The Return of Marvel Legends Wave Two – Piledriver

How awesome is it, that we get not one, but two members of the wrecking Crew in The Return of Marvel Legends Wave Two? Piledriver is a running change of the Thunderball figure from this wave. A new head and some changes to the paint deco and “Bam” we get a second member to one of the teams that fans have asked for in 6-inch scale since the early days of Marvel Legends. Brian Calusky or Piledriver is one of four members of the wrecking Crew. A team of villains that never seems to win the battle. Piledriver was a street brawler and a criminal who ended up in prison which is where he met the rest of his teammates. He was given superhuman strength, a high invulnerability, and some resistance to cold, heat, fire, corrosives and toxins by an enchanted crowbar used by the Wrecker.

Both Thunderball and Piledriver are based on the two-pack Warpath buck, so they are pretty sizeable figures. The Marvel Universe Wiki lists Thunderball as being 6′ 6″ and Piledriver at 6′ 4″. Both of these figures measure about 7 and a half inches, so they are slightly out of scale. Piledriver is a bit taller than Thunderball because of the spikey hairdo. The red, white and blue color scheme looks nice on my display shelf. I think they really overdid it with the blue over-spray on his white shirt though. Mine has so much on it, that you can hardly see any white left on the shirt. I think that the head-sculpt is very well done. The grin on his face really says, “I’m going to enjoy beating you to a pulp!” Hasbro did a great job on the spikey hair coming out of the top of his mask too. Here is what I would have liked to seen done differently though, the gloves. In the comics, Piledriver is always drawn with bare hands. They could have sculpted some new lower forearms and given us some fists. Although, the gloved hands they gave us are shaped in a mostly closed position, they would have looked better fully closed. I’m betting there are a lot of customizers out there that have already made that modification. If I had the skills, I would do it too. Instead of putting a wrecking ball in the package with Piledriver too, why not use that money to sculpt new hands for him? If it wasn’t for the hands, this figure would have likely tied in a vote for best of the wave with Thunderball. That one little detail would have made this figure much more comic book accurate.

Piledriver is exactly the same figure as Thunderball, so the articulation break-down is the same as well. Piledriver has a hinged ball-jointed head, ball-jointed shoulders, bicep swivels, double-pinned elbows, and forearm swivels. He has an ab-crunch, cut waist, hinged hips, upper-thigh cuts, double-pinned knees, pinned rocker ankles and a toe hinge. He also comes with a wrecking ball and chain and the head and the “Prod” instrument for the Arnim Zola Build-a-Figure. The head of Arnim Zola included with Piledriver has a red “eye” instead of yellow to use on the Red Skull version of the Build-a-Figure.

I’m hoping that we get the other two members of the Wrecking Crew, Wrecker and Bulldozer, very soon. Piledriver and Thunderball can use the support of their other teammates. We’ll take a look at the last figure in this wave tomorrow, the Arnim Zola Build-a-Figure.

     The Return of Marvel Legends Wave Two Piledriver 001     The Return of Marvel Legends Wave Two Piledriver 002

     The Return of Marvel Legends Wave Two Piledriver 004     The Return of Marvel Legends Wave Two Piledriver 004

     The Return of Marvel Legends Wave Two Piledriver 005     The Return of Marvel Legends Wave Two Piledriver 006

     The Return of Marvel Legends Wave Two Piledriver 007     The Return of Marvel Legends Wave Two Piledriver 008

     The Return of Marvel Legends Wave Two Piledriver 009     The Return of Marvel Legends Wave Two Piledriver 010

     The Return of Marvel Legends Wave Two Piledriver 011     The Return of Marvel Legends Wave Two Piledriver 012

     The Return of Marvel Legends Wave Two Piledriver Package Front     The Return of Marvel Legends Wave Two Piledriver Package Rear

     The Return of Marvel Legends Wave Two Piledriver and Thunderball

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