2007 Hasbro
Marvel Legends
Wave 2 - Blob Series
Xorn
BAF Piece: Left Leg
MSRP: $9.99
The most unlikely character to have been made into a Marvel Legend, Xorn.
Xorn is a pretty solid figure with a few annoying exceptions, let's see how he scores.
Packaging
Hasbro still producing the same beautiful package scheme as the first wave of Marvel Legends, The Annihilus Series. It still looks great, it still looks fresh and it still makes me that much more happy to buy the figure. All the color and illustration choices look great here. Nothing stands out as poor design or choices in illustration.
Score: 8
Sculpt / Design
Xorn's Design is pretty darn close to spot on. This figure depicts one particular New X-Men issue in which he reveals himself to be Magneto (later retconned to have been Xorn taking on Magneto's likeness). Xorn was depicted beforehand with no shirt as where this version has a gray shirt. However the gray shirted version of Xorn is not supposed to have the big yellow X on his jacket as opposed to the shirt-less version did but with a silver belt. Confused? Well, that is sort of the nature of Xorn. Xorn's jacket, sleeves, pants and boots are all finely detailed depicting a leather texture nicely. The hands are very accurately sculpted to look exactly like artist Frank Quitely's version sans the hair. A surprising detail were the sculpted X's on the sides of Xorn's ankles, unfortunately the pegs are inserted here for the ankle articulation which cancels the nice detail out. I mentioned annoyances and the two major ones could be put into this category. First of all, the chains sculpted across Xorn's torso are nearly sculpted into the torso as if embedded into it it and looks very cheap. If you lift the jacket you can see that the chains stop at Xorn's sides and don't wrap around the back. The key annoyance is that you can very blatantly see Magneto's white hair from the back, chin along the bottom and worst of all skin through the corner's of the masks mouth. If he really was Magneto hiding under there, I think the X-Men would figure him out pretty quick. Other than that qualm, I do have to say that both Xorn's mask and Magneto head are surprisingly well sculpted and comic accurate. However, when Xorn's mask is off, Magneto's head is very very small in comparison to the rest of the body and I can see that it was necessary to make Xorn, with mask on, proportionate. Despite some unforgiveable setbacks in sculpt and design, the sculpt and texture to the leather parts of the costume are undeniably well executed and accurate.
Score: 4
Paint / Color
Okay, so to clarify, Xorn had two different costume Schemes during his appearance in New X-Men:
Xorn, first costume scheme - Black jacket with big yellow X going across and yellow trim at the cuffs. No shirt with chains running across. Silver belt.
Xorn, second costume scheme (when revealing himself as magneto) - Black jacket with yellow trim on collar and yellow X's. Gray shirt with chains running across. Yellow-gold belt.
As you can see in the photos, the figure is a mix between the two versions. He's accurate, just not to one certain scheme, a mix of both. This is due to paint application. Xorn's mask received an exceptional amount of paint with a dull gray head contrasting the silver mask front. The entire mask has a dark wash applied that really brings out the detail. The light blue eyes however could have used either white or black stripes in them (depending on which artist they depicted the lines from). The choice in color for the flesh of Xorn/Magneto's head and hands is perfect, not that ugly opaque pale tone that we've seen in figures like Banshee, Quicksilver and Thor. The head has the very basic white paint applied to hair and eyebrows when the hair would have benefited from a bit of a wash and/or drybrushing. They yellow shoulders and X's are painted with a less than accurate over bleed from their intended design. The jacket's giant yellow X is surprisingly accurate and clean. The metal piping that makes up Xorn's neck is very dull with a weak attempt of drybrushed silver, this certainly could have benefited from more silver and a wash of black. Although painted Silver to differentiate from the rest of the gray torso, the chains just couldn't be saved from their mediocre sculpt job.
Score: 5
Articulation
Xorn features a refreshingly useful 32 POA (Points of Articulation). Sans finger articulation, and despite a completely newly sculpted body head to toe, Xorn is very reminiscent of the way ToyBiz articulated their Marvel Legends. No funny elbows, no skipping of the bicep cut and no innovative new knees. Why isn't Hasbro keeping their articulation schemes consistent? Who knows, but this is a welcome blast from the past. Here we go with the breakdown: full hinge and rotating neck, true ball-joint shoulders with cut-swivel biceps, double hinge jointed elbows, cut-swivel wrists, ab crunch, torso rotation, true ball-joint hips, cut-swivel hips, double hinge joint knees, cut swivel mid calf and finally double function ankles with forward/backward hinge and left/right pivot swaying feet. This is definitely a super-articulated figure. Of all figures, Xorn doesn't really need it, he kinda just stands around, except for that classic cover sitting with his legs crossed staring at the burger while touching his chin, he pulls that one off nicely, but I digress.
Score: 9
Accessories
When the prototype was first shown I was surprised, confused and pleased all at once that they were making a Xorn. Kudo's for making him both Magneto and Xorn with a removable mask. The mask certainly has it's setbacks being that you can see through the thing but I prefer this to not getting both heads and even to swappable heads as having an extra head lying around can get annoying and/or cumbersome. Okay, I know this is silly, but Xorn could've included a burger, but the mask is sufficient and I consider it a bonus. Although you can see through the mask, it's exceptionally well sculpted and painted, this is a tough one to score.
Score: 7
Value
Super-articulated, decently sculpted, pretty well painted, removable helmet included, Blob BAF piece included, nice packaging -- pretty much sums up the value of the figure.
Score: 7
Score Totals
Packaging: 8
Sculpt / Design: 4
Paint / Color: 5
Articulation: 9
Accessories: 7
Value: 7
Overall: 40 out of a possible 60
An unlikely figure, but a welcome addition to the cult hit New X-Men run as written by scribe Grant Morrison. Xorn was immediately a very intriguing character in the X-Men comic books until he revealed himself as Magneto, which was an interesting story but plummeted very quickly down the drain into a climax in which Magneto kills Jean Grey (for real this time) which subsequently results in Magneto's beheading by Wolverine, killing Magneto dead. Which is exactly why Marvel quickly retconned this story to say that it was actually Xorn who did all of these things including somehow mysteriously taking on Magneto's likeness. A pretty solid release despite some annoyances and I'm glad to add him to my New X-Men team alongside Wolverine from the X-Men Classics line.
Check out
Xorn in the Database.
