Welcome to Flashback Friday: The Marvel Cinematic Universe. In this series you’ll get a review and discussion on some of your favorite Pops and Dorbz from the MCU. Here, we really appreciate the shared universe so the figures will come from film, television, and streaming. Nebula, daughter of Thanos from the Guardians of the Galaxy set is this week’s choice for discussion.
Discussion: I was originally going to move on from the Guardians of the Galaxy set but after seeing the new film I decided to give some love to Nebula because she’s a very interesting character with a lot of history and family issues. One of the major themes in the film is family. Family comes in all different forms and you don’t have to be related to someone to be family. If you haven’t seen Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 yet I’d highly encourage you to see it. All things considered, it’s s fun film with a lot of emotional weight behind it but its balanced really well with the action and comedic elements.
Nebula was first introduced in the first Guardians of the Galaxy film. She is the daughter of the Mad Titan Thanos and sister to Gamora. Saying that their relationship is strained is putting it mildly. Her relationship with her father is even more volatile especially since he punishes her by replacing body parts with robotic pieces. She genuinely hates her father and the first opportunity she gets to fight against him she joins Ronan’s crusade to destroy Xandar and then go after Thanos. Nebula has a long and abusive history which is just briefly touched upon in the first film and expanded in the second film. Look for her story of revenge to continue moving forward in Avengers Infinity War and Guardians 3.
Finally, Nebula was part of the second wave of Guardians of the Galaxy Pops. She was released with the other villains like Ronan, Thanos, Youndu, and The Collector. It’ll be rare if you can find her in stores but you can easily add her to your collection by checking out Amazon, eBay, and our Facebook group which can be found here. The group allows you to buy, sell, and trade everything Funko with other users in the community. Nebula hasn’t really increased in price like we saw with Drax, Gamora, and Ronan. You should be able to pick her up at normal retail value between $8.00 and $13.00. Nebula is an interesting character and I think she’ll be more sought after once people see her in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2.
Guardians of the Galaxy Set: Nebula is numbered 76 in the set and she was released in spring 2015. The set includes 1 Cosmo, 1 Drax, 1 Gamora, 8 Groot, 1 Nebula, 5 Rocket, 1 Ronan, 3 Star-Lord, 2 Thanos, 1 The Collector, and 1 Yondu for a grand total of 25 Pops. The set also had a ton of exclusives including Amazon, Box Lunch, Entertainment Earth, Hot topic, Loot Crate, Previews, SDCC 2014, SDCC 2015, and the Specialty Series. This set only features one Nebula Pop but it’s a good one. Her likeness is very similar to what we seen on the big screen. Rocket and Groot get the majority of love in this set but hopefully with the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 set we get more versions of Nebula, Drax, Gamora, Yondu, and Star-Lord.
Description: The head has a large purplish streak from the chin going to the back of her head. Both sides of her head are painted light blue. The left side of her face has a mechanical piece surrounding her eye and stretching across the left side of her head going above her ear. The top center of her head has a metal piece attached. Her outfit is two different shades of purple. The outfit is a light purple with darker purple outlines around the shoulders and neck coming over the chest area and creating a bit of covering over the stomach. The outline wraps around her waist and upper leg. The purple also covers her elbow which look like elbow pads. The material wraps around each wrist too. Her left arm is silver signifying it’s a robotic limb replaced by Thanos. Two silver blades, one in each hand completes Nebula.
I think the Pop looks really great. The colors used really works for the character and to me she was pulled directly from the film and put into a Pop box. I have no complaints about this Pop but I think Funko missed an opportunity to do a metallic version which would’ve really popped.
What’s next? Nebula can be seen currently in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2. She also has a new Pop for that set. Only one Pop has been released so far but I’d be surprised if there wasn’t at least one more. From here on Nebula’s appearances should be in the 2018 mega blockbuster Avengers: Infinity War and presumably its sequel. I’d expect her to play a big role in helping to defeat Thanos which is her ultimate goal.
What do you think of Nebula? Sound off in the comments section below.
Would you like to see a specific Pop or Dorbz in a future article? Post your choices in the comments section and you just might see your favorite character “Pop” up in the coming weeks.
Check back next week for another MCU flashback. Excelsior!
Matt Norris