Greetings, fellow figure fans! Have you seen Avengers: Age of Ultron yet? No? Then what the heck are you doing here? Go. Now. No, really, go! I'll wait.

. . . .

Good? Cool! Wasn't that awesome?! Ok, we can continue.

So, my last custom submission, I posted the first lady member of my More-Than-Complete Guardians of the Galaxy, Gamora, and I mentioned how easily she came together. The SECOND lady was substantially LESS cooperative. From the sculpting to the paint to the accessories, she just did not want to come together quickly, and if there is any member of this set that I may, in the future, end up remaking, this one will be it. Still, she did eventually work out, and I think she fits in well with the team and looks good (enough) on her own. Presenting the daughter of the original Captain Marvel, the inheritor of the Quantum Bands, Phyla-Vell, the hero called Quasar!

Back-story: way back in the ToyBiz days of Marvel Legends, probably the best overall female figure in the line was the Warbird figure. It had its flaws, to be sure, but it was a solid toy and a decent woman body with good articulation. I used this figure to make at least three or four other customs (none of which I have yet posted, but I will at some point). One of these customs was a Jessica Drew Spider-Woman, created well before the official ToyBiz release of said character. And even after the factory toy came out, I preferred my custom because, let's face it, the TB Spider-Woman was a lanky, badly proportioned, giant man-hand-y mess. Of course, the Marvel Select Spider-Woman ultimately supplanted my custom, and the new Hasbro Spider-Woman has supplanted THAT figure, so I decided to repurpose my custom and move it on to bigger and better things.

There's really not much to this figure: resculpt the head to give her short hair, add the Quantum Bands to her wrists, make a cape and a sword, paint, simple right? NO. Aside from her complete unwillingness to hold the paint on her joints (a problem I always had with the original Spider-Woman custom), her hair refused to cooperate with the Moon Knight cloak I chose as her cape. There is WAY less space in that hood than you might think, so I had to Dremel it out, and then resculpt with LocTite, then Dremel some more, then paint, then seal, then resculpt AGAIN . . . it was a chore and a half. And then the SECOND cape, from a Lord of the Rings figure . . . ok, that one cooperated better, but it still needed extra work to get it to fit over her head and look right, and the sword, and making the gold look even and GAH, was this figure annoying!

To be fair, she really does look good in person, and despite my hostility towards her, I think she's the best Phyla Quasar Marvel Legends custom figure on FigureRealm . . . although that has more to do with the fact that almost no one tries to tackle this figure than it does with her quality. Like I said, I may revisit this piece at some point, but as she stands, she's a fine addition to the team.

Excelsior!