ANGEL & BEAST
MARVEL MINIMATES
It there’s one thing the X-Men are good at, it’s costume changes. As a team, they have to have the highest turnover rate in uniforms of any team in comics. Another thing that X-Men are big on is alternate versions of established team members running around. Combine those two, and you have a dynamite pitch for selling lots of toys of the same characters. This seems to be the case with the line-up of All-New X-Men, which has brought early versions of the original X-Men to the present, and given them a new set of threads along the way. Yesterday, I looked at Cyclops and Marvel Girl; today, I’ll be looking at Angel and Beast, both in their “pre-blue” forms.
THE FIGURES THEMSELVES
Angel and Beast are a two-pack from Series 59 of Marvel Minimates, which is based on the designs of the team as seen in recent issues of All-New X-Men.
ANGEL
Angel is a character that has kind of broken even on the whole “previous version” thing. The old Angel has certainly gone through his fair share of stuff, but his thing is mostly ping-ponging between being classic Angel and Archangel. I guess it’s not terrible to have a pre-ping-ponging version running around. The figure is about 2 ½ inches in height and he features 16 points of articulation, thanks to the wings. He’s based on All-New Angel’s second costume, which is a variant of the base costume everyone else got. His is accented with red, which serves as a nice callback to his Champions and X-Factor costumes. The figure features the basic Minimate body, with add-ons for his wings and hair. The wings are the same three-part piece we’ve seen on previous versions of Angel, and the hair was first used on Lost in Space’s Doctor Smith. The hair offers a nice “rich-boy” look, and the wings are a very definite case of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Angel’s paint is generally a lot cleaner than what we saw in the Cyclops/Marvel Girl set. There are still a few sloppy areas with the base paint, but overall everything is pretty clean. I think the face looks perhaps a little too old for a younger Angel, but that’s really a personal thing. Angel includes a flight stand and a clear display stand.
BEAST
Beast seems like the one time-shifted X-Man who might work pretty well in conjunction with his modern day counterpart, but not as a replacement. They haven’t really screwed Beast up too bad, and most people like the few changes they’ve made to the character. Still, this reset version does serve as a pretty good counter point. Beast is a little over 2 ½ inches tall and features 12 points of articulation. Like the others in this series, Beast is in his second, Immomen-designed costume. Honestly, Beast’s is probably my least favorite of the five. The brown accents seem odd, almost like he got them because all the other colors were taken by the rest of the team. The brown/yellow, coupled with the goggles, kind of makes him look more like X-Men foe Mimic than Beast. Beast is built from the basic Minimate body, with add-ons to bulk up his torso, waist, shoulders, hands, thighs, and feet, as well as a goggle/hair combo. The hair and goggles piece is new, and it looks pretty spot in to what’s seen in the comic. The bulk up pieces have been seen on the Avengers movie Hulk (hands and feet), GotG’s Drax (torso), and countless other figures (everything else). I’m not sure I’m a fan of Beast being this bulky, but that’s gonna vary from person to person. Overall, Beast’s paintwork is pretty good. Mostly, the lines are clean. However, there is a random bit of brown paint on his goggles that very definitely shouldn’t be there. Beast includes a spare head/hair (with hair from Universal Monsters’ Henry Frankenstein) and a clear display stand. The extra head features a pair of glasses and a more reserved facial expression for Hank.
THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION
Like Cyclops and Marvel Girl, Angel and Beast were picked up from my local comic book store Cosmic Comix. I hadn’t initially intended to get these two, but I wanted Cyclops and I liked the Icemen, so I figured I might as well complete the team. I still think this is the weakest set in the series, but they aren’t bad. Perhaps if Beast had costume detailing under the bulked up pieces, I’d enjoy him more, but I can’t fault Diamond for going that route. All in all, this set is good, but not great.
The Figure In Question 