Saturday, May 27, 2023

X-Men: The Animated Series - JEAN GREY!

Marvel Legends - X-Men the Animated Series (VHS) - Jean Grey - Hasbro 2022

Of all the female characters released in the X-Men: The Animated Series Marvel Legends VHS line, I think Jean Grey benefits the most from the brighter colors and cel-shaded redeco. In my humble opinion, despite the nostalgic appeal, this costume has always been very odd; orange tights that morph into boots, a purely decorative thong, bulky shoulderpads and gauntlets, and headgear that seems neither protective, functional, nor fashionable. But somehow with the added multi-tone blue and orange details in the animated design, it looks less strange. In comics and animation, it's easy to buy in to the fantasy and suspend all disbelief with physics-defying costumes that seem impossible to remove. But when you see that same design in 3-D like this, it's harder to ignore the impracticality. Luckily the modern toy trend of re-releasing figures in cel-shaded or pixelated decos works to merge the 3-D sculpt with the 2-D source material, and sometimes the results are great. Let's check out Jean Grey below!






Here are all my VHS boxes so far. Unfortunately they are slightly larger than an actual VHS cassette, but they look awesome on my movie shelf anyway.




Jean Grey comes with two heads and four hands, all of which we've seen before in the Love Triangle 3-Pack, but in more subdued colors.




















































So I was pretty bummed at the bland face paint on the ponytailed head. Plus the edges of her mask were sloppy and her lips were an unnatural shade (and crooked). The same paint issues were present on the 2019 release and I was really planning on using this head for my Animated display. So I gave her a quick touch-up by painting her eyelids a slightly darker skintone, giving her some eyelashes, darkening her lip (and filling in the awkward open-mouth slit), and smoothing the dark blue edge around her mask. It was a simple 20-minute task but I'm very pleased with the results.















Time for some Group and Comparison Pics!


Here is Jean with her (darker) 2019 Love Triangle 3-Pack version.




And here are the four X-Men the Animated Series VHS ladies together: Jean GreyMystiqueJubilee, and Storm.






Cheers!





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