Marvel Legends – CaptainJLS.com

Figure Friday – Across the Spider-Verse Spider-Gwen Ver. 2

One of the more surprising waves of Marvel Legends action figures in 2024 was a second wave of Across the Spider-Verse figures based on the summer 2023 film. Despite racking up a healthy box office, I feel like the minute it was revealed that its sequel, the intended concluding chapter of this multiversal animated Spider-saga, was going to miss its overly optimistic release date, that kinda let the air out of these movies’ tires and folks just stopped talking about them. (I could be wrong on that, I swear that’s the vibe I got.) And yet, it was very cool to see new figures for characters who didn’t get one before — Pavitr Prabhakar (Spider-Man India) and shock villain Miles G. Morales (his universe’s Prowler) got nifty whole-new-sculpt figures with dazzling detail … which I didn’t buy. No, me, I bought a couple of the reruns, including the focus of this week’s figure post: yet another Gwen Stacy Spider-Woman.

Marvel Legends X-Men Stepford Cuckoos

One of the more curious but welcome series of Marvel Legends exclusives Hasbro has released over the past few years has been their Walgreens-exclusive female X-Men. Picking up after Walgreens had received, one by one, the complete Fantastic Four (and their pals Medusa and the Silver Surfer), the X-Ladies set started in late 2018 with a slight tweak to the Brian Michael Bendis/Chris Bachalo Uncanny X-Men Magik figure that had been part of a 2015 San Diego Comic Con box set. (The Walgreens figure got differently colored swords, more accessories, and eyes that weren’t all-white.) Next came a Mystique figure, in her classic white sleeveless dress. Then an Emma Frost figure in her black 2013 Bendis/Bachalo outfit — few folks’ favorite look for her, but it’s easily the best Emma we’ve ever gotten (the first Hasbro Emma Frost is infamously terrible, while the second was passable at the time but hard to find and was missing a cape), and it goes nicely with the Magik figure. This was followed by a Danielle Moonstar in her uniform from the 2009-2011 New Mutants series, with parts to turn her into teammates Wolfsbane or Karma (a clever way to encourage fans to buy more than one, presumably based on the way earlier exclusives like Black Ant, yellow-costumed Daredevil, and Namor continue to take up space in Walgreens stores nationwide to this very day; this would be great if they were still getting these figures in the volume they were getting in 2015, but I only ever saw two Danis, which has left my X-roster short a Karma).