Daily Figure Review #18: Apocalypse (Retro Carded, Animated Style, 2022) Marvel Legends

For today’s spotlight figure, I’m looking at last year’s release of Apocalypse.

This giant X-Men bad guy is a retool from the Build-A-Figure released in 2018. While there are some new parts on this figure the most noticeable change is his outfit is purple and blue, as seen in the ’90s X-Men Animated Series. The colors are fairly screen-accurate and make the figure go well with the current X-Men ’97 wave of figures (though not so well with the 2022 VHS releases as their “cell shading” gimmick isn’t used on Apocalypse).

This figure comes with a good number of accessories. Of course, required for Apocalypse, are two tubes that connect his arms to his back. I’m happy to say these are bendy enough to connect without much fuss. You also get four hands, two fists and two open hands.

Then, befitting the character, you get a blaster that can replace one of the hands. The gun was a bit tricky to attach as it required removing both the hand and the wrist gauntlet. You detach the tube from the gauntlet and reattach it to the blaster itself. Figuring this out took me a couple of minutes as the figure has no instructions or images on the back to really tell how this fits on.

This blaster comes with two translucent blast effects, one big and two very, very small. I fear those tiny blast effects seem destined to get lost in the carpet.

The figure also comes with two heads, one with teeth gnashed and the other lips pursed. The paint is great on both these heads, with a lot of detail and a bit of a wash to really bring out the sculpting. That is a change from the body, which is flat plastic, to match the animated aesthetic better.

So many Marvel Legends deluxe figures recently feel like straight redos of, or slight upgrades to, the Build-A-Figures released prior. That this Apocalypse has such a different paint job and some new pieces to match the cartoon makes this feel like proper reuse and not double-dipping. A solid release, especially now that we have the X-Men ’97 figures to compliment it.