I need to say up front that I bought these figures mostly for the prop. Marvel Select’s new Jean Grey Marvel Girl and Rachel Summers variant each come with one half of the gate to Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters (reversible to show the more modern age Xavier’s Institute of Higher Learning). After complaining in my Sabretooth review that recent Marvel Select Stands / Props have been lacklustre, it’s nice to see a turnaround. The two sides of the gate don’t quite line up, but I don’t care. It’s the freaking gate from Xaviers!
The great prop makes the figures just a bonus for me, and when it comes to the variant, that’s a really good thing. The Jean Grey figure is more than adequate. My main complaint with it is that the face sculpt is a bit benign, which takes some of the punch out of the figure’s possible poses, which have the potential to be quite dynamic. The colouring of her outfit is spot on, but the sloping neckline is painted, not sculpted, which is not what I’d expect at this price point, even with the groovy prop. The ankles on the Jean figure are quite loose which makes her a little hard to pose, but the peg in the base assists with this.
As for Rachel, well, ugh. As if the strange almost olive green that’s been used in her uniform wasn’t enough to kill this figure, the headsculpt is. It looks either like it’s all been squashed together a bit too much, or like some middle age 
housewife has squeezed herself into Rachel’s uniform. I’ve tried to work out if it’s the shape of her head, the way the face is painted or perhaps the flaps of hair that stick out the back. All I can be certain is this is all kinds of wrong.
I do like the way that these figures almost go with the recently released Wolverine and Sabretooth figures. It would be nice to at least have a Cyclops to go with Jean – again this makes me wonder if MS has any sort of direction or just looks at individual figures. I guess time will tell.
All up – some average to icky figures with a great prop. Not great, but manageable.
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Until next time!
7 comments:
The Gates definitely make it a must buy for any X Fan.The girls are decent enough sculpts although i agree about Rachel's odd Head.Seems a bit if a lazy effort for the quality we usually see from MS.But you got the freakin Gates,yay!
Jean looks okay but only god knows what they were thinking when they made that Rachel. She's supposed to be like a teenager and she looks like she's sixty or something.
Wow. The base makes it practically a must-buy. Might have to get a couple of them.
Would their skirts be easily removable?......for custom purposes of course.
While I agree the gates are as appealing as Claudia Schiffer in a tight outfit, the figures that come with are like telling me that actually it's a two-fer with David Copperfield, and he goes first.
I personally will not justify splashing out that much for props (though I came extremely close), when the figures are so horrid.
They are nice looking gates though. Hopefully they'll do a reduced price point Marvel Select Xavier's gates set in a couple years, like they did with the Skrulls.
What an ugly pair of heads. They better "select" better sculptors.
Actually, when I enlarged the thumbnails, the Rachel figure looked a little better than I thought.
Still the off thing is that she looks older.
Anyway, nice prop.
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