SDCC 2018 is unbelievably just three days away, and that doesn’t just means loads of new Marvel figures and statues being revealed—it also means many Comic Con Exclusive Marvel toys will be hitting the marketplace. And to my surprise, I’ll be reviewing a few of those SDCC Exclusives in advance! An unexpected package from Hasbro showed up on my doorstep this weekend, giving me the opportunity to review the SDCC Marvel Legends Red Skull & Electronic Tesseract set that folks are pre-selling for $100+ on ebay…

I don’t know if I missed an E-Mail somehow or what, but I was totally like “Wha-Whaa?!” when a box of SDCC 2018 Marvel Legends exclusive review samples showed up at my house this weekend courtesy of Hasbro.

I was taking my review photos of the X-Men Apocalypse wave at the time, but obviously the opportunity to review some San Diego Comic Con Exclusive goodies a bit early is gonna get precedence. Sorry X-Men fans—hang in there just a wee bit longer!

We’d seen the elaborate box packaging for this Marvel Legends Red Skull & Tesseract set in the official photos, but you don’t get a real feel for how nice the deluxe packaging is until you have it in-hand.

The packaging is designed to look like a sort of Top-Secret Hydra Containment Box (complete with a velcro front!), with a bunch of confidential military files and the wrapped-up Cosmic Cube (Tesseract) inside.

I’m the type of collector who throws all their packaging in the recycling bin, but even I have to admit that this is a lush, well-executed box. Good work, Hasbro packaging department!

I know most folks will be more interested in the SDCC Red Skull figure, so I’ll look at him first. While I really dig the Hydra army-building potential of the single-packed Marvel Studios Legends Red Skull figure, my heart lies with the trench coat look for Red Skull, so I was pretty jazzed when Hasbro revealed we’d be getting this version as a convention exclusive.

While there’s clearly some reused tooling from the 10 Years of Marvel Studios Red Skull mass release version, that’s totally appropriate and makes sense here. The Red Skull head sculpt is exactly the same, but it was also an excellent sculpt to begin with, so that’s fine by me.

As far as actual posing the 6” Red Skull figure goes, logical options are a bit more limited. This is a figure that was made for two things: grasping the Tesseract tightly and clenching his fist menacingly in the air—and Red Skull does both of these things swell. You can also have him throwing a punch or clawing at Captain America’s eyes if you want to get wild and crazy, I suppose, but I’m actually alright with him just clutching the Cosmic Cube.

The sculpting detail on the trench coat is quite nice, with lots of tiny stitches on the coat and the Hydra logo emblazoned on the side of his left shoulder. The “metal” belt buckle with the Hydra logo looks nifty too.

Articulation isn’t anything spectacular, but there’s ankle rockers and a ball-jointed upper torso, so I’m satisfied. He’s also got ball-hinge head and shoulders, double-hinged knees and elbows, ball hips, and swivel biceps/thighs/wrists.

Of course, while the movie Red Skull figure is fun and all, what I’m really psyched about in this set is the first-ever convention exclusive entry in the Marvel Legends prop replicas (or “Premium Role-Play Items”, whatever) series: the Electronic Tesseract.

The life-size Tesseract comes inside of a hard plastic clear plastic cube, and then comes covered in a layer of tissue paper to prevent scratches. Unfortunately, even with those extra precautions, my Marvel Legends Tesseract had several scratches straight out of the packaging. Alas.

However!! Once I got my OCD in check and coped with the scratches (and had an epic battle with taking the Cube apart and finding a screwdriver that could open the interior to put in the three required AAA batteries), that’s where the real fun began.

The inside of the Electronic Tesseract has a beautiful bumpy rock texture that reminds me of the interior of a big chunk of quartz. It’s really nicely sculpted (and rather beautiful, honestly).

It’s a bit of a pain having to pull apart the 1:1 Tesseract every time you want to power it up, but definitely worth it. It has two settings: one where the light stays on for 5 minutes, and one where it’s on indefinitely (or until the battery dies).

The Tesseract glows ultra bright (as you might expect an all-powerful Infinity Stone to), and feels wonderfully smooth and empowering in the palm of your hand. I know that a blue plastic cube isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, but I absolutely love this. An outstanding addition to the Marvel Legends props series, in my opinion.

Overall: While this Marvel Legends Tesseract and Red Skull exclusive set isn’t necessarily going to be a must-have for every Marvel collector, it hits on plenty of the right notes to earn a recommend from me.

The Electronic Tesseract itself is just amazingly fun to mess around with and light up and take photos with, with some preexisting scratches on the plastic and a bit awkwardness with opening it up being the only downsides.

The Trench Coat Red Skull look is my preferred look for the character, and Hasbro excelled with the sculpting detail on the figure. He could use an alternate hand to hold a gun (and a gun to hold), but he’s a great representation of the character anyway—just without as many display options as he could have.

The price on this set ($59.99) might be a slight hair too high, but given the new tooling for the Tesseract and the very cool packaging for the exclusive set, I’m really not too bothered about it. For me, this is a very satisfying item that’s likely to be my favorite of all the Marvel SDCC 2018 exclusives available from any company.

Scalpers are pre-selling this on ebay now for $100 and up, but I’d highly advise anyone not attending Comic-Con wait a few weeks for Hasbro Toy Shop to offer this item themselves–I’ve got high hopes that most collectors who want one will be able to get this box set without paying a crazy inflated price.

And big thanks to Hasbro for sending over this review sample of the San Diego Comic-Con 2018 Marvel Legends Red Skull and Electronic Tesseract set!

GRADE: B+