The legendary line that was called Marvel Legends changed the toy industry in a big way. Detailed sculpting, excellent paint applications, appropriate accessories, and a high level of articulation were all features of high end 12 inch collectable markets.   But Toybiz found a way to get those features into a 6 inch scaled mass market line of toys that were priced under $10 a pop.  Well the company that was Toybiz is now going by the name Marvel Toys.  Let's see how their first attempt outside of the Marvel Universe fared.

Who is he?
Figure #4 of 7
Judge Dredd
From: 2000 A.D.

Mega-City One, 2129 A.D. This vast urban nightmare is situated along the eastern coast of post-apocalyptic North America, with the irradiated wasteland known as the Cursed Earth to the west and the polluted Black Atlantic to the east.  Home to 400 million citizens, crammed into gigantic city-blocks, overcrowding is rife, unemployment endemic and doredom universal.  Tensions run a constant knife-edge, and crime is rampant.  Only the Judges can prevent total anarcy.  Empowered to dispense instant justice, these lawmen are judge, jury, and executioner.  Toughest of them all is Judge Dredd - he is the law!

  Sculpting:
The detailing is quite good on this guy.  His outfit looks like he shops where Captian Falcon does, but still the pouches look functional, the gloves looks wrinkled and like they have weight.  His padding and boots all look functional.  The badge and beltbuckle have excellent small details.  His accessories are all sculpted great... except that knife.  Looks like a fat butter knife not a hunting knife.  Unfortunately his left hand is only able to hold the knife due to how it is sculpted.  So no two guns without some modding  
Score: 4.8 out of 5 

Paint Application:
There doesn't seem to be much in the way of paint at all.
At first.   But on closer look all the green elements are painted on a dark grey plastic.  This dry brushing effect helps give depth. There is golden brushed onto yellow to give us his brightened gold areas. There is some slop on his helmet.  The red and the blue have bleed and the gold on his helmet doesn't match that of his padding.  Another coat of gold would have helped there.  One interesting aspect is that while his helmet is not removeable it is obvious that his face was painted.  He has fully painted eyes and face so it can show through his glasses... excellent touch. 
Score: 4.5 out of 5 

Articulation:
His articulation is actually very lacking at 29 points.  He only has a cut joint for his head and his hands are completely unarticulated.  While the unarticulated hands will help hold onto the guns, I hate feeling limited in what I can do.  Besides that he was fairly flexible and able to hold numerous poses.  But again I would be fine losing some of the leg articulation if it translated into upper body articulation.
Score: 3.9 out of 5 

Accessories:

This guy actually has the most accessories of the whole series.  He has two guns and a knife.  All of his weapons have their own holsters which is nice, but odd since his hands look like they are holding something all the time. 

Customizing Options:

With his extra padding removed you have a pretty basic hero body under there.  Same with the head under the helmet.  It is mostly painted and a little work on the hair is all that is needed.  The afforementioned Captain Falcon pops out at me, but that could be the hundreds of hours of Smash Brothers I've played over the years. 

Who is he?
Figure #5 of 7
Madman
created by: Michael Alfred

The Madman of Snap City aka Frank Einstein (get it?  Frankenstein) is a re-animated corpse who was a black ops agent for a shadow government organization called Tri-eye in his previous life.  Found as a "John Doe" by two scientists experimenting with the secrets of Life and Death, he was given a fresh start and new chance at life.  The technology that brought him new life also gave him advanced reflexes and enhanced skills and also heightened senses including a third eye that allows him to see the thoughts and feelings of others.  Now he works for one of the scientists, Dr. Flem, helping with his experiments in space and time travel and spends his spare time with his girlfriend, former lab assistant, Joe Lombard.     Yes, Joe is a girl.    Weirdo.

Sculpting:
What sculpting? You might be saying.  Blank is hard to do.  He looks like a guy who has a body suit on.  The muscles exist but are not super defined.  The lines and symbol on the costume are actually sculpted on.  His headsculpt actually has a lot of character for how featureless it is. 
Score: 4.5 out of 5

Paint Application:
Well he's a lot of white.  Which means that there is not much paint at all.  The paint that is there is well done and smooth.  No bleed anywhere except the corner of his mouth has a bit of black bleed.  The scoring of the sculpt helped prevent a lot of the slop.  The blue on black of his gloves works well and keeps with the feel of the character, same with his hair.  He is a bit boring in three dimensions but very true to his two dimensional counterpart so I can't fault the paint on this one.
Score: 4.5 out of 5 

Articulation:

About middle of the pack in articulation
with a whole 36 points of it.  All the joints are
tight and have free range of motion.  His fingers are the all move together type which is a little frustrating.  There is only so much character you can place in a figure when his hands can either be open palm or closed.  The articulation on his right hand oddly doesn't help him hold the gun any better.  It is sculpted to wrap around the gun but you almost have to balance the thing in his hands to get it to stay put.                  

