After the supposed death of his brother Simon at the hands of the Avengers, Eric Williams made a Faustian bargain with the Tinkerer for the power to avenge his brother’s death as the Grim Reaper! When he found out his brother had come back to life as Wonderman, he fought against him too…to avenge Simon from Simon? Comics!
The Grim Reaper is part of the wave of Marvel Legends that came out in support of Ant-Man in June, which works in that Ant-Man is an Avenger and the Grim Reaper is an Avenger’s villain, though there’s not much doing outside of that.
I’ll be honest and say I found this figure a little underwhelming. I have been generally convinced that the 6-inch Marvel Legends are better than the 3 and ¾ inch Marvel Universe/Marvel Infinite/Avengers Infinite/whatever the hell their name is this week, but I prefer my smaller Grim Reaper to this one.
For one thing, a careful examination of both figure’s eyes show they’re different colors. The smaller one has brown eyes while the taller one has green. According to my Marvel Avengers: The Ultimate Character Guide, they should be brown. Chalk one up to the little guy there.
Other than the miscolored eyes, the Legends Grim Reaper has a fine paint job. It’s all navy except for the white skull and crossbones insignia painted on his chest, the gray of his left arm band, the silver of his scythe, the peach of his flesh, and the white of his eyes and teeth. It’s a lot to list, but only covers fifteen or twenty-percent of the figure.
Where this figure does work well is in the sculpt and articulation. His face is sculpted into a Joker-esque grin, and though it doesn’t quite fit the character, it is awesome. He looks seriously scary.
He’s got standard Marvel Legends articulation—meaning he can get into most poses you’d want to get him in. He does, unfortunately, have the ridiculous looking chest joint. The spinning of his scythe more than makes up for that though. It’s the place where 6-inch figure really outdoes the 3 and ¾ inch figure.
The only accessories are an Ultron build-a-figure leg and Grim Reaper’s cape, which likes to fall out. The knob that’s meant to go into his back and attach is shaped in such a way that it has trouble actually going in. I tried to capture it in this photo, but the lighting makes it hard to pick out. The problem is that its got a support coming out underneath it that hits against the arch of his back and loosens the cape.
He came in standard Marvel Legends packaging. It’s got a little painting from Ant-Man on the back, which would be cooler if the figure was a little less shoehorned into the set.
I’d recommend buying this figure if you love the character. I got a Hawkeye from the line before the Ant-Man line, which Nick reviewed wholesale here, and I was much more impressed with him, point being this is an unimpressive Marvel Legends figure.
You can get Grim Reaper for about $15 from Amazon, or for $19.99 from Toys ‘R’ Us. Also, Entertainment Earth has a sweet deal on this figure for $8.50, and Big Bad Toy Store has an even sweeter clearance deal for $4.99. And if you miss the clearance or these retailers run out, you can always jump onto eBay and search around for one of these Marvel Legends Grim Reaper action figures.
