Everyone loves the X-Men, and everyone loves the Claremont era of X-Men. You would think that figures would be a fantastic and guaranteed thing. Hasbro certainly thought so with their recent double-pack of Storm and Thunderbird, based on their first appearances in Giant-Size X-Men #1 from 1975. This was a Target exclusive figure, with special packaging.

We obtained our copy of this set on clearance from the local Target, for $15.00. The other local Target across town had them on clearance for $25, with more copies lying around the store.

Retail for this double-pack was $50.00.

You can guess what happened, but we will cover that in a minute.

If you plan to simply display these two figures in their box bundle, you’re in for a treat. The box is actually really nice, with a massive plastic window and X-background drawing the theme together. Storm is displayed wearing her more dynamic equipment, which we will cover when we get to the figures themselves.

The back of the box is also gorgeous, with two massive pieces of art for Storm and Thunderbird themselves. No explanation for whom they are, strangely, but it is perhaps because Hasbro expects this to sell more to the die-hard fans than anyone else. As for the figures themselves, the person at Hasbro who put this together seems to have had a bias.

The Storm in this pack is utterly amazing, though may need some minor touch-ups. This design of Storm was done by Dave Cochram, and Hasbro made great use of the options. Storm comes with two different capes (one for wind effects, one for standing), closed and opened hands, and even a set of hands with lightning shooting out of them. She also has two heads, for either no wind or windblown hair effects. 

The sculpt on Storm is also solid. While the figure does not attempt to recreate the original costume’s connection of cape-to-arms, the legs feature the weird skin gaps nicely. Further, the unfortunately standard Hasbro Female torso has new details sculpted to form Storm’s first costume. However, at the price point and new details, it is continually disappointing that Storm did not receive a torso that has an ab crunch. The heels, recycled from characters like Shiklah, also leave Storm continually wanting to topple over, as our sample seemed to have weak ankles - or perhaps was top-heavy from the thick hair.

Unfortunately, Thunderbird is almost the polar opposite. The head sculpt is nice, though paint on the feather on the back of his head may be spotty, but was designed for a much larger figure. As such, Hasbro’s choice to put him on the same torso used for standard height figures like Spider UK or Deadpool makes him look overly scrawny. Considering the recent X-Force line actually had a perfect body type made for him with his younger brother Warpath, it feels especially infuriating. The figure’s torso also has a peg hole for accessories in the back, but completely lacks accessories.

That’s right, Thunderbird also does not have alternate hands, instead having typical “holding” hands without actual accessories to hold.

The quality control on these figures seems spotty, however. The windblown hair Storm head in our sample was missing some face paint in places, and the teeth were not painted in white. This was a relatively simple fix with some paint and a steady hand, but not everyone can do that kind of fix. Further, Storm’s lightning hands had the problem of being sculpted with little lightning effects running along the hands that were covered with flesh paint. This resulted in the appearance of the lightning shoving itself into her hands. Again, this can be fixed with some paint, but not everyone will want to do this.
As for Thunderbird, his boot tassels keep falling down his leg, which seems like it would have been a remarkably easy fix. However, the rest of the figure seems to have escaped issues, likely because he is made of so many recycled parts.

Is this a perfect figure set to display? Not really, unless you keep them in their box. However, a little bit of love makes this Storm shine, and Thunderbird… can exist in the background of someone’s collection nicely. While it would be hard to recommend at retail price, now is the perfect time to scour your Target and pick this up on the cheap. However, being sold for $10.00 more than what these figures would normally be sold as feels remarkably cheap.

Grade: C