“My” golden age of comic books (AKA my teenage years) was the 1990’s, so I’ve got a special place in my heart for Onslaught, the villain so powerful he was able to kill Captain America, Iron Man, the Fantastic Four and the Avengers. The Red Skull became the new Onslaught in 2014’s (awful) “Axis” crossover, and now Hasbro is bringing us 2014’s most important villain! You’ll have to buy all seven Captain America Marvel Legends 2016 figures to build the Red Onslaught Build-A-Figure… but is he worth it?

The Right:

Toybiz produced two figures of Onslaught over a decade ago (and DST has released a great Minimates Onslaught), but now Hasbro is ready to step up to the bat to create their own version of the modern reemergence of one of the most powerful X-Men villains ever!

For those unfamiliar with this iteration of the character, let me summarize: the Red Skull dug up Charles Xavier’s corpse, stole his brain and implanted it in himself. Then, Magneto mercilessly crushed Red Skull to death and the Red Onslaught was born!

(I know that doesn’t make any sense, but that’s exactly how it played out in the comics. Just roll with it.)

Besides the popularity of the Onslaught villain character itself, the biggest thing going for this figure is the outstanding sculpting job that Hasbro has done here.

From the various plates of the upper-body armor to the fierce sharpness of the claws, this figure excellently brings the Onslaught armor to life.

The back of the armor looks equally cool, as the segmented style gives the shell a real carapice-like feel. The shell attaches to Red Onslaught’s back via a peg, and fits tightly enough that it stays in place nicely and I have zero concerns about it just falling off at random.

The plastic colors used on this Build-A-Figure are also dead-on perfect. The deep red and glossy purple are the iconic colors for this character, and Hasbro totally nailed them.

The Red Skull head sculpt itself is superb, and looks like the artwork of the character from AXIS has jumped right off the page and into toy form.

I know most folks will opt to use the classic Onslaught head that will be included with the summer 2016 X-Men Legends series (and I will absolutely be one of them), but this really is a great Red Skull head (if you swing that way).

The Wrong:

The biggest issue for me with this Red Onslaught Marvel Legends figure is the sadly limited articulation scheme. We’ve been spoiled with super-poseable Build-A-Figures the past few years, but the AXIS Red Skull Build-A-Figure has some major flexibility problems.

The biggest limitations to Red Skull Onslaught’s articulation are his shoulders (which are restricted by his hard plastic shoulder armor), for feet (which have rockers that are totally useless because of the being blocked by the ankle armor), the total lack of a waist joint, the single-jointed elbows and the head (which can only look straight forward, to the sides and slightly down). In other words: he can’t do a whole lot.

My Red Onslaught review photos all look pretty static/similar because this figure is extremely back-heavy and wants to fall over constantly if I try to do anything dynamic with him. The lack of working ankle rockers is a big issue here, and the hinged feet simply don’t go forward enough to compensate for the weight of the Onslaught figure’s back.

I had some success getting ML Red Onslaught to stand on uneven ground, but posing him on flat surfaces was the worst. It’s a real shame that more development wasn’t done on the feet for this mold.

During the whole AXIS storyline, Red Skull Onslaught’s scale is all over the place. But during the most memorable scenes of the story (and its covers), Red Onslaught is a monster who towers over dozens of puny-seeming heroes and villains. Sadly, the 8″ Red Onslaught BAF figure just isn’t all that scary when he’s only a head taller than The Wrecking Crew and two heads taller than Captain America himself.

The days of getting gigantic BAFs like Galactus and the Sentinel are long behind us, but I still would have preferred at least a somewhat larger Red Skull. Maybe somewhere between his current size and Hulkbuster Iron Man would have made him look just a bit more intimidating.

Finally, the almost total lack of a paint wash on this figure’s armor is very jarring when you look at the nicely-painted Red Skull head and then the virtually paintless Onslaught armor. The sculpt still looks decent, but I was really surprised to see the almost total lack of paint apps on the majority of this BAF.

Overall: I struggled a bit with the grade for this Marvel Legends Red Onslaught review, as this is a figure that I desperately want to love because of my attachment to the character… but I’m just not there. The Red Skull BAF isn’t as large as I want, its posing potential is too hindered by back heaviness and limited articulation, and the paint apps are sadly minimal. I’m glad Hasbro made this Red Onslaught Build-A-Figure and that I have it–and I am definitely looking forward to getting the classic Onslaught head in the summer 2016 Marvel Legends X-Men Series–but this figure is definitely not as good as I had hoped it would be.

GRADE: C+