Last week, Hasbro hit fans with a dreaded Marvel Legends price increase to $29.99 for standard 6” figures, which has predictably been met with resistance and pushback from collectors. This week, Hasbro is ready to win back some good will with pre-orders for a mostly stellar Marvel Legends X-Men 97 Wave 4, featuring Death (Gambit), Havok, Polaris and more! Will any of these figures earn your 30 bucks, Marvel collectors?

X-Men 97 Marvel Legends Direct Pre-Order Links:
Polaris ► Amazon ► Entertainment Earth
Death Gambit ► Amazon ► Entertainment Earth 
Havok ► Amazon ► Entertainment Earth 
Cyclops ► Amazon ► Entertainment Earth 
Jean Grey ► Amazon ► Entertainment Earth 
Vindicator ► Amazon ► Entertainment Earth 

Hasbro kicked off New York Comic Con 2026 by launching pre-orders for a made-to-order X-Men 97 Bastion and Prime Sentinel Bolivar Trask two-pack. Priced at $75, the deluxe two-pack didn’t exactly win the hearts and minds of X-Men collectors over immediately. You can order the exclusive set on the Hasbro Pulse website until November 1st, 2026.

The final, winged look for Bastion not the design a lot of collectors would have preferred for Bastion, and the high price point is hard to swallow for villains who aren’t quite in the upper echelon of popularity.

In addition, it will have been well over 3 years since the characters appeared in the X-Men 97 cartoon when this made-to-order duo finally ships out in late 2027. So Bastion and Bolivar Trask probably not get Hasbro off to the NYCC 2026 hot start they probably hoped for.

Luckily, Hasbro brought along an entire new wave of X-Men 97 Legends figures as well, which have already generated more buzz with fans than Bastion and Trask. Even at the increased MSRP, I think a lot of collectors will be hyped for 5 out of the 6 selections in this lineup.

That 6th figure I just mentioned that may sell a bit sluggishly is a new, animated version of Vindicator from Alpha Flight—or rather, a figure of Morph transformed into Vindicator (as that’s the only appearance Vindicator has in X-Men 97).

We’re approaching 20 years since Hasbro last released James as Vindicator in the 2008 Walmart Ares Build-A-Figure Series, so no one can say that this iteration of Vindicator wasn’t due for an update.

That said, with the nature of Vindicator in the X-Men 97 media solely as a super brief Morph transformation, it’s hard to imagine fans will be clamoring to throw 30 bucks at this bare-bones release. A running change removing the black shadowy cel-shading from one of the heads is planned, but I’m not sure that will be enough to get this guy off the shelves.

But back to the 5 figures I think will actually be popular. It’s hard to choose one or two as the “headliner”s of this wave, as all 5 are iconic X-Men with prominent roles in X-Men 97 Season 2.

I’ll start with Gambit in his Death form as a Horseman of Apocalypse. Gambit debuted as Death in the comics decades ago, but this is his first time being represented in figure form this way.

While I praised the X-Men 97 Wave 1 Gambit figure when I reviewed him in 2023, I was still perturbed he didn’t have fully pin-less joints. That’s been remedied for this new version, along with the totally redone color scheme, new coat and great new tarot card accessories.

Death Gambit just looks straight-up cool, and the all-new “shuffling cards” accessory is inspired. This may eke out as my favorite figure in the wave (although I am biased towards Remy).

Two other X-Men getting the new costume treatment in Wave 4 are Cyclops and Jean Grey in their Grant Morrison New X-Men costumes. I was very surprised to suddenly see Scott and Jean in these looks midway through X-Men 97 Season 2, and I’m just as surprised to see them here as toys.

The only previous figure we got in a costume matching these was the (now badly outdated) Xorn figure in the 2006 Blob Series.

The New X-Men Cyclops figure gives us an alternate aggro head for Scott and swappable gesturing hands, but I’d be lying if I pretended an optic blast effect wasn’t glaringly absent here. Lack of that accessory really limits the display possibilities for the X-Men’s leader.

Jean Grey only includes the singular head, but gets translucent energy effects for her hands and swappable gesturing hands of her own.

The main attraction here is certainly just getting action figures of Cyclops and Jean Grey in these costumes at all, but for the newly increased price, I think Hasbro could have found a way to give us just a little bit more with each of them.

A pair of sometimes-lovebirds round out the wave, as we get the first ever animated style figures for Havok and Polaris. As in the animated series, both are decked out in their recognizable 90s X-Factor costumes.

Unlike his brother, Alex comes with two effects pieces, including a fairly large one that attaches to his back. These are recycled from the Bonebreaker Series Havok from 2022, but those effects were the high point of that figure, so I don’t mind seeing them again at all.

I think this 90s jacketed look is by far Havok’s most interesting costume design, so I’m really glad Marvel Studios opted to use it in X-Men 97 over a more common and basic black costume Havok.

Lorna Dane, Magneto’s daughter (some of the time), gets to make a rare appearance here as the X-Men 97 Polaris figure. Polaris gets a ton of noteworthy screen-time in X-Men 97 Season 2, so she absolutely deserved this spot in the Wave 4 lineup.

The pinned joints on the 2019 comic book Polaris figure were very visible and looked terrible, so I’m totally on-board with a pin-less upgrade to her.

My only nitpick is that these magic effect attachments are getting quite dated and are around a decade old now, although I still prefer them to the “bubbling energy circles” from the 2019 figure. It’s 2026 and figures cost 30 bucks now—make me some new damn energy effects, Hasbro.

Marvel Legends X-Men 97 Wave 4 is now up for order and shipping out this winter. Will the recent price jump impact your buying plans for this series, Marvel collectors? What characters, if any, are you planning to pick up?