Hasbro Marvel Legends: Fantastic Four Retro: Firelord Action Figure Review

Dan's ToyBox returns with another Marvel Legends Action Figure review. (I've got quite a few new Legends over the last few weeks, so bear with me.) Today, we are taking a look at the Fantastic Four Retro Style: Firelord Action Figure. Built on the Sunfire body mold, Firelord is definitely an interesting and unique addition to the Legends Display.

To be fair, I really don't know much about the character, but found his origin rather interesting. Pyreus Kril is a Xandarian Naval Officer, whose commander and friend, Gabriel Lan is abducted via transporter by Galactus. Kril assumes command and pursues Galactus' vessel. Sometime later, Kril's ship finally catches up with Galactus and Kril bravely transports himself on board. Galactus is impressed with the Xandarian's courage and offers to share what happened to Gabriel, in return for Kril becoming his new Herald. Kril agrees and Galactus transforms him into Firelord. Galactus then tells Firelord that Gabriel had become his Herald, Air-Walker, but was killed while defending Galactus. There is considerably more detail, which I learned from Pyreus Kril (Earth-616) | Marvel Database | Fandom and if you are interested, I would definitely check it out. Firelord first appeared in the pages of Thor #225, July 1974 and was created by writer Gerry Conway and artist John Buscema.

For new readers, Dan's ToyBox looks at four categories: Accessories, Appearance, Articulation, and Affordability and then summarizes those categories with an overall grade. We give zero to five toyboxes, with zero as a "No Way" to five being a "Must Have." So, keeping that in mind, let's take a closer look at Firelord.

Firelord is packed with his flame staff, one pair of fists, and one pair of weapons holding hands. I get that the retro packaging is somewhat limited in what can be included and to be honest, I'm not entirely certain what else could have come with the figure. Given that the character pretty much only carries the staff, I'd say we have all we need. Maybe some open or splayed finger hands? For whom he is, I suppose that what he comes with is sufficient. My only real complaint here is that the gripping hands are kind of loose and the staff tends to fall out relatively easy. That is a disappointment, so, with that in mind, I'll give him an A- for Accessories!

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Much like Firestar, Firelord has a very simple design. His color scheme consists of yellow, orange, red, and white and really nothing else. However, it is really nicely applied and given that we've seen this body mold used multiple times, I would say it's a solid choice for this figure. I'm really impressed with the translucent red/orange flame "hair" and fireballs on his staff. They look terrific, when held up in front of lighting. The yellow paint on his body suit was applied very cleanly, although there is just a bit of slop around the top of the back of his neck, but it's not enough to be bothersome. I also find the details of his flaming eyebrows, red lips, and brilliant glowing yellow eyes to be very well done. In fact, the flames around his boots, and gloves are cleanly applied and the only thing I really don't care for is the white jagged belt around his waist. I know that's part of the character's overall look, but I think my biggest problem is that though you can see it, in brighter lighting it becomes difficult to discern against the bright yellow background. The copper color of the staff is very nice and helps to enhance the flame effects on either end. The colors are vibrant and really do stand out against each other, for the most part (belt excluded). I think my biggest area of trouble, with this particular body mold, is the sizable gap between the very small shoulders and larger trapezius muscles. This is, of course, done to accommodate the butterfly joint, but I do think the shoulders could be a bit bigger. Overall, though, the general aesthetic of the figure is nice enough in its simplicity to earn an A for Appearance.

Images Copyright Dan'sToyBox 2022

Though we are very readily familiar with Marvel Legends Articulation, I will admit that I'm quite happy with Firelord. His head will look both up and down quite far and turns easily enough, with just a bit of head tilt for "attitude." It is nice to get him in some great flight poses, knowing he can look up so far. The butterfly joints work beautifully on this figure and really allow for a wide range of forward and backward motion for both arms. The shoulders will only raise out to a T pose but can rotate a full 360 degrees. Firelord has good bicep swivel, though my left arm was very loose. I think I'm going to have to find a way to tighten it up a bit, maybe dropping a tiny dab of super glue in and working it until the glue dries enough to give just a bit more friction at the joint. He has double-jointed elbows which bend in almost entirely, due in part to his smaller bicep's muscles. Each hand swivels and hinges nicely, though the gripping hands are somewhat loose. Firelord has an upper ab crunch will bends forward and backward quite well. Somewhat disappointingly, though, the sculpt for his upper abs and his back muscles discontinues so when you move the hinge, you lose the musculature illusion. There is a waist swivel which leaves the flatter "landing pads" when you turn the figure too far to the left or right. Surprisingly, his legs do great splits! At first, I didn't think they would, but they kept going and going until he was at a near perfect split! His legs will kick forward quite high but do tend to turn outward just a bit. There is virtually no back kick though. He has both upper thigh and boot cuts which work just fine and double-jointed knees which allow him to kick himself in the rear end!!!! And, of course, Firelord has great ankle pivot and hinging for even better flight posing. Aside from a couple of loose joints, I will say that this figure can do pretty much all I want it to do. Granted some of the posing hurts the appearance, but overall, it's solid enough to get an A for Articulation.

Images Copyright Dan'sToyBox 2022

Lastly, how affordable is Firelord? I found mine on BBTS for $25.99 which falls right in the current range for Hasbro Marvel Legends. I still think that Hasbro is charging far more than they ought to be, especially when you can purchase figures from Marvel's chief rival, DC, manufactured by the competition for $19.99. Hasbro needs to tighten things up and give us a better reason for paying more. I want to give this an A, but I'll give it an A- for at least being on the lower end, as a Retro Figure offering.

After careful consideration, sometimes, simplicity is a good thing and, in this case, Firelord is a solid entry into the Marvel Legends pantheon of figures. Though he is not without his faults, I'm sufficiently content with this figure and can easily give it a solid:

3.5 TOYBOXES OUT OF 5

Thank you, as always, for spending some time visiting Dan's ToyBox. Until next time when we look at the Hasbro Marvel Legends 60th Anniversary Japanese TOEI SPIDER-MAN... GEEK OUT!!!!