Legendary Heroes

This series came out around 2007 from Marvel toys (Boo Hiss) and was made up of various comic characters taken from numerous comic houses. The anticipation was unbelievable, as yet again we were going to see some more affordable 2000 AD characters hit the shops. Sometimes the anticipation is better than the reality!

PITT SERIES:-
This consists of Judge Dredd, Ripclaw, Superpatriot, Madman, Savage Dragon and Witchblade. If you collected all six then you could make Pitt, as he was made up from a piece that was included with each figure. With Joe was packaged the right leg!
These characters came from the following publishers Rebellion, Image, Dark Horse, AAA comics & Top Cow.

As you can see from the the packaging Joe takes up about a third of the overall container. The top part behind the logo is empty, the right part contains the right leg and the left part contains old stony face himself. He is supplied with both Lawgiver versions (to keep the fans happy) and his trusty boot knife.

Looking around the package you will notice that underneath are the instructions to build the Pitt figure and  on the right there are actual comic covers for all seven characters.

When you turn the package over you will notice how full of information and pictures it is. From top to bottom we have the Legendary Heroes logo and Judge Dredd's side by side. Underneath is a history of Mega City One and below that you have the six comic covers lined up. Below that, pictures of all six figures and to the right the figure of Pitt, that is made up with the extra pieces supplied with each character.

MONKEYMAN SERIES:-
This consists of Judge Death, Marv, Star, Stryker, Darkness and Ann O'Brien. Same as the first series, you collect them all and with each figure you have an extra body part of a much larger figure. This figure is, as the title of the series says, Monkeyman. With Judge Death is packaged the left leg.
These characters came from the following publishers Rebellion, Image, Dark Horse, AAA comics, Top Cow & for some reason they have added Dynamic Forces which is just a retailer but as it is on the packaging I have added it.

The packaging is the same as Joe's, you have the top part showing the logo and yet again behind it is nothing (what a waste of materials). To the right is Monkeyman's leg and to the left is Judge Death. I won't bother boring you all with repeating the rest but on the back is a small piece about Judge Death's (or should I say Sidney De'ath's) history.
There is a variant Judge Death available and the packaging is exactly the same but the figure itself is translucent. There is nothing at all to say that he is translucent on the packaging, even the picture on the rear shows the normal Judge Death. You can see he's different just by looking, seems a bit cheap as far as I'm concerned plus what is the point, he is either in a decaying body or in spirit form, so I don't know where in the folklore this comes from. Still I had to buy two (one to open and one to leave sealed up).

Okay the models themselves didn't live up to my expectations. This was mainly due to various factors:-
We have the yellow elbow pads, silver name on his shield, the eagle on his right shoulder being way too big and that holster on the rear of his belt, WHAT ON EARTH! It's the little things like this that spoil a good effort. I don't expect an amazing piece for the price I paid for this figure but Grud on a Greenie I expect the costume to be correct at the very least. The paint job on the zip, on the leathers overlaps onto the actual leather either side, I can live with that after all it is mass produced. Anyway lets move on to Judge Death shall we.

This is a better figure all round than poor old Joe. There are a few minor faults with this one but they are not major costume disasters. We have the pterosaur on his right shoulder, it should curve around the arm and shoulder, instead the wings curve outwards and the on the other shoulder is the largest shoulder pad in the world. It actually reaches halfway up the side of his helmet. Still the rest of the figure is reasonable enough as he's nice and thin and has the perfect Death smile. The translucent one, well the less said about that the better. Saying that after taking the pictures for this blog it looks, well translucent!

THIRD SERIES:-
Now there was going to be a third series but it never managed to be released and in this was going to be Mean Machine and this figure looked stunning compared to the other two. After trawling through the net I managed to find this picture which shows how good he would have been.

Now as a small treat I shall show you two prototypes of Judge Dredd that I managed to buy off ebay. The white figure is extremely loose and came without a helmet. Amazingly as I sit here looking at it I have just noticed that it has green elbow pads, I suppose I could swap them over with the finished model. The black figure is more rigid, like the finished item and has a transparent helmet but no other protective pieces on his body.

Well I hope you have enjoyed looking at these figures, I'm sure many of you already have them. It's just a pity Mean didn't go into production. My personal belief why this series of models failed is quite simple really.

Why on earth as a 2000 AD fan would I want to buy 5 other models in a series to make up a bigger model of another comic character I don't want. What was in the minds of these marketing men.

Now if they did an ABC Warriors series and the six figures had an extra piece that made up Mek-Quake, ah! but that is only in my dreams!!!!!!