The List?
The List.

A list of pieces, including point cost, for Avengers has begun to make the rounds. It's an odd assortment, with quite a few Ultimates pieces on it, thick on Young Avengers, and at least initially feeling thin on villains... if it's true (and the scan shown below looks reasonably legit) I'm having very mixed reactions.

Well, if you want to know the seemingly likely truth, click below. Otherwise wait until next week. (Updated to include some reported dials and verifying pics.)

As always, click on the image for a larger view.

I'll be happy to finally see a Dragon Man, Guardsman (especially as a common, since the armor was used generically), and several of the Invaders/Invaders-era heroes.

Will Yondu have a special power that's a built-in Trick Shot?

A 29 pt Stingray is dismissive even for that character. He deserves much more than that.

Iron Widow, or at least the front money is indicating it, may be an Ultimates version of the Black Widow with Stark-made armor, though even Ultimates fans are saying she was never called that in the comics. Lionheart is a friggin' Chuck Austen legacy character, as if we needed someone to remind us that he had a stint on Avengers.

It looks as if the Invaders and Young Avengers will be able to field nearly complete teams straight out of this set. It remains to be seen if the super rare Hawkeye is the 616 original or the female Young Avengers version.

Much of the final reaction will depend upon how variant the Ultimates versions of characters are. Ultimates Vision is in a female form, I believe, so it'll be a matter of the dial as to whether or not just the sculpt or the entire piece sits unused. Ultimates Abomination is supposed to be 25 feet tall in the comics, but we'll see -- I'm okay with a Hulk that's technically (in terms of game mechanics) a giant, so this could work, but I don't know what he'll look like. Same goes with the Ultimates version of Namor (though now I know -- see below) -- which, like the Captain America heading the list, is disappointing as I'd like them to be intended as Invaders versions -- especially with a separate Bucky figure in the set, too. And Ultimate Captain Britain. Did we really need Ultimate and 616 versions of Quicksilver, the Scarlet Witch, and Wasp all in the same set?

Interesting that the Captain America and Zemo are each 95 points. That, along with the sculpt we were shown weeks back, would suggest that the Ultimates tag on the list was a mistake.

Well... something to conjure with.

New info:

Well, more verification for the list lies below. Dials and photos for five of the pieces we hadn't seen previously.

Reportedly a small number of boosters were sold somewhere today, location and details being kept hush to avoid getting anyone in trouble.

Taking them alphabetically, we start with Crossbones.
While he may not be a favorite, and those who eschew Mark Gruenwald's lengthy tenure on Captain America may even loathe the guy, he looks fairly cool in clix form. Since he was given the dark honor of being the sniper the world blames for killing Captain America, it's all the more appropriate he be in here somewhere.


Next is the Guardsman, which really does look as if it's the baseline, budget Stark armor sold for use by security guards.
A fairly bland dial, but a nice sculpt and a passably good as a flying generic. At 32 points I could see having a small contingent of these acting as a force in the right game with the proper leadership. Still, sans Armor Piercing, if they're guarding at the Vault and anyone with Invulnerability or Impervious trying to break out will be able to laugh them off.

Hmmm... where exactly is that flight peg protruding from..?

Next is Iron Widow, another of these odd Ultimates universe variants I'm going to have to be verrrry creative to care about:

I'll probably use it (if at all) as some dark henchwoman who received a considerable upgrade.

Then we have quite a disappointment:

Namor reportedly has some sort of "Water Control" special power. The dial has the dolphin symbol, so I guessed this version can't fly... making him essentially useless to me... and the picture confirms it:

Hey, is that one ugly piece of crap or what?

Moving on to the last of this preview series (unless someone comes up with some more soon) it's another member of the Wrecking Crew -- Piledriver.

Who at least fits well enough and looks the part, though his dial and cost isn't likely to see him played much outside of theme teams. The special power is almost silly -- dealing 1 damage to two targets? Why not call it Girly Slap?


Hmmm. On the one hand, the luck of the draw seems to have landed a high percentage of disappointing pieces in this guy's hands, so I'm hoping this is getting a good chunk of the disappointment out of the way. On the other hand, one guy I know who's looking to largely pass on the set will likely be thrilled that there's just a few pieces he'll really want (Dragon Man among them) and another friend who's facing very tight financial times will likely also be happy that a set like this, which he'll have fairly limited interest in, is hitting now.

Comments

Doc Nebula said…
I'm working today, but I pulled a 1 to 9:30 slot, and went to bed waaaay early last night, so work, at this point, seems a far off dream and I almost feel like I have a Saturday off. Not really, of course, but let me dream.

Taking The List slot by slot --

A new Ultimates Cap seems utterly ridiculous to me, especially as a common. I hate them.

Ditto that for Ultimates Iron Man. And I want to ditto it for Ultimates Captain Britain, but, hey, maybe he has a cool dial and I can swap sculpts on it, or something.

