With five days until the Avengers Endgame movie hits theaters, I’m continuing on with my look at the first wave of 2019 Marvel Legends Avengers series figures! Last time, I reviewed an obscure character in Citizen V who Hasbro pretty much perfectly in toy form. Going back to the obscurity well, today I’m going to review the Avengers Endgame Legends Living Laser figure collectors will need to buy in order to build Armored Thanos. ML Living Laser certainly looks unique—but is he actually a good toy?

The Right:

Strange but true: while I’ve read thousands of Marvel comics over the years (no hyperbole), I don’t think I’ve ever read a great story about the villainous Living Laser. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever read a story about Living Laser at all. Sure, he’s been in a bunch of issues I’ve read over the years, but the subject of them…? Not that I can recall.

In fact, the primary reason I get excited about this character at all is because I remember pinning away as a kid and being devastated about the cancelled Toybiz Living Laser figure from the Iron Man Animated series. When we got a 3.75” Marvel Universe Living Laser figure a few years back, I was thrilled to finally own a toy of the figure. Now that I have a 6” Legends version, is my life complete…?

Well, as far as ever needing another action figure of this character, I would say “Yes, my life is complete.” This is not a figure without its faults (and I’ll get to them shortly), but as far as being a spectacular-looking representation of the character, it’s pretty ace.

Hasbro went with translucent magenta plastic for the body of this figure, and it looks just tremendous. Depending on the lighting around you, Living Laser can appear pink or purple, and is a totally different aesthetic from any other Marvel Legends figure on your shelf.  Seriously, this figure stands out and breaks up the monotony of any lineup in a great way.

Rather than being purely translucent plastic, Avengers Legends Living Laser has some frosted white paint deco on his chest and shoulders, which are a great contrast to the translucence.

He has glossy white electricity painted on his arms, which transitions nicely to the two included effects pieces (which I’ll talk about in a bit).

Along with the two electric effects, Living Laser includes the Armored Thanos Torso—so if you want to build Endgame Thanos, you will be buying this figure, like it or not. I think to many fans, the $20 MSRP will be money well spent for the largest and most important part of the Thanos BAF.

The head sculpt of this figure is 100% unique and newly-tooled, and looks fantastic. It’s got an intimidating, robotic feel to it, and just looks plain awesome. Unfortunately, it also leads to some issues with this figure…

The Wrong:

As I said, this figure looks absolutely tremendous. Unfortunately, it’s an action figure, and that means it also needs to have the capability to be fun when posed and played with. In this class, the Living Laser Legends figure fares much more poorly.

First off, let’s talk about the head. Because of the shape of the Living Laser’s large helmet/mask/headdress thingie, the range of motion on this Marvel Legends’ head is close to literally zero. It can’t be tilted forward or back at all, and you can only twist the head laterally an itty-bitty amount.

As you might imagine, the limited range of the head is a major problem for posing. Even though this figure is otherwise super-articulated with every standard point of ML articulation (ball-hinge shoulders; swivel calves/thighs/waist/biceps; ab crunch; hinged ankle rockers; ball hips; double-hinge knees and elbows and swivel-hinge wrists), it’s tough to find a natural pose for a character who is restricted to basically always looking straight-on forward.

In addition, as tends to be the case with most translucent plastics, the joints feel very weak and wobbly, leading to some stability issues and a “gummy” feel.

And speaking of “gummy”—while I dearly love effects pieces, these lightning effects pieces that originated with Storm in last year’s X-Men Legends Apocalypse Series are my least favorite effects. They don’t feel rigid at all, and it’s hard to get them to stay in place the way I want without them falling off. The transparent white lightning effects look great when they work, but they’re a total pain to work with.

Overall: I desperately want to give this Marvel Legends Living Laser figure a higher grade, because I really, really dig how cool it looks. From a visual perspective, this is one of the most unique and eye-grabbing figures Hasbro has done in eons.

That said, this figure has too many drawbacks to get a top score. The translucent plastic makes for unstable joint connections, I hate the gumminess of the lightning effects pieces, and the head having virtually zero range of motion substantially limits natural poses for this action figure.

As a toy to stand on the shelf and look wicked alongside all your other villains, the Avengers Legends Living Laser figure is like visual candy. As an action figure you’d want to pose and play with, however, it leaves a lot to be desired.

GRADE: B-