The Return of Marvel Legends Wave Two – Madame Hydra

Next up in our look at the action figures in The Return of Marvel Legends Wave Two is Madame Hydra, who is also now known as Viper. She has no superhuman abilities, but is excellent with a sword and an expert marksman. She has the strength, speed, reflexes, agility, dexterity, coordination, balance, and endurance of an Olympic athlete. She uses a variety of poisonous weapons with a snake-motif, such as venomous darts or artificial fangs filled with poison. She has been a long time adversary of both the Avengers and the X-Men.

This figure is a running change of the Madame Masque figure. In this wave Hasbro has given us an all new character by reusing the body from two of the figures, adding a new head and new paint decos. I really like this concept better than just giving us the same character with different paint decos like they did in Wave One. I’m all for building an armory of different armors for Iron Man but I think the, “If we do an Iron Man, we can repaint it as his Blue Stealth Armor and use it as a variant.” is becoming a bit tiresome. I definitely think I could have done without a second Steve Rogers. They should have just put the transparent shield in with the first figure and then they could have used that same buck to do a new character for us instead. I am a completist, but with the rising costs associated with this hobby, I just can’t justify paying $20.00 for the same figure with a small change to the deco anymore. I’m sure I share that same mentality with many other collectors too.

I do think it’s great to get a second character in the same wave. I just don’t think it worked as well for Madame Hydra as it did for Piledriver though. Although, I do have a few issues with him as well. My first problem with Madame Hydra is the head-sculpt. She is just not as pretty as she is drawn in the comics. Her face seems a bit too long and square. Maybe it’s that the cheek bones are too pronounced. I don’t know exactly how to describe it, but it’s not some of their best work. I would have liked to see her costume painted more like this with the more halter-like top or the in her cape like this. A new double holstered gun belt would have been a very nice addition too. I’m not really complaining about her, other than her face. I do like this figure and I am happy to have her in my collection. I just think that they could have done a bit better with her. The hair once again impedes the movement of her head a great deal. You aren’t going to get much other than a glance to either side with her. Maybe it would help if they could start using a softer plastic for the hair on the women. Everything is exactly the same on Madame Hydra as it was with Madame Masque. Same body, same accessories, just different paint decos and a new head.

Madame Hydra has a pegged ball-joint head, hinged shoulders, single-pegged elbows, swivel wrists (covered by the long gloves), mid-chest swivel hinge, the hinged upper-thigh cut, double-pinned knees and single-pinned ankles. She comes with a hand gun, a rifle and the torso for the Arnim Zola Build-a-Figure. This torso has the Red Skull face variation, which will allow you to build a second version of Arnim Zola. More on that in the look at Arnim Zola later in this series. The hand gun and rifle are painted with in green for Madame Hydra. I think it would have been better to have painted the rifle parts with the same color of green as they used for the hand gun. I don’t really understand why they chose a different shade for the rifle.

It is time for a new female buck though Hasbro. I really don’t want for every female character in my collection to have this same body buck. You are going to have to spend a little money and make some new molds to keep us interested. The reuse, after reuse like they do in the Marvel Universe line will likely cause most of us to start being more selective with what we buy.

So what do you think about Madame Hydra? Did you like the head-sculpt or are we looking at another Emma Frost here?

     The Return of Marvel Legends Wave Two Madame Hydra 001     The Return of Marvel Legends Wave Two Madame Hydra 002

     The Return of Marvel Legends Wave Two Madame Hydra 003     The Return of Marvel Legends Wave Two Madame Hydra 004

     The Return of Marvel Legends Wave Two Madame Hydra 005     The Return of Marvel Legends Wave Two Madame Hydra 006

     The Return of Marvel Legends Wave Two Madame Hydra 007     The Return of Marvel Legends Wave Two Madame Hydra 008

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     The Return of Marvel Legends Wave Two Madame Hydra Package Front     The Return of Marvel Legends Wave Two Madame Hydra Package Rear

Thank you to the Enchanted Toy Chest for sending me this figure to review for you.