Marvel Legends Infinite Series: Marvel NOW! Captain America Review

The new Marvel Legends Infinite series has finally hit stores around my area, and the first of the two that I found is this modern, Marvel NOW! Cap. Is it a good representation of good ol' Steve? Read on to find out!

No matter how often Arnim Zola's twisted creations beat him down, Steve Rogers will always stand up!

The new Marvel Legends from Hasbro come in very nice packaging reminiscent of the Star Wars Black Series. There is no tape involved, so it is collector-friendly and is also good for storing accessories.

On the side of the package there is a nice sketch of movie Cap throwing his shield. 

When you open Marvel Legends NOW! Cap, you'll notice that there is no paint shading. This is an ongoing trend with Hasbro's recent Marvel Legends, but Steve's sculpt is so nice that it really begs for a light blackwash to bring out the details. His headsculpt is similar to the Commander Rogers figure in ML1, but the NOW! Cap's head is smaller. The shade of red used on the suit is a smidge too bright, but not enough to make the figure look terrible.

What does bring the figure down is the quality control. There are numerous accounts of the eyes being misaligned or the arms missing grey detail, so look before you buy. The worst of these paint issues is in the abdomen area. The type of paint used is glossy, and it scratches off VERY easily. Moving the ab crunch and posing the figure left an unattractive blue gap in the middle of Cap's torso, so be very careful when handling this figure.

Be careful with your figures!

Paint issues aside, this figure's articulation is wonderful. Cap has a balljointed head on a hinge, balljointed shoulders, a bicep swivel, double jointed elbows (but only the bottom hinge is really functional, the top one barely moves), swivel-hinge wrists, the aforementioned ab crunch, a waist swivel (which was stuck when I got the figure out of the package), T-jointed hips, an upper thigh swivel, double-jointed knees, a calf swivel, and ankle rockers. All in all, an amazing articulation scheme that really makes the figure fun to pose (and makes the paint issues that much worse).

Cap stands about 6 inches tall and works in scale with other Marvel Legends. He is a little too tall for SWB and too short to fight NECA's Predator.

Captain America comes with two accessories: his mighty shield and the BAF piece. The shield is the same shield from all other Hasbro Cap figures (which I don't have) and has a clip so it can attach onto his arm.

The shield can also peg into Cap's back, but it sits a little too high for my liking.

The Mandroid head is an all-new sculpt made of the "swirly" plastic like Iron Monger. I didn't intend on building Mandroid, but the great lineup of figures definitely has me tempted.

All in all, Cap is a good figure. His articulation makes him very fun to play around with and pose, but watch out for that ab crunch!

Steve and Tony

The Marvel Legends Infinite Series is hitting stores right now. At Target, these figures are $14.99, but they are $20 at TRU and Wal-Mart. NOW! Cap is packed two per case, so he probably won't be hard to find. For $15 I'd say this figure is a definite buy, but it's questionable at $20 if you already have a good Cap. Leave your thoughts in the comments below!