Ever since Hasbro Marvel Legends Series 5 was announced at Toy Fair (2013 Marvel Legends Series 2), I’ve been intrigued about how Hasbro was going to determine the case-pack. Counting variants, there are 9 different figures in the series, so it was entirely possible we’d get Marvel Legends cases with up to 8 different new figures in them. Today, all that guessing came to an end, as retailers were officially allowed to reveal the Marvel Legends 2013 Wave 2 case ratios. And, well.. the case assortment is pretty terrible…

Just to recap, there are nine different figures in the revived Marvel Legends Series 5 by Hasbro:

1. Black Panther
2. The Wrecker
3. Bulldozer
4. Scarlet Spider
5. Hawkeye (Classic)
6. Hawkeye (Modern)
7. Jean Grey (Jim Lee)
8. Jean Grey (Age of Apocalypse)
9. Jean Grey (White Phoenix)

As there are five totally unique characters in this assortment (counting the two Wrecking Crew members as one character), you would expect that the absolute minimum number of different new figures we’d get in a case is 5. And that’s exactly what Hasbro is giving us.

The initial Marvel Legends 2013 Wave 2 case will contain:

(2) Scarlet Spider

(1) Wrecking Crew — Bulldozer or The Wrecker

(1) Hawkeye — Classic or Modern

(1) Black Panther

(1) Jean Grey — Age of Apocalypse or Jim Lee or White Phoenix

(1) Punisher or Blade from Marvel Legends Series 3

(1) Ultimates Captain America from Marvel Legends Series 4

Wait–WHAT?! Yeah, you read that right. Good ol’ Ultimates Captain America, fresh from Marvel Legends 2013 Series 1, is reporting for duty again. Never mind the fact that the only way many of us know that Marvel Legends Series 4 has been in our local stores at all as is the piles of unsold Ultimate Captain America. Apparently, for some incomprehensible reason, Hasbro has determined that what fans really want is more Ultimates Captain America figures.

The official listing for Marvel Legends Series 5 lists The Punisher for this case assortment, but I have to believe that this is where we’re going to be getting the long overdue Blade figure instead. We’ve been waiting the better part of a year for Blade and he’s still MIA, so it would be ludicrous (but not totally unexpected) if Hasbro repacked The Punisher in this case assortment instead of inserting the unreleased Marvel Legends Blade variant into the cases.

I think we can reasonably surmise that the Marvel Legends Rocket Raccoon Build-A-Figure pieces will be spread out amongst the Black Panther, Wrecking Crew, Jean Grey, and Hawkeye figures (not Scarlet Spider, since he’s two-per-case). So at least collectors will be able to build one Rocket Raccoon per case–but man, having to buy a whole other case (at least) to get the remaining 4 figures from this set is going to be a major pain.

Marvel Legends 2013 Series 2 (Wave 5 overall) is now available for pre-order over at BigBadToyStore, both as a case of 8 figures or a set of 5 with the five new figures (with variants inserted randomly. I’ll post more information on exactly which figure variants are actually contained in these initial cases just as soon as mine arrives and I can crack it open.