Hot Toys Avengers Captain America
Review by tanuki
Captain America led The Avengers during the battle of New York at the end of The Avengers film, sporting his new updated flashy man-suit, which added his little red gauntlets and boots rather than the brown army one's he sported in the First Avenger.
At the bottom of this review is my quick review of The Winter Soldier for anyone interested, may include some slight spoilers.
The box is the usual for this line, character picture on the front, character symbol on the side, name on the top and bottom and design credits on the back.
Sadly i was having lighting issues during this shoot, even though i was next to a window and had several room lights on over my shoot lights, so the accessory picture is pretty bad, and i couldn't seem to get it to come out better, but i think you can still see what comes with this set.
Going through the list, you have the usual stand and instruction sheet, two head sculpts (1 masked, 1 un-masked), a blue hood, a Chitauri weapon, two shields (1 battle damaged, 1 not), 3 pairs of hands and one extra right pointing hand.
The figure itself is a good representation of the character, it does have a few flaws in the design.
The main issue is due to the thickness of the rubber for the boots, even though he does have an ankle joint you can't really pose the feet.
The shield doesn't have any real way to attach to his back, i cheated and it's my secret what i did.
The arms can be reasonably posed, the waist and diaphragm have joints, the legs are limited at the top by the tightness of the pants, the knee's can get a decent bend without problems.
Another issue i have is that the shoulders seem too flat, it's like he's missing those shoulder ridges that connect to your neck, you can see it more clearly from behind.
I'm not sure if this is a problem across the line, but my figure has an issue with the silver zip on the front of the suit, it just doesn't want to stick down to the body and tends to pop up when i pose the figure.
The hands and gauntlets are separate pieces allowing more movement in the wrists, i can't help but feel they should have used the same design for the boots and feet, similar to the design for Thor and Loki.
The shield's are the main part of the set for me, i like that Hot Toys have given us a normal shiny shield and a battle damaged one replicated the look from the end of the film.
They are both made of plastic and made to look like metal, the rear of each is a shiny silver.
Each have two straps on the back that look like leather but i think are rubber/pvc.
I've had an issue with one of them breaking, but i was able to fix with super glue.
I've used the shiny version during my displaying of the figure, sadly due to a number of droppings and such the shield has been chipped around the edge and now near the centre.
Luckily under the red paint is silver, so it looks like it's seen battle, though not as much as the 2nd shield.
I would like to replace this shield at some point due to this issue, which is mostly the fault of the goblins that live in my boiler cupboard.
The Chitauri weapon fits onto the wrist peg on either hand, it feels like the plastic is of a lower quality than the rest of the set.
Again i cheated for the picture that has Cap holding the weapon in his hand, shush it's secret.
The head sculpts are a reasonable likeness to Chris Evans, though this depends on the angle you look at them.
The masked head sculpt has slightly indented wings on the side of the head and the "A" on the front.
The worst addition to this set is the hood Cap is seen wearing after his fight with Loki.
It's supposed to clip into the neck recess when you remove the head and neck, but i can't seem to get the clips into the holes, they all seem to bent to fit.
Even if i could get this hood to attach, it looks awful judging from the pictures online.
If anyone is wondering, you can pose him holding both shields at the same time.
Out of the three suit designs Cap has had on screen, this version is my favorite.
Until i see the Avengers Ultron outfit, i'm happy to stick with this version as my Cap.
The issues i mentioned do bug me and detract from the figure, i think i have more issues with this figure than i do for the rest of my Hot Toys collection.
The Winter Soldier was released here in the UK yesterday (28th March), if anyone is wondering it's better than the first film.
It's more a spy thiller than all out superhero actioner.
Anthony Mackie is a standout for me, his scenes as the Falcon are awesome.
There are a bunch of easter eggs for fans, including the mention of a character not yet shown on screen.
By the end of the film, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been changed dramatically and i'm interested to see where things go from here, also wait around for the after credits scene.