Demand is high and supply at retail still isn’t plentiful, but the X-Men Marvel Legends Apocalypse Series is slowly but surely starting to permeate retail stores. I reviewed the Apocalypse Build-A-Figure last month before I got sidetracked with SDCC 2018, but now it’s back to business and time to play catch-up. And what better place to start than with one of the X-Men’s two most legendary leaders: the Mistress of the Elements herself—X-Men Marvel Legends Storm!

Given that she’s perhaps the best known and most popular of all female X-Men characters, it was only a matter of time until we got a new Storm 6” figure in the reborn X-Men Legends series. I’m actually surprised it took three waves to get a new figure of Ororo, honestly!

Hasbro strongly hinted at San Diego Comic-Con 2018 that a new Jim Lee Storm figure was in the works (which the SDCC crowd overwhelmingly voted for a white costume on instead of silver)—but before we get to that version, we’ve got the 2018 Marvel Legends Punk Storm figure to enjoy first!

And enjoy it I do—this is a straight-up stellar action figure. Hasbro went all-out with almost entirely new tooling for this Marvel Legends Mohawk Storm figure, and it really shows. While we’ve gotta Mohawk Storm Legends before, none of them have ever hit the classic mark as authentically as this one does.

My favorite part of this figure is hands-down the awesome head sculpt. The Ororo Monroe portrait is positively oozing attitude with a confident smirk—this is a woman who ain’t gonna take any of Cyclops’s crap!

The texture, shaping and paint wash on Storm’s Mohawk look incredible—I can only dream of rocking a Mohawk as slick as Storm’s one day!

The lightning bolt earrings add a splash of color to the head, and the paint work on the eyes and eyebrows is excellent. What a killer head sculpt!

And the costume/body mold for Marvel Legends Punk Storm hits the bullseye almost as well as the head sculpt. Storm’s leather jacket looks terrific and fits perfectly, and the cuffs on her gloves are nice and tight and stay in place despite being add-on pieces.

Storm’s sexy leather pants look terrific on her long, slender legs, and the boots really pull her whole lower body sculpt together nicely. Really, the only part of the costume that doesn’t work for me is the belts, which are too loosey-goosey and destined to flop around.

The poseability of Storm is the usual level of super-articulated impressiveness from a Marvel Legends female figure.

While there’s no swivel biceps/waist/boots or double-jointed elbows, we do get ankle rockers, ball-jointed legs and upper torso, ball-hinge head/shoulders/elbows, swivel thighs and swivel-hinge wrists. Hasbro will never convince me women doesn’t need more arm articulation, but what is here works rather well.

Even though this figure largely uses the dreaded Marvel Legends black plastic, the plastic quality is actually extremely solid. Nothing about this figure itself feels loose or “gummy” to me, and the joints are all tight and well-constructed. QC-wise, Storm herself is aces!

What’s not top-notch quality-wise, however, are her new yellow lightning effects pieces (which Magneto also gets in a different color).

Unlike the very solid magical and cosmic effects pieces we all burned out on, these effects feel so floppy and gummy that it’s downright obnoxious. You can sort of get them to stay in place momentarily, but if you move Storm at all the lightning effects are likely to fall off or flop over in a position you don’t want. Very disappointing that these new effects work so poorly right out of the gate!

Overall: I was in the room at HasCon 2017 when this 2018 Marvel Legends Storm action figure was officially announced and revealed, and somehow I’m just as hyped for it almost a whole year as I was when I first saw it. The head sculpt is outstanding, the sculpted costume looks phenomenal, and the overall attitude of this Punk Storm Legends figure is just off the charts.

The lightning effects pieces are made of terrible floppy plastic and I remain frustrated with the limited arm articulation for female figures, but this is otherwise a near-perfect 6” ML Storm figure. If you’re a fun of the Punk Rock Storm costume, I can’t see that design ever being done better in toy form.

GRADE: A-