Sunday, February 18, 2018

Marvel Legends Series Ultimate Riders Black Widow with Bike


Woohoo! Lots of goodies revealed at Toy Fair. This year is going to be great! But let's not get ahead of ourselves just yet. Here's a look at the Marvel Legends Ultimate Riders Black Widow. 




Black Widow I believe is based on her appearance in the All New All Different (ANAD) Marvel. She looks decent. The head sculpt is okay but I'm not happy with her sad looking eyes which is due to the poor paint apps for her eyeliner. Her short hair has good sculpted detail and there's some black shading in it. The body is new. I'm glad they did not just reuse the retro version. That would really be a turn off. This costume looks better. There's quite a lot of creases and wrinkles in her suit and you can also make out the seams. The zipper teeth and ring tab were also sculpted. The style seems to follow that of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The logo and belt design were painted on. I would have liked if the belt was a separate piece. Her Widow's Bite look too big. They look more like gauntlets.  


























She comes with an alternate long hair head and of course, her bike. I would have liked if she came with some guns. She has pre-posed trigger fingers after all.


The alternate head uses the same head sculpt but with a long hair piece. The paint apps is better here. The outline for the eyes were properly done here and she doesn't seem as sad looking. There's good detail for her hair and again there's some black shading in it.  


























I'm not sure if she appeared with long hair in the ANAD Marvel. She certainly did with previous appearances. I tried the head on the retro Black Widow body. She looks pretty good I must say. The head sits a little high but it's passable for me. 



Moving on to her bike. I like the colour scheme which matches her costume colours. The colours have a shine to them but despite that, the bike still comes across as "plasticky". There's some nice sculpted detail for the engine and tyre rims. The tyres have treads and the seat is textured. The engine could use a bit of paint detail. The Black Widow logo was painted on only one side of the bike (pic below). The bike looks great on this side, the opposite side unfortunately has visible screws which spoil the look. The bike has working steering, and also working back suspension which comes as a surprise. It makes it that bit more realistic. The bike is unable to stand on its own and requires the support of the kickstand.  



A view of the "dash". There are stickers for what looks like the speedometer and tachometer.


Now I don't know much about bikes but I feel the foot pegs should be further back. If she were to place her feet on it she'll be half standing when riding and she'll look uncomfortable and awkward on the bike.


Hence I decided to place her further back in the seat with her feet raised back. She's leaning forward and this way and it looks better. 


Her bike is smaller in size compared to Ghost Rider's from the same line. It's more suited for female figures. Male characters look too big on it.






Articulation. She's got a ball hinge neck, ball hinge shoulders, swivel hinge elbows, swivel and up and down hinge right wrist, swivel and lateral hinge left wrist, ball joint torso, ball hips, thigh swivel, double jointed knees and ankle hinge and pivot. She can look up and down okay with short hair. She cannot look up as much and head rotation is slightly hindered with long hair. The ball joint torso allows decent bend forwards, back and to the sides.

































Comparison shots.





The bike is okay. I would have liked it to be bigger. Black Widow is fine too aside for the sad face. I like that they included the alternate long haired head. Thanks for viewing!



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