Review – Captain America Series, US Agent


Line: Marvel * Manufacturer: Hasbro * Year: 2011 * Ages: 4+

“US Agent is armed with a Vibranium shield very similar to that of Captain America. He uses this for protection and as a weapon. Although he and Captain America have had their differences, they both agree that any threat to justice and freedom must be stopped.”
— from the back of the card

It’s starting to look like I need to post a new Marvel Universe wish list, because Hasbro is slowly knocking through the first list I posted back in 2009. Unfortunately, this new US Agent action figure barely counts and I expect a do over pretty soon; Hasbro seriously dropped the ball on this action figure and I’m going to tell you why you should only grab this toy if you just have to own a 3.75-inch scale US Agent. And I mean that you should buy this toy only if it’s a life or death situation. Hasbro really let me down.

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Terrible Paint

Basically every single part on this action figure has a paint problem, but the two photos below clearly show a few of the larger flaws. The back of the head has a worn patch, the red on the chest is spotty, and the arms have splotchy white paint over red plastic. I don’t know what happened over at the Hasbro factory, but they need to put some real money into quality control because this toy should have never been popped into the package. Truly awful paintwork, not to mention that they stamped their tracking number on the front of the action figure. It’s bad enough that they’re branding the toys with numbers, but this time they didn’t even try to hide it.

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The Star-Blade Shield Sucks

Did I somehow miss US Agent throwing away his shield and gaining this one at some point in the comics? If I did then the blame for this ugly shield falls squarely on Marvel, but regardless of who decided to use this shield rather than the black, red, and white variant of the standard Captain America shield I truly am disappointed that the package didn’t include the shield that I was hoping for. This gimmick-shaped shield doesn’t look all that great when attached to the toy — I’ll get to the articulation problems soon — and while the swivel attachment to connect the shield to the figure’s back or wrist works okay it’s not enough to save this accessory.

I’ll ignore the gun accessory, since I’m not even sure why Hasbro thought they needed to pack the gun in this set.

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Sculpt

I appreciate that Hasbro spent the time and money to sculpt a new body rather than just use their Marvel Universe Captain America (first review here, second review here), frozen review here), but I wish this new sculpt was superior to the old one. As it is I would have been a lot happier if they had just slightly modified the older sculpt, because this new one has an ugly face. The rest of the body is okay, but it’s any better than the older sculpt and I have to think that if Hasbro had reused the older sculpt they could have spent a bit more money on a good shield and decent paint.

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Click to expand the image in a new window.

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Articulation

Another point of failure, US Agent has semi-useful points of articulation on most of the body but is missing swivel wrists and the head has that same “can’t quite look up” problem we’ve seen on Marvel Universe action figures. For a second I thought the figure had a swivel waist — one feature that would improve a lot of Marvel Universe action figures — but I quickly discovered that it’s just an ugly seam between parts and not a joint.

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Click to expand the photo in a new window.

So what joints does he have? US Agent has ball/hinge shoulders, swivel/hinge elbows, double-hinged knees, the hinge/ball-like thighs with swivels just below the hinge, and swivel/hinge ankles. The torso also has that swivel feature (the upper torso is connected to the lower torso on a post) and that ends our journey down articulation highway. It’s honestly not as bad as I make it sound, but the horrible paintwork makes the rest of the toy a lot less fun to play with and makes even minor problems feel like major disasters.

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Click to expand the photo in a new window.

Closing Thoughts

I had heard that the new Captain America movie toys weren’t all that great, and I have to admit that now that I’ve opened one of them I can agree. US Agent is a significantly inferior action figure and I can’t believe that this is even from the same company that has been putting out some very cool Marvel Universe action figures. And last year’s Iron Man 2 line was fantastic, so I’m not sure what’s going wrong at Hasbro this year but I hope they solve the problem very soon.

I bought two other figures in this line when I bought US Agent, but those two had better be dramatically better than this toy or I think I’ll just have to ignore the rest of the line. And that sucks, because I was really looking forward to this series.

Please, Hasbro, figure out what’s going wrong in your offices and fix the problem soon. I’d really hate it if the problems in this line carried over to the Marvel Universe series.

Search for Captain America toys at Amazon.com!*


Philip Reed was going to dive right into Crossbones, but after the disappointment of US Agent he thinks he’ll wait a little while before popping open another Captain America series action figure.

14 thoughts on “Review – Captain America Series, US Agent

  1. Despite your issues I still want him, and I knew that stupid shield came with him and that I’d have to modify an extra regular cap shield. But I still appreciate the warning!

  2. Do his knee joints feel really cheap, too? I found the Battlefield (WW2) Captain America to be incredibly scary to pose, as I constantly felt I was going to break him – Atomic Martians said the exact same thing, too and I was wondering if it was limited to that particular figure or if it was a problem across the line.

  3. I saw these guys at Toys R Us, and I thought what you stated, that they sculpt, especially the face, is pretty ugly. The Bucky Captain America actually looked pretty good to me, but I couldn’t find one with a solid paint job. If I find one with good paint I’ll pick him up, unfortunately for now the rest of the line is a pass.

  4. @Vincent – I’m hoping Hasbro tries again and gets us a good US Agent. Actually, what I would love even more would be a two pack with Iron Man and The Captain (with his silver, featureless shield).

  5. That’s too bad, Phil. I was hoping it was just an issue with the WW2/Battlefield Captain but it sounds like it may be a wave-wide problem…

  6. @Iok – I bought the Winter Soldier and the International Patriots 3-Pack and none of those figures had knee joints that felt as weak as WW2/Battlefield Cap. I swear that figure is made out of rubber.

    I suspect packing this shield with US Agent is a ploy to make us buy the deluxe “Fortress Assault” Cap figure which comes with a black and red shield.

  7. That’s good to know Stack32. So it sounds like it’s a bit of a lottery when it comes to figure quality. I’m hoping the Red Skull and Crossbones figures have better joints, as they’re next on my hit list.

  8. That’s an in-continuity shield. It’s a pet peeve of mine when people go off about something when it turns out that they’re just ignorant of the source material but —

    Anyway, USAgent used this shield when he was leading the Jury (originally Venom enemies). It was prominently featured in Agent’s appearances in the original Thunderbolts series.

  9. @Josh – Okay. That’s why I wrote:

    “Did I somehow miss US Agent throwing away his shield and gaining this one at some point in the comics? If I did then the blame for this ugly shield falls squarely on Marvel,”

    So yes, I missed the shield. And I blame Marvel for this ugly design.

    But thanks for letting me know that it’s an actual design from the comics.

  10. I’ve bought two Cap line figs (Winter Soldier & WWII Cap), and both have soft-as-heck knees, so I can’t really say if it’s a problem with other figures.

    Though, I imagine how they’re posed in the packaging might have something to do with the softness.

    (Also, did the original SDCC WWII Cap fig have soft knees?)

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