We’ve been anxiously awaiting news for Hasbro’s Marvel exclusive for San Diego Comic-Con, and USAToday.com broke the news – it’s a Marvel Legends box set built around Dr. Strange. With the Benedict Cumberbatch movie scheduled for November 2016, I’m guessing Marvel will do some teasers at their panel this year, but I wonder if this set may have been better suited for SDCC next year.
The packaging is a novel concept (no book-pun intended) – it’s in the form of Dr. Strange’s Book of the Vishanti. In the pages preceding the figures, the Book will feature artwork and profiles for the five figures included. We’ll get to them momentarily, but first wanted to highlight that included with the book is another prop – the mystical talisman, the Eye of Agamotto. With the Book of the Vishanti and the Eye of Agamotto in your possession, all you need to add is your own Cloak of Levitation, and you could be the next Sorcerer Supreme.
The figures themselves are a strange mix (also no pun intended.) The ones that make sense to me are Dr. Strange, in a translucent deco variant from the one that will ship with the Marvel Legends Hulkbuster wave; Brother Voodoo, who succeeded Strange as the Sorcerer Supreme; and Dormammu, Strange’s arch-enemy and ruler of the Dark Dimension. The inclusion of Hela and Magik (in her Marvel Now Darkchylde armor) seem tacked on. It may be lack of comic knowledge on my part, but I don’t know when Dr. Strange has had any significant interaction with the Goddess of Hel from Thor’s mythology or with the mutant sorceress and ruler of Limbo. While I’m not complaining to get either, I think the box set would have been stronger with Clea and Wong as supporting characters for Strange.
At $104.99, these sets are seeing a small price creep – the Thanos Imperative set from last year was $99.99
), we world debuted new figures from BioShock, and unveiled the latest from Gears of War, Army of Two, Twilight: New Moon, Dante’s Inferno, 9, and Boondock Saints — and even showed off our brand new BATSU line of specially designed stylized figures, showing off the likes of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Insane Clown Posse, Gears of War and Street Fighter!