Tamara Flores
Let’s dive into a review of three Fantastic Four figures. We’ve already covered Invisible Woman in detail, so now it’s time to explore the other three members of the team. Diamond Select kindly sent us samples of the remaining trio, allowing us to unite them just like in the comics. Although the releases have been staggered, Invisible Woman and Human Torch are still available through Diamond for $29.99 each at the time of writing. Meanwhile, Entertainment Earth has Mr. Fantastic on backorder and The Thing on preorder for $27.99 each. It would be great if they were all available in a boxed set, but knowing Diamond, that would likely be a convention exclusive.
Previous Fantastic Four figures from the ’90s and early 2000s often included action features that replicated the characters’ powers. While such features aren’t as popular these days, Diamond has ingeniously used swap-out parts and extras to mimic the powers. For Sue, The Invisible Woman, they used swap-out clear parts and force field effects. For Mr. Fantastic, it’s swap-out stretchy parts.
Rubber Band Boy
At first glance, Reed (Mr. Fantastic) looks like your typical superhero figure. He boasts ball-jointed hips, shoulders, mid-torso and neck, disc-and-pin elbows, knees, ankles, and wrists. He also has extra cut joints at the mid forearm, waist, and neck, and regular cuts at the upper thigh and upper forearm. The reason for these extra joints will soon become clear.
Reed’s head sculpt is impressively detailed, aiming for the likeness of a real person rather than a comic drawing. His hairline at the back is a tad lower than ideal, limiting his ability to look up. However, considering Reed’s genius often has him looking down on others, this might actually work in his favor.
Remove his head at the lower neck joint and you can replace it with a stretched, elongated neck. This gives a somewhat eerie effect in a dark room, making his head appear to be floating.
By popping off his lower torso at the waist (peg joint) and mid-torso (ball joint), you can switch it out for stretched abs, making him taller.
Hands Across America
Reed’s hands are interchangeable at the wrist, and he comes with a few extras. However, you can also pop them off at the forearm cut to switch out the extended hands. The right hand is a fist, while the left is an open hand.
There’s one more bonus part, and it’s a big one. You can pop off his legs to replace them with a large coiled, stretched leg piece. This can be used to capture adversaries, or just parts of them if they’re huge.
Reed also comes with the Ultimate Nullifier, a small piece of tech that fits in most of his hands except for the closed karate chop. There are so many display options here, from fully stretched to completely normal proportions and everything in between. The upper part of the torso is slightly tougher to switch out than the other parts, but otherwise, it’s pretty straightforward.
Hot Stuff
Switching out parts for the Human Torch figure isn’t as easy. He comes with two heads and two chest logos for different looks he’s had throughout his comic book history. He’s packaged with a humanoid face and circle logo, but you can switch them out for the featureless fire face and un-circled four. However, the smooth head is quite stubborn and requires some force to attach, while the un-circled four fits loosely and tends to fall out. If you prefer it, you might want to glue it in place. Or perhaps this was just an issue with our sample.
Technically, the Johnny Storm figure doesn’t replicate his powers per se, as it doesn’t have switch out “flame on” parts. However, it does mimic the powers of Human Torch as Human Torch. A flaming stand allows him to “fly,” plugging into his back with a ball joint and featuring a large disc-pin joint where it attaches to the base. It’s all translucent and looks best with light shining through.
Johnny comes with extra hands, including two which simulate fireball-throwing: a right hand with an individual fireball in it and a left hand firing off several from his fingertips. These are the best for display.
Flex Those Flames
Johnny’s articulation is less than Reed’s as he lacks the bicep, forearm, and thigh cuts, as well as the waist. His hips, rather than being true ball joints, are cut-and-hinge, which is more standard for Diamond figures. Other than that it’s the same, but watch out for sticky joints — this sample had to sit in hot water for a while to loosen the side hinge on his left hip.
Man Mountain Rock
The Thing figure is a hefty piece, just like his power set suggests. The blister packaging even has plastic rivets for reinforcement. While past Thing figures have included accessories like a broken lamp post, this one only comes with what looks like a strange piece of tech. It’s actually a stand, and if you habitually toss out the Diamond catalogue included with each figure, you might miss the cardboard insert that goes into it. It’s double-sided: on one side it shows busy urban traffic.
The other side displays artwork of his teammates. It’s a piece that’s pretty small to be a backdrop. Maybe it’s supposed to be a window, or a flatscreen TV? Regardless, it doesn’t seem related to his powers, and he can’t hold it . . . or anything else, since his only hands are fists. His articulation is also quite limited, with very little range at the knees and ankles.
Ben’s (The Thing) hips are very limited ball joints, and his neck and shoulders are disc-pin. His wrists and waist are cut joints, and his elbows simple, limited hinges. Considering how much articulation has improved on modern bulky figures, this feels like a step back. [UPDATE: I’m told this is actually a repackaged 2010 figure, which makes sense.] It’s not like it’s about saving the sculpt, either, as a straight ball joint on the neck would look better than the exposed disc. That said, with a guy made of rock, cut lines can work as part of the aesthetic. He’s a good-looking figure, so long as you don’t want him in too many poses. I’m partial to Thing in shorts, but if he’s going to have long pants, the airbrush-style muscle lines are a nice way to do it.
The right knee on the sample version is a bit loose, but that’s not a big problem for balancing.
Cool Quartet
All four figures look fantastic together, even though it’s amusing how utterly, stylistically not uniform the backs of their cards are. We should also note that the package side panels show the toys for Reed and Johnny, but a drawing of Ben.
