Today is the big day that Hasbro will be selling the remainder of their SDCC 2016 exclusives stock online, so what better day to look at another heavy-hitter from the SDCC Marvel Legends The Raft set than today, right? I expected him to be one of the most sought-after figures from the set on the aftermarket, but the Marvel Legends Abomination is actually one of the least expensive figures from the set! Is the lack of interest in this Abomination figure justified…?

The Right:

After a new Marvel Legends Abomination 6″ scale figure hadn’t been released in many years, suddenly Hasbro revealed not one, but two versions of a new ML Abomination in one month. Now that’s ambition for you!

While both versions of this figure share the same mold, the Captain America Marvel Legends Abomination Build-A-Figure features a light, olive green color, whereas the SDCC The Raft Abomination I’m reviewing today is in a far darker forest green.

For my money, I was reasonably sure that the Comic-Con exclusive version of this figure was going to be by far the more popular of the two. To me, this dark green-colored Emil Blonsky figure just looks right, and I really thought the vast majority of other collectors would feel the same.

But as much as I prefer this SDCC Abomination, it appears that this version just is not in much demand–the figure is selling for barely 30 bucks online, which is nearly rock-bottom for a Build-A-Figure.

But hey–sellers’ losses are buyers’ gains, and I think the paint deco on this figure looks downright awesome. If dark green is how you see Abomination in your mind’s eye, you’re gonna love the look of this figure.

And speaking of looks–if this figure looks a bit familiar to you, it’s because it’s mostly created using retooled parts from previous Build-A-Figures such as last year’s Rhino Build-A-Figure.

The notion of retooling Rhino into Abomination struck me as absolutely crazy, but Hasbro pulls it off with flying colors. The sculpt is so good and looks so appropriate to the character that I think many collectors won’t even notice that this figure isn’t all “new”!

One 100% newly-tooled part of this figure is the head. Whereas Diamond Select Toys aimed for a more sinister, intelligent-looking Emil Blonsky with their Marvel Select Abomination, Hasbro has gone with a monstrous, savage head sculpt for their Marvel Legends iteration.

There’s pros and cons for this choice, but from an aesthetic standpoint, I like that this Abomination Marvel Legends figure looks different from what we usually get, and the bestial head is aesthetically compelling. In short–I like it.

The amphibious ears, rubbery “hair” and mismatched teeth on this Marvel Legends Abomination figure make for a fantastically fun–but gross-looking–monster.

An area where this Abomination absolutely beats out the DST Marvel Select version is the articulation scheme. For a bulky behemoth of a figure, the articulation on this Abomination Marvel Legends figure is terrific.

Abomination features a ball-hinge head with a great range of motion, upper torso ab crunch, swivel waist, ball-hinge shoulders, swivel biceps, hinge elbows, ball-hinge wrists, ball-jointed hips, swivel thighs, hinged knees and hinged ankles with ankle rockers.

Could Hasbro have implemented slightly more articulation, such as double-jointed knees and elbows? Yes–but to what end? For the size and bulk of this brute, the flexibility here works phenomenally, and I don’t honestly believe that adding more articulation points would have added much to this figure at all.

Quality-control on this figure is outstanding, with Abomination feeling nice and heavy and standing up stably (even when holding up another figure!) with no problems whatsoever. The paint apps are also stellar–no QC complaints at all.

The Wrong:

This won’t count against the figure–because that absolutely wouldn’t be fair–but I think Hasbro took a lot of the wind out of the sails of both this SDCC Exclusive Abomination figure and the Abomination Build-A-Figure by releasing them within a few weeks of each other.

The result is that this figure is easily obtainable for under 30 bucks on the secondary market, which is a shame for a limited exclusive that’s actually extremely nice.

I’ve also heard some folks say that they feel Hasbro compromised the authenticity of this Abomination figure so that they could easily release a tweaked version of it as Marvel Legends A-Bomb down the road.

Having reviewed reference art of Abomination from different eras of the comics, I don’t necessarily agree with those thoughts–this look like a very accurate Abomination figure to me–but I wanted to mention them here for readers to contemplate nonetheless.

If I had to name one real gripe about this figure, it’s that I would have liked alternate interchangeable fist hands. The “claw” hands look formidable and all, but I think Emil would fare better against Hulk if he had some fists to bash up against him.

Overall: Although I wasn’t as excited about the SDCC 2016 Marvel Legends The Raft Abomination figure as I was most of the other figures in the set, it turns out that this figure is virtually perfect.

Despite being largely composed of retooled parts, the mold for ML Abomination looks ideal for him, and the paint and articulation for the figure are both immensely impressive.

I’m not sure why this figure isn’t more popular on the aftermarket right now, but it’s a stunning home run in-hand. Whether you opt for this version or the olive-colored BAF, this new Abomination is highly recommended.

GRADE: A