Hydra Supreme Captain America and Arnim Zola

Hydra Supreme Captain America and Arnim Zola

Marvel Legends - Hasbro

The ranks of Hydra expands on my toy shelf with two new additions...well, sort of.  Arnim Zola is a retool/repaint/rerelease of an older Hasbro Legends build-a-figure that I never completed, so it's new to me.  And Hydra Supreme is Captain America...well, an alternate version of Cap.  Splitting hairs...they both look spiffy in their new duds!

Zola's modern look retains most of his color scheme, minus the orange.  I would prefer a classic paint job as one of the first comics I remember getting was Captain America #277.  Man, those colors pop on those characters...it's hard to accept any less (plus fur on my Zemo, please.)  They included an alternate classic head and his remote control (repaint) if you do want to switch it up, but I do have to say I like the new "turret-head-with-Dalek-eye" look.  And, while nothing can displace Jack Kirby, I also dig the modern "screaming-manic" face in the torso.  

There were some weird debates about this "ape arms" in on the nerd toy boards that almost approached Thing "teeth-no teeth" levels of nonsense.  Vary art depictions validated the figure, while some continued to gripe.  I love that he's a stocky, robo-man with ape arms.  Along with the tiny head, he reminds me of the old Death Hug Dean figure from the Tick.

Hydra Supreme Cap is a (mostly) new figure.  I think some parts of the arms might be Iron Man reuse?  In any case, its appropriate for the armor.  Everything here looks great.  There are some cool, armory grooves and lines here and there, and the chain-mailish legs are fantastic...Hasbro has yet to deliver a regular Cap with sculpted mail!  

There are only two gripes with this figure.  One is that I wish it came with an unmasked Steve Rogers head.  I mean, it's not like they haven't already made one before.  The other is that, while the shield does clip to the arm just fine, there's no peg hole in the back of the figure to store it on his back!  C'mon, isn't that standard on Cap figures?  Heck, they put holes on the backs of characters that don't ever carry things!

This is a great set if you missed out on Zola the first time out.  Even if you didn't, I think it would be hard to pass up this evil Cap.  At $40 for the set, that's a bargain for a full build-a-figure. And, besides who doesn't need more army builder figures? Hail Hydra!

Hydra Soldiers

Hydra Soldiers

Hasbro Marvel Legends

Toys 'R' Us Exclusive

Another TRU exclusive gone by...a Hydra soldier 2-pack!  One is a repack of the older Mandroid Build-a-Figure wave Soldier, the other is a weird repaint of Captain Britain/Nuke?  Strange.  He's an enforcer...whatever...the paint scheme works.  And since army builder fans ate up the soldier on his initial run, this gave me another shot at him. 

 

 

All of the additional heads/accessories are repacks from other figures.  Nothing is new except the paint.  That's not necessarily a bad thing, as they give us plenty of options:  weapons,  clothing, heads.  The repainted Taskmaster head doesn't work for me, so I will be sticking with the standard look.

Same with the enforcer.  The Captain Britain head it is.  The unmasked heads will work for random thug customs here and there in my collection. 

 The Nuke head would make a pretty decent Eddie Brock if you repainted the scar/eye.

I had a couple of Hasbro's earlier attempts at a Hydra soldier way back from the Brood Queen wave.  The figure was oversized, the paint was bland, and the plastic felt cheap.  Oh well...an army builder is an army builder.  They can hang out in the back and still be decent punching bags for the heroes.

 

With Baron Von Strucker and Madame Hydra at the helm, I've got a nice little team going.  For display purposes I can throw in the cool base that came with the Marvel Select Spider-woman.  These poor inaction figures...I would have gladly paid a few dollars more for some legs.