[wp-review id=”98487″]
Since THOR: RAGNAROK, Thor hasn’t had an easy time. His home was destroyed, his people slaughtered, and his brother killed. With the help of Rocket and Groot, he was going to stop Thanos from snapping half of the universe out of existence. Hot Toys has released Thor from Marvel’s AVENGERS INFINITY WAR and this is quite the figure. He has been provided by Sideshow Collectibles for this review and costs $267 USD on their site. So let’s have a look at this guy to see what we have here:
PACKAGING:
The box for this guy is really nice. Now, this is my first INFINITY WAR figure and Hot Toys typically has their packaging matchup for each movie/property. The front has an image of Thor using his powers with all of the small arcs and he has his glowing eyes. The image looks like it has been referenced by a photo and then rendered into looking like a painting. This is on a slipcover that has a small cutout on the bottom right that reads “Marvel AVENGERS INFINITY WAR. The background of the entire cover is stars and space. The sides have a faded Infinity Gauntlet, the THOR title, and the 1/6 scale collectible MMS 474. The back has the typical warnings, UPC, and other technical info that Hot Toys prints on the back covers.
Lifting off the slip, the figure is in a plastic window with most of the accessories packed in there. The back of this has the credits to the people who worked on the figure. Being my first figure from this film, I do like the box design and the artwork. Its slick and does get the feel of the film.
LIKENESS:
The head sculpt on this figure is remarkable. Until this release, the Thor from RAGNAROK was hands down the best likeness to Chris Hemsworth in the role. Now, there have been some subtle changes but they have all been for the better.
Beginning with the hair, the coloring is slightly darker and matches the film. There is some paint on it to not make it look like a solid brown piece on his head. He still has the nicks/cuts on his scalp from Stan Lee (the barber from RAGNAROK) and his stellar clipper use. He has the scar down the right side of his face and looks to be in the right place. His eyes have both colors after Rocket gave him the “smuggled” eye. Because its an add-on to the head sculpt, he comes with two eye patches: the flat back one and the one with the gold accents. The head has a magnet in it so the patch goes right on over the right eye due to the small sliver of metal on the patches. As for his outfit, he has the solid chest piece with the small circular discs that have a metal-looking finish. The finish on the chest armor is a black matte with some intricate designs all throughout. There are two magnetic chest pieces that go in the pectoral area and the differences are subtle. One is a bit broader than the other and they are made for the two different armored arms but we will get to those in a minute. The back houses the batteries for the lightning accessories and the compartment remains hidden under the collar/piece with the cape. The torso is like a solid piece with no mid flexibility at all so many poses can’t be done with the natural twist of the body. At his shoulders, he has a collar that I mentioned is removable with a set of magnets and pegs. It goes down his back far enough to cover the switch and the batteries. The other piece has his red cape attached. It flows to the ground with pleats. I will say that I was secretly expecting it to have a posing wire in the cape but maybe next time.
The two sets of arms included are the bare arms (no pun intended) and the armored ones. The unarmored arms have a rubber/latex material that is painted and textured to look like real skin. They are a bit squishy and have an internal skeleton system that allows the arms to maintain their rigidity. They bend at the elbow and get to about a 90° angle. When bent, the arms go from muscular to flexed but the size is slightly unnatural. The armored versions are similar if not the same as the arms for the God of Thunder from THOR: THE DARK WORLD (TTDW). The other similarity to the TTWD arms is that they ratchet. On that figure, it was necessary to hold up the heavy, metal Mjölnir and that isn’t the case with this figure due to the change in material for Stormbreaker. The material on the arms has a vinyl feel to them and is textured to look like…well, armor. They pop in and out of the sockets by using a little force. Not too much because you don’t want to break him and that goes for both sets of arms. The bracers are interchangeable and sit at about the same point on either set.
Moving down, the pants are a mix of pleather and mesh material that makes up the designs on his pants. The mesh covers the knees and allows them to bend well past the 90° mark but there would not be any reason why you would need him to be bent that way. The boots are fluid with the flexibility of his leg. The ankles roll and the shin portion can move however they are needed to move.
ACCESSORIES:
He comes with a few accessories that can be considered a part of his outfit but I’ll mention everything here: he has 4 pairs of hands, 1 set of armored arms, and 1 set of unarmored arms, a magnetic collar, a magnetic collar with cape, 3 LR936 button-cell batteries, 2 eye patches, 2 pairs of chest armor pieces, 6 metal-looking discs plates on his chest, 6 translucent lightning effects, 2 translucent wrist lightning effects, Stormbreaker, a posable arm for the stand, and a Marvel AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR themed base stand. The hands are the same ones that Thor has had for the past 3 iterations of the figure. There are 2 fists, 2 open hands, 2 gripping hands, and 2 half-open hands. Mixing them up will get you a number of good poses in combination with the other included items. The biggest improvement to the hands are the skin tone is a much more natural tone than everything before the RAGNAROK figures.
As for the disc plates, the black finish on the plates is nice. They’re a good contrast to the matte finish of the chest armor.
They pop out very easily and the 6 lighting plates click right in. Once you slip the switch on his back, the lights on his chest are incredibly bright. The light travels through the pieces and has a nice, blue glow. Be careful not to move the arms into the protruding lightning pieces. The pieces that wrap around his bracers are made from a similar material to the chest lightning but resemble the types that Thor or Black Widow has had in the past. They capture light and when everything is all put together, he looks amazing. He resembles his look from the final fight at the end of the movie.
In this film, Thor’s new weapon is Stormbreaker. This time they went with plastic instead of metal. It makes the weapon lighter and easier for him to hold it. Also, because the size of the weapon is larger all together, if it was metal, he might not be able to hold it up. The finish of the head convincingly looks like metal. The etching and shaping adds to the allure of the design. The handle is made to look like Groot’s arm and the texture plus the vine wrapping are on point. There is even a small leaf and you can see the tree rings at the break.
The stand is a new design for, I assume, the INFINITY WAR collection. It is a hexagon shaped base with Thor’s name on the front in a simple screened white paint. The top has purple-hued clouds with a spot-glossed logo from the film and a large “A” with circles. There is a non-slip grip coating on it to keep Thor from moving. The posable flex arm will work for dynamic poses and keeping him just standing with the included clamp. The only issue with this is the flex arm won’t let the cape flow straight but to one side or the other. They didn’t include a typical stand for the museum poses and this base is a bit different from the previous versions.
ARTICULATION:
The articulation is a mixed bag here so we will discuss the good before the bad. Even though it might seem like the collar would get in the way, his head can move fairly well. Both arms have excellent movement in the shoulders and decent movement in the elbows. The knees and ankles have practically unrestricted movement so there are no issues there. So, I mentioned that his torso doesn’t twist and it is one solid piece. I guess there is no real way to do it because of the swappable accessories that can get into the way. One disappointing spot is in the waist. His legs move about as much as the Darth Vader figure that I previously reviewed. They can move forward slightly but they are extremely limited. By no means would I call this figure rigid but there are some areas that may limit his poseability.
THE BOTTOM LINE:
Overall, I’m a fan of this version of Thor. Minus the articulation shortcomings, the design of the figure is solid. The lightning effects are stellar with an even glow and authentic look. As for his head sculpt, this is the best Thor to date. The paintwork is realistic in the skin tone and hair. The eyepatches look great and keep the cost lower instead of having multiple heads. Stormbreaker has a real metal look but not all the weight from the previous weapons. The intricate design work on both the head and handle are spot on. I love that they included everything to make both outfits; depending on your mood of course. I highly recommend picking this guy up and adding him to your collection.
