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Marvel Minimates Wave 1 - Bruce Banner and Hulk
Here we have a pack containing the incredible Hulk and his alter ego, scientist Bruce Banner.
Packaging
The packaging features the Hulk logo along the side of the card.
The figures are packed in a bubble tray, and have twist-ties holding them in, as well as clear elastic bands holding their arms to their sides.
Hulk's green contrasts well with the black and light blue of the card, but the white lab coat of Bruce banner fares worse. With Hulk packed on the left, it spaces out the green (also seen on the logo on the left and on the artwork on the right) very nicely.
The Figures
Bruce Banner
The first figure in this review is Bruce Banner, the mild mannered scientist. He is suitably dressed in a lab coat and smart shirt and tie, with purple trousers. Oddly the trousers are a lighter shade of purple than those on the Hulk Minimate. Strange. Banner's hair and glasses are molded together as one piece, and the paint is applied quite sloppily on the ears.
As mentioned, Bruce Banner has a lab coat as his main accessory. It has the same problem in restricting articulation as the Kingpin's jacket, making it hard to access the waist swivel and leg joints.
Both the lab coat and the hair/glasses piece are removable. The lab coat has molded details, like the lapels, which is a nice touch, but when the lab coat is removed, you can see the very clean detailing of the shirt and tie a lot better, and I actually prefer Bruce Banner without the coat. When you remove the hair/glasses piece, you can see that Bruce Banner has these wonderfully expressive brown eyes, which are completely wasted hiding behind the glasses. Because of this, I would have preferred Bruce to have just the hairpiece and not the glasses.
Overall, Bruce Banner is a satisfactory figure, but he is not exciting enough. His accessories also hinder the toy too much for me to give it a high mark.
MMC Score - 5 out of 10
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HULK
The second figure in the set is, of course, the Hulk, the "mean, green, fighting machine" himself. He seems to be a bit of an odd choice for a Minimate in this 2-inch scale, as the character is supposed to be bigger than most of the other characters, and here he's the same size. Bruce Banner actually looks bigger than the Hulk, courtesy of his bulky lab coat.
Quibbles about size, though, are a bit of a moot point. Art Asylum have to work in the 2-inch scale due to the agreement they signed with Marvel, so any other large characters they do will be the standard size. Regardless, the Hulk figure has some very impressive detailing. Hulk's face is painted in a large snarl, with very good detail on the eyes and mouth. His hairpiece (also containing his ears) is removable.
The paint application here is good. Hulk's upper body is great, with muscular detailing on the front and the back, which really adds to the look of the figure.
The figure comes with no accessories, which isn't really surprising given the character.
Overall, the Hulk figure is nice, he isn't as big as he should be, but is a well detailed and fun figure.
MMC Score - 7 out of 10
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