The Notorious Scarlet Mitch - Reviewed!

Toybiz' Marvel Legends Series Eleven Scarlet Witch action figure. Figure is allegedly cancelled due to poor appearance, but an undetermined amount was released to retail. Ever since the figure first hit in Asia the story is that she's the worst female, if not the worst overall Marvel Legend to date. Is that fair? Well, no. Is she a good ML? Well, no.


Sculpt
Okay. This is probably going to bite me on the ass, but I honestly don't think she looks that bad. Not great, but Toybiz has done worse. While a lot of people have been calling her Scarlet Mitch and Scarlet Manwich due to her perceived bad sculpt, I think that's a bit much. Her face sculpt is actually rather nice - take a look above, that's a pretty face, especially compared to some "good" ML females like Black Widow and Storm. The real problem here is her body:


It's not even that apparant in the pic imo, but various parts of her body are just plain anemic - her thighs and upper chest, in particular. See how her ribcage is too big for her upper chest(the so-called "boobticulation")? Also due to her large amount of hair, her head doesn't quite fit the size of the body that was produced for her. Finally, the lack of detail on her torso is just plain lazy. Her pelvis looks like a hard plastic diaper. What's interesting is that her body is basically the same one as Mystique's, but unlike that figure there is no attempt to try and improve it or at least draw away the eye with other details.


Paint/Construction
Awful. Here's the other part of the equation that equals a bad figure. This might be hard to believe, but of the three Scarlet Witches I found at retail, this was BY FAR the best painted. The most obvious victim of the factory meltdown Toybiz experienced with ML11, though the paint apps on the other figures in the waves tended not to be winners either. It's not just the paint app quality, though, but the decision to make her torso raw plastic as opposed to painted. This is something often seen in lesser mass market lines, and it's always a bad idea - it always ends up looking cheap. You can get by with that cheap raw plastic look with minorly detailed animation-based figures like Yu-gi-oh, but with Marvel Legends it sticks out like a sore thumb. In addition the hard smooth glossy plastic used is inappropriate - it looks like nothing if not plastic. The rest of the body seems a bit soft, and the thinness of the joints makes her seem quite rickety.


Articulation
Okay. Not the most articulated female ML, and not the least, either, Scarlet Witch is about average. I forget what the packaging claims but I count: swivel and hinge neck, ball shoulders, bicep swivels, double hinged elbows, glove-line swivels, wrist hinges, knuckle swivels, upper rib swivel, ab hinge, ball waist, ball hips, double hinged knees, boot line swivels, ankle hinges, so 29 points of articulation.


Summation
Well, she's not the worst ML ever in my opinion. That goes to ML11 Ultron. However like her in-comic paramour the Vision, her transition to ML has resulted in a generally dull and unaccomplished figure. Actually, she kind of matches the ML7 Vision because of this - he is one of the poorer figures in the line as well, imo. Had she been made by a better factory she might not have gotten as much hatred aimed at her, but I suspect the final result wouldn't have been much different. Primarily I bet we see, if we see a correction at all, better quality paint apps and maybe new thighs. Given the upcoming Hasbro transition for ML, I doubt we will see anything on the Scarlet Witch front at all. Considering how important a character she is, that would be a shame.