Animated < Marvel Crossovers.

The line may be four figures old but I feel an immense amount of satisfaction from the Marvel toys in comparison to the Animated toys which filled me with utter frustration with their QC issues and all.

Cracking open my Venom and Iron Man, I found myself surprised that both are stellar figures. Great transformations, uncompromised robot modes and alt modes.

Iron Man has the common cockpit=central feature of robot mode problem but that aside, there's some ingenuous clips and folds that help to obscure the rest of the robot mode. One of my favourite modern jets to date. Period. I just wished the mold had been used for say Slingshot or Skydive. Very nice and very intuitive. Delightful toy. Awesome poseability to boot too.

Venom. Wow. Kurdt's review awhile back made me think this guy would be awesome but I had no idea how awesome. I was totally blown away by the alt mode. In real life, out of package, it is a bundle of joy. Its mean and nasty and this is a case where Hasbro has the perfect deco. Kudos to them. I highly highly recommend Venom to start. I love the mid section. Hell, it took me awhile to figure out but as with TFM Ironhide, this guy has propelled himself into being one of my favourites. Very sturdy, everything fits into place with the exception of the shoulders which I think in the long run might be become flimsy.

Definitely better than SWTF by a mile and I am looking forward to the next wave immensely (as well as opening Hulk and Spider-Man)!