The Littlest Gladiator

It's only in the world of comic books that you'll see a mohawk combined with a flowing red cape. Purple skin and pointy ears seem like a natural addition as well.

I've always thought that the Marvel character Gladiator was pretty cool, even if he did seem to be a Superman ripoff of sorts. Cool enough in fact, to convince me to give the Marvel Universe line by Hasbro another try.

I haven't been in love with the line for quality control reasons, as most of the figures seem to suffer from genuinely terrible paint jobs. But given that neither Toy Biz or Hasbro ever put out a 6-inch version of Gladiator in the Marvel Legends line, I felt it was worth grabbing this small one.

Gladiator looks great packaged, and I was tempted to leave him that way at first, but what fun would that be? The thing that attracted me to the toy in this case, was the great paint job. Yeah, I said it... this figure has a very good paint job that features a lot of really nice detail and shading. The choice of paint colors is fun also. The bright red contrasts nicely with the metallic gold and blue paints that make this figure unique.

The overall sculpt is good, and though the figure's articulation could use a little tweaking here and there--an articulated waist would be nice--I've no problems with the play value. Well... there is one thing. As much as I like the look of Gladiator's cape, the length of it is a bit annoying. The thing inhibits the poses that you can put the figure into, because it's as long as his legs. If they'd gone with a cape that came to about mid-calf, it would have made a big difference.

All in all, I'm happy with this toy, and I'll admit that even though I'd love to see them continue to improve the overall quality of the Marvel Universe line, Gladiator is a winner that's got me interested in what Hasbro is doing here again.