Gargoyle? Holy SHIT. ::ralllfffff::

Nice to see some generic Guardsmen. Pity their dials suck so bad.

We've been over Moon Knight.

Crossbones? ::shrug::

I'd like to see the new Wonder Man. If he has the red safari jacket, or, alternatively, his original Masters of Evil togs, I'm in.

Hulkling, Patriot, and Stature can all, every single one of them, BITE me.

Shang Chi is cool.

Happy to have Piledriver, although I have to say, the Wrecking Crew seems to overall be pretty much Teh Suck. Piledriver's GIRLY SLAP (heh, nice) power would be okay with Armor Piercing, but it makes him pricey.

Stingray, I assume, is going to be the dolphin symbol equivalent of a Guardsman. Be interesting to see something with a Dolphin symbol on a flight stand...

U.S. Agent? Errrrr...

Luke Cage? I assume he'll be bald and have a bad Bendis chick character clinging to his leg.

Living Laser? At 91 points he could be nicely done. I'll hope.

Blazing Skull, and the other Invaders/Liberty Legionnaires, I'm very happy about. Hoping for good execution.

Darkhawk? Fuck.

Dragon Man? Oh baby! Double sized, please.

Toro? 'course.

Iron Widow? Somebody shoot me. No, somebody shoot Tuttle. That's the ticket.

Lionheart?

Lionheart?

No Grim Reaper, but Lionheart?

Ah'm a'gonna KEEL someone.

Yeah, Black Panther. Ultimates Quicksilver... should be a hockey puck. Another Ultimates Scarlet Witch? Bleah. Ultimates Vision? Bleah again, but, you know, potential for sculpt switching if the base doesn't have an annoying TA. Ultimates Wasp... bleah.

Taskmaster... whatever, dude.

Iron Lad and Ronin... Ah'm a'gonna keel MORE people.

Red Skull... yeah, yeah, Cosmic Cube, too stupid to use it efficiently, gotcha.

Ultimate Abomination? What?

What's wrong with the old Baron Zemo?

Bucky? By himself? Cool.

Ultimates Falcon. Say, bite me.

Thin Man? See above.

Giant Man? YEAH, baby.

Spitfire and Union Jack? See above, and, YEAH, baby.

Ultimates Namor? Ah'm a'gonna keel so MANY people...

Starfox? Well... okay...

Molecule Man? Um... nice to have the fig, no way to do the powers right, though.

Hey, THERE's the Grim Reaper! Kewl! I hope he's in the black costume. And doesn't look dead.

Thunderstrike? Excellent.

Namorita? That's fine.

Wiccan? No! Continue to bite me.

Yondu. Fab. He better have multiple targets.

Two Gun Kid? Heh. Hopefully with an Avengers TA.

Winter Soldier? Jesus, Bucky gets three figs in this set, and he's SUPPOSED to be dead.

Red Armor Spider-Man. OH, bite me, bite me, BITE me.

Citizen V? Two Zemos for the price of one?

The Colonel? Wasn't he in BOOGIE NIGHTS?

Ares. The stench lingers.

Ultimates Hulk! I'll kill everybody. I will.

Hawkeye? Well... but you know it's going to be that rotten Young Avenger.

A new Scarlet Witch? Cool.
A new Quicksilver? Um... was something wrong with the AW version?

Classic Silver Age Wasp sculpt! Crappy crappy dial and no special powers and Seth just sucks, but, hey, now I can sculpt shift onto better dials.

Cap and Bucky... 138 points? Get outta town! Well, they're a legendary team; I just hope this new Duo Characters power doesn't end up being a waste of time.

Excellent entry, thanks for all the info. I guess I want about half the set, and won't get hardly any of it... ah, well. Such is life.

It is, though, a criminal offense against the name AVENGERS, how crappy half this set is.
Mike Norton said…
Definitely mixed feelings about the set. Knowing how good dials and sculpts could swing some middling ones up into high interest and but bad ones could sink even some of the ones I'm enthusiastic about, I'm reluctant to lock into premature opinions. I have a draft similar to the list you've just done, something I set up last night but let sit for at least a good sleeping on.

During the final, light comb-through before giving the subject a rest for the night Friday, I found myself trying to shift attention to the characters and came up with the following, tad-too-bright view on the set, seeing how many from each rarity slot I'd want:
All 16 commons
At least 10 of the 16 uncommons
Probably 15 of the 16 rares
11 of the 12 Super-rares

I expect that when I really review it those numbers will drop a bit.

It appears I'm okay with any Ultimates versions I believe I can substitute cleanly for mainstream ones, and for some reason I can't quite fathom -- probably looking at them as characters with potential -- I'm welcoming the Young Avengers, at least as clix additions. Maybe I'm as intrigued to see how much Seth put into making them fit to work as a team, knowing that they'd all be appearing simultaneously.

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