving the head to make him do this. But it does look a little strange that way, like he's had his neck twisted and broken.
Articulation Score: 7 / 10
Whether it's delivering packages, duking it out with the good guys, terrorizing the top of your display cabinet or simply standing guard at your door, Fin Fang Foom is sheer fun. His size alone warrants that you get out your recently purchased Iron Man 2 figures, all your Marvel Universe dudes (and dudettes) and pile 'em onto ol' Triple F. That he's got doouble jointed elbows and hands that are open just right for figures of that scale is a huge bonus. In fact it seems like he was made for the 3.75 inch scale guys. Can you also imagine Giant Man going one-on-one with the Scaled One? If only I had a Giant Man figure!
What's also fun about this guy is that he's Makluan and crashed on earth a long, long time ago. The technology on his ship is what the Mandarin used to cntruct the Ten Rings. That's of course, also the name of the terrorist group who captured Tony Stark in the first movie and had a hand in Ivan Vanko's escape in the second. The Mandarin has also somehow enslaved Fin Fang Foom and used him to attack Iron Man before, so there might be a snowball's chance in hell that we'll see him in a future Iron Man movie, IM 6 or 7! Ok, wishful thinking's over. But that was fun, wasn't it?
Fun Score: 10 / 10
Because he's from a limited Build-A-Figure series, he costs big bucks right now. The pieces I especially had to pay premium to get were the head and neck (with Savage She-Hulk) and the left arm and wing (from the short packed End Hulk). I have to admit that I was lucky, since I got King Hulk for myself when it first was released (he also costs a pretty penny) and Savage Grey Hulk, who was a birthday gift from the wife-to-be. Doc Samson and the Absorbing Man were cheapish.
But compared to some of the othe DC Universe Classics CnCs I've been tryoing to hunt down, Fin Fang Foom is a steal. Granted, a Darkseid or a Grodd may cost around $20-$30 less than our giant lizard friend here, but those guys are a fraction of his size and weight. To say nothing of Solomon Grundy and Giganta, who cost just as much, if not more than Finny.
While you might get really quality great figures with DCUC and while some of the Marvel Legends sculpts and paint don't really measure up, you still do get a good bunch of characters that might not see production again anytime soon with the dying of the Legends 6" line. And after all, which Build-A-Figure wave/series has parts from the BAF that are at equal and sometimes greater in size and weight to the figure it comes with?
Value Score: 7 / 10
10 / 10 - Always brilliant to behold and looks every bit like your classic Fin Fang Foom. There's nothing I'd change on him. Set him just inside your door to scare all your guests.
9 / 10 - It's all very sharply painted and wondrously washed. The head is an especial delight, with the eyes looking like they're watching you. All the time.
7 / 10 - Fin's got a great range of movement and more PoAs than you could ask for. Some of them, like the wings and the tip of the tail, aren't great, but they're bonus PoAs, really. Very stable figure on twos or on fours.
10 / 10 - A figure that's a villain and can easily be the center-piece of your Marvel Universe collection. He's the perfect size for anything 3.75 inches!
7 / 10 - Costly but compared to some BAFs out there, he's a steal. Factor in his size and weight and you've got a BAF winner.
86 / 100 - This is a Great Toy
If you have the chance to get Fin Fang Foom you should. Afterall, he's not just a giant poseable figure. He's a giant poseable dragon of a figure that's more like a playset or a base (as in base of operations) than an action figure.
-Ewan
This could be the figure given away in this month's Review Commentator Contest. Join the discussion by leaving a comment on this review for a chance to win!
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