Score: 4.5 out of 5 

Accessories:
He's got his ray gun that fits into his right hand, but just barely.  Beyond that he has two pieces
meant for the build a figure.  One is the crotch easily the smallest of all the build a figure

Customizing Options:
Well he is mostly a blank slate.  With a simple headswap and you can get to almost any medium build male character with gloves.  Which is practically two thirds of the characters out there.  So if you don't care about this character, buy him for the Timmy and then make him whatever you want. 
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Who is he?
Figure #6 of 7
Savage Dragon
Created by: Erik Larsen

Dragon was found by Lieutenant Fred Darling in a burning lot in Chicago, with no memory of his past.  Darling was taken by Dragon and offered his friendship.  He knew Dragon's superhuman strength, bullet-proof skin and ability to regenerate would help combat Chicago's criminal gang, Vicious Circle.  He attempted to recruit the Dragon into the police force, but he declined.  When the Vicious Circle attempted to extort money from Lt. Darling, Dragon leapt into action and easily defeated the gang's thugs.  When Fred lost his life in an explosion at the scene, Dragon decided to reconsider the offer to join the police force.  He stepped into the role of the city's premiere hero, pitting himself against the Vicious Circle and all other criminal threats, while he searches for details of his past.

Savage Dragon has seen a fair deal of success verses the other
people in this series.  First off his and Spawn's are the only of
the original Image series that are still in production and Dragon's
here is the only one who is still being written and illustrated by
his creator.  He even had a short lived cartoon series (26 episodes
on USA network... so don't be surprised you've never seen it before.)

  Sculpting:
Quite impressive.  The shape and proportions of this character are captured so well.  The overly buffed upper body with an almost underdeveloped lower body.  But he is laid out so it is not comical, but effective in making him seem really really strong.  His tennis shoes look exactly like that.  His expression is perfectly between boring and extreme.  I honestly can't find a flaw in this sculpt... and I'm picky.
Score: 5.0 out of 5 

Paint Application:
This is not the excellent paint job we were promised
in the promo shots.  Check out the shirtless variant
pic below to see what I mean.  His jeans got the
right treatment being a blue dry brushed onto black plastic.  Gives them a worn look that completely works.  The only thing missing is some highlights to
his skin.  He looks great without it but seeing how
he could have looked is a little saddening.  Still
the hair details are done well and there is no slow
anywhere that I can see at all.  He does get a
ding for just begin one tone of green though.
Score: 4.7 out of 5 

Articulation:
Well, looks like I'm handing out wow's for this guy.  Fifty points of articulation... Five freakin' Oh for a large figure.  How did he leap ahead of the rest you ask?  He not only has individual finger articulation... he has mid finger articulation and even one on his thumb.  So if you don't include the wrist joint that is 9 points per hand.  Each arm is 15 in total.  His head has the proper disk and ball joint and a well hidden ab crunch.  So overall he can get very creative in his poses.  Every joint is tight and unhindered.  There are a few clicky joints which while they do make noise do help keep the joint where you want it especially as the figure ages. 

The articulation is at a level and an execution that makes the figure just plain fun to pose.  This guy could very easily be a favorite in a kid's collection beyond the child having any knowledge of the actual comic. 
Score: 5.0 out of 5 

Accessories:
Well unless you could a leg of Pitt there is nothing else.  Not that he needs anything else. 

Customizing Options:
He is a mostly blank figure so it should be easy going... only most characters can not pull off this way too big upperbody with smaller lower body look.  There are a few guys out there but chances are you'll have more luck using his upper body with larger legs and using the legs for a more middle build upper body.  I'm sure you have some character you'd like to shove into blue jeans.  Actually, this guy would make an excellent Brock Sampson with that cartoonishly overly developed chest and arms.  Hmm, might have to get a second one.  Also the head would make an excellent bald guy if you trimmed off the head fin.  Which the head fin can be then used for a Despero.  But when I look at his head and take off the fin I see one angry (yet green) Luthor. 

Overall:
Though I split this review up purely by what figures came with the top half of Pitt and which came with the bottom half ... the second set was definitely the more impressive.  Of course, the whole set is impressive.  A single figure blows anything Hasbro did out of its first two Marvel Legends series combined.  Let's check the summary.

Judge Dredd: 4.4 out of 5
Madman:  4.5 out of 5
Savage Dragon: 4.9 out of 5

--November 12th, 2007