Marvel Legends Red Guardian & Melina 2-pack
Lol… someone dropped the ball and forgot to translate the bio on the back of the card into the various usual languages. They’re all in English!
Red Guardian
Decorated war hero Alexei Shostakov was trained by the KGB to be a Russian counterpart to Captain America. However, lacking the Super Soldier serum which created the latter, Red Guardian does not any superhuman abilities (both in the comics and the movies).
Similar to most Marvel Legends Captain America figures, his shield can be pegged onto his back.
In the comics, Red Guardian’s shield usually generates from his belt, often called a “belt disc”.
In the comics, before he became the Red Guardian, Alexei was decorated war pilot and was the husband of Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow).
The set comes with an unmasked head.
The head does seem to resemble actor David Harbour better than the previous figure from the Black Widow Crimson Dynamo wave.
Red Guardian from the Crimson Dynamo wave.
The set comes with ungloved hands as well.
Last, but not least, Red Guardian comes with an action figure of himself, as seen in the movie.
The little guy is done surprisingly well. It can even stand on its own on an even surface.
You know you’ve made it to the big leagues when you’ve got an action figure made after you.
Melina Vostokoff
One of the original Black Widows trained by the Russian “Red Room”, Melina also serves as a mother-figure to Natasha Romanoff in the Black Widow movie.
In the comics, Melina is more commonly known as the Iron Maiden (Melina Vostokova) and is an occasional enemy of Black Widow, she is eventually captured and coerced into joining and working for the Thunderbolts. We never see her as a mother-figure to Black Widow.
Hasbro’s face-scan tech really managed to capture actress Rachel Weisz’ look perfectly. I just wish she had a more emotional expression here, maybe a sterner look? As is, she seems kinda… blank?
Her batons can be stored in the backpack.
Grappling hook
Lastly, her guns can be removed from their holsters.
Russia’s best spies?
Yeah, if I had an action figure of myself, I’d probably lug it around all the time too.
Overall, a pretty decent set. I knew Hasbro would eventually roll out a 2.0 version of Red Guardian with a “mask on” head and 2-pack it with Rachel Weisz’s character. Sigh… c’mon, Hasbro. At least now we have the complete Black Widow movie hero team (family?) together. Now I wonder if they’ll make a General Dreykov figure later on?
Gold
