Iron Man 3 has been “the next big Marvel movie” for so long that it’s hard to reconcile that the movie is out in theaters now, and the true next big Marvel movie is “The Wolverine”, opening July 26th, 2013! Don’t get me wrong–“The Wolverine” is going to do fairly well at the box office, but it’s not going to gross nearly as much as “Iron Man 3”, nor is it going to have a fraction of the breadth and depth of the various toy lines merchandising Iron Man 3. Even so, Hasbro is putting out some The Wolverine figures to commemorate the movie. But having seen the prototypes now, I kind of wish they weren’t…

I’ve always liked the Silver Samurai ever since I was a kid and had the amazing vac-metalized Silver Samurai figure from the Toybiz X-Men figures line. I grew to love the character when he appeared in Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (though he was pretty awful in it), and I hoped that some day Silver Samurai might get the spotlight on a grander stand. That day has come with the 2013 Wolverine movie, but, well… this isn’t really what I had in mind…

I’m hoping that the scary demon faces on Silver Samurai’s chest and knees are executed better in the actual “The Wolverine” movie than on this Hasbro Silver Samurai action figure, because this figure looks re-freaking-diciulously stupid. Even if “The Wolverine” ends up being my favorite movie of the year (it won’t), I don’t think I could deal with having this chunk of plastic in my collection.

“The Wolverine” Logan figure doesn’t fare all that much better, but at least he doesn’t have a bunch of silly devil heads all over him. The sculpting on this Logan action figure is actually pretty decent, but it’s a bad sign when the plastic quality is so poor that Wolverine’s claws are already deformed and bent out of shape on the official promotional photos that Hasbro sends out. Classic Wolverine in his X-Men comic book costume looks equally poor. I can’t even begin to guess that the blue effects piece attached to the Wolverine figure’s right forearm is, and he suffers from the same problem with deformed, bendable claws. There’s also a “Shadow Strike Ninja” figure scheduled for the line, but I suspect that he too is going to look like a 1990’s Hong Kong bootleg of an action figure instead of the high-quality Marvel movie toys we used to be spoiled by.

To be painfully honest, I think these The Wolverine 3.75″ figures are total garbage. I love the X-Men enough that I’m willing to buy some sub-par merchandise, but these toys are just terrible. Truthfully, I think that the Wolverine role-play retractable claws and Wolverine mask that Hasbro is releasing are better than any other toy they’ve come up with for “The Wolverine”, and that’s just sad.

“The Wolverine” movie toys by Hasbro are scheduled to be released in June 2013. Unless I pick up an electronic Wolverine claws toy to run around with and scare my friends, I probably won’t be purchasing and reviewing anything from this particular line.