Written By Dan Hickman • Toy Editor
Hasbro Marvel Legends Super Villain wave has featured some pretty awesome bad guys for our intrepid heroes to face. We’ve seen the likes of Dr. Doom, The Red Skull, and Lady Deathstrike so far. In this review we will look at one of the X-Men’s long-time nemeses, the deadly assassin known as Arcade.
After discovering his talent and liking for murder, Arcade became a high priced assassin.
He soon became bored with the “ordinary” means of killing and devised his own grisly “amusement park.”
Naming it Murderworld, Arcade devised a series of cunningly lethal traps.
At this time, Arcade also took on contracts against various super heroes, the X-Men and Spider-Man chief among those.
Fortunately for our heroes, his attempts always led to failure and capture.
There were some heroes though, that Arcade held grudges against and tried to kill for free.
Over the years Arcade teamed with multiple villains but for the most part continues to develop his intricate death traps and kill for hire.
I admit it, I was fairly reluctant to start getting the figures in this wave.
I really only wanted a couple but as a couple became multiple I found myself liking them more and more.
Arcade actually looks really sharp but how does he fare under the Triple A spotlight?
Let’s take a look at Arcade’s Accessories, Appearance, and Articulation.
This wave consists of pieces for the Xemnu Build a Figure.
In addition to the walking stick and alternate head sculpt Arcade comes with, he also has Xenmu’s right leg.
So… he has a cool gold walking stick with a bluish/gray cap.
It’s unremarkable, but distinctively Arcade.
The two head sculpts feature him with long and short hair and honestly, both look very good.
I really don’t know which of the two will be my display sculpt.
Other than that, he has nothing else.
The decent head sculpt is strong, but not strong enough.
Sorry Arcade, you failed to obtain the Accessory A.
Review: Marvel Legends Super Villain Wave Arcade 6 Inch Action Figure
Onward to his appearance.
Arcade looks smartly outfitted in his white suit, thick soled gym shoes, green shirt and yellow bow tie with red polka dots.
He also has a sharp green handkerchief in his jacket pocket.
In terms of comic book accuracy, Arcade does knock this out of the park.
At first I thought the flesh tones on his hands and face sculpts were a bit off, but the bright red hair kind of skews the look of his face.
Under the proper lighting, I could see his flesh tones were a solid match.
I was disappointed to find a slight scuff on the cheek on his long hair head sculpt and didn’t try to fix it for fear of making the problem worse.
His eyes and eyebrows are detailed very nicely on both head sculpts and you can see the care in the application.
I was even more impressed upon discovering the black buttons on both his dress shirt and jacket as well as the pocket hanky.
Even the red trim on his shoes is applied very evenly and upon close inspection is clean and tight.
I was also pleasantly surprised that his white jacket, sleeves and pants were all the same.
Normally there is a noticeable difference in the brightness between the sculpted pieces and the additions such as the jacket/vest combo.
These all match very well.
I also was stunned to see that his green shirt was painted entirely on the torso as the jacket/vest piece is an overlay.
Unfortunately, this piece does cause some problems with articulation, which we’ll get to in a moment.
I can definitely give Arcade an A for appearance.
This is a sharp looking figure, which helps make up for some of it’s other shortcomings.
Like the articulation, for example…
Review: Marvel Legends Super Villain Wave Arcade 6 Inch Action Figure
Can Arcade move? Well… he can, but there are limits imposed due to his apparel.
Both of Arcade’s heads look up and down nicely, although the shorter hair does have better range of motion, obviously.
His arms raise out to a nice T pose and can rotate a full 360 degrees.
The upper bicep swivel functions as you’d expect it to and the double jointed elbows fold in surprisingly well in spite of the jacket sleeve sculpting.
His wrists both pivot and hinge up and down.
Discussing the torso though, opens a whole door of poor planning.
Arcade appears to have an upper diaphragm hinge, but because the jacket and vest are a singularly molded piece… Arcade cannot bend forward or backward.
He does have a waist swivel which moves, but again, the jacket proves limiting.
Arcade’s legs can do splits.
Any guess on what hinders them?
Thankfully the bottom of the jacket is soft and fairly pliable… but man… His legs will kick forward but do get pushed back down somewhat.
He has an upper thigh cut which works nicely, double jointed knees which bend in deeply and solid ankle hinge/rocker motion.
I feel like maybe I ought not give him the Articulation grade because of how limiting the jacket is… but, I guess Arcade does just enough to get the A.
Review: Marvel Legends Super Villain Wave Arcade 6 Inch Action Figure
Overall, though I initially thought this would be a very boring figure (and it kind of is) I will admit that he looks cool when standing amongst my other X-Men villains.
In the pantheon of super villains, Arcade has earned his place on the toy shelf.
At the price point of about $22 I’ll say that Arcade deserves 2.75 out of 5 toyboxes.
Big thanks to my buddy Kevin Guillotte at Inked Marketing for hooking me up with this figure!
You can find him and many other Marvel Legends figures in retail stores or online at Big Bad Toy Store.
Thanks for checking out the toybox and, until next time… Geek Out!
Related: Review: Marvel Legends Spider-Man No Way Home Wave Integrated Suit 6 Inch Action Figure
