While the inaugural Marvel Legends X-Force series has several heavy-hitters like Mr. Sinister and Nightcrawler that I’ll be reviewing soon enough, today I want to focus on what’s almost certainly the most controversial ML figure this year. “Controversial” might sound a little dramatic for a toy, but there has been a lot of discussion of this action figure. You can get the new X-Force Marvel Legends Cannonball figure for about 20 bucks shipped right now—but should you?

When Hasbro decided to do a new Marvel Legends sub-line themed around X-Force they just had to include some classic members of the team roster in the lineup, otherwise things were going to feel pretty bizarre.

And so, joining characters like Guardian, Wendigo and Sinister (whose connections to X-Force are tenuous at best), we get two original members of the team: Cannonball and Boom Boom!

Hasbro preciously did an awful 6” Cannonball in a two-pack with Domino in 2010, but that figure was thin to the point of being emaciated and had a rubber jacket that’s disintegrated for most in under a decade. Can this new X-Force Legends Cannonball jump that very low bar…?

Surprisingly, the answer is not an unquestionable “Yes”. Hasbro made some debatable design choices for this figure that really hold it back from reaching the modern high standards of ML.

Let’s discuss the legless elephant in the room: this Cannonball Legends figure ain’t got no legs. Unlike the 2010 two-pack figure that came with legs and no blast effect, this time we get a blasting Cannonball six inch figure with no legs. As you might imagine, the collecting sphere has not been kind regarding this design choice.

At a glance and in a vacuum, I really like the rocketing energy effect itself. The billowing energy sculpted into the effect looks right-on to me from the comics, and the semi-translucent orange-to-yellow gradient on the energy looks phenomenal.

Unfortunately, the energy going straight up is a major limiter. Sam Guthrie doesn’t just hover in the air, so this figure is basically locked in to being blasting straight up vertically. I had some smiles flying Cannonball around by hand at horizontal and diagonal trajectories, but when on a shelf there’s no way to achieve that without rigging up some way to hold the toy up.

Including some sort of flight stand or even a pivot point on the blast effect could have significantly improved the displayability for this action figure, but sadly there’s nothing like that included here.

Further complicating matters is the fact that the jacket add-on piece to the upper body inhibits the shoulder hinge, so it’s impossible to have Cannonball’s arms fully extended going straight up in the manner that I think they’d look most natural on this action figure given the forced static vertical blasting pose.

Ultimately, this figure has just 13 points of articulation, which is awful for a modern Hasbro Marvel Legends figure:

• Ball-Hinge Neck and Shoulders
• Swivel-Hinge Wrists
• Ab Crunch
• Double-Hinge Elbows
• Swivel Biceps
• Swivel “Waist”/Effects Piece

It probably sounds like a straight-up hate this figure, but that’s actually not true. I’m a New Mutants fanboy 4 life, so I’ve got a personal bias towards this figure to begin with. I think this is a great representation of how Cannonball looked in the early issues of X-Force, with a solid likeness in the Sam Guthrie portrait and a wonderful paint wash on his hair.

The upper part of the shirt looks authentic, and the sculpting and texture of the purple jacket (which is an add-on overlay piece) is nice work. The add-on forearm portion of the gloves is well-done as well—from an accuracy perspective, the upper body on this figure is a winner. It’s just a shame that there’s so very little you can do with him.

Overall: Rather than soaring for the heavens, this new take on Sam Guthrie falls flat on his face in a lot of ways. The blast effect lower body looks awkward going straight up with the whole figure only being slightly taller than most other modern Marvel Legends, and the jacket overlay hinders the range of motion on the shoulders in a disappointing way.

The color gradient on the blasting effect looks awesome and the sculpting on the upper body of Marvel Legends Cannonball is also great, but this figure’s design makes it next to impossible to pose in a fun way that doesn’t feel out of place. I had fun zooming Sam around outside for some of the review photos, but otherwise this is an overall disappointing toy that many collectors may just purchase to complete their Wendigo Build-A-Figure.

GRADE: C-