The Eternals' Sprite

By Hervé St-Louis
October 4, 2021 - 09:20

Sprite was originally a male character when introduced in the Eternals #9 in 1977. A mischievous prankster and trickster, it has been revealed recently that Sprite can reincarnate as a male or a female. Sprite is forever stuck in the body of an adolescent which has always frustrated her. In the Eternals’ movie Sprite is a played by teenaged actress Lia McHugh.

There are no other Sprite action figures, except for Legos and Funko Pop. Sprite is a similar character to Peter Pan and Loki. She is petite and young. The Sprite action figure is beautiful although her scale when put next to the other Eternals is questionable. Of all the Eternals, this figure is the toughest sale as she cannot easily be customized into another character and her head is too unique to be used for another character.

Likeness

Sprite has an androgynous look and reminds me of Sophia from the Golden Girls. Yeah, the youngest Eternal is also the one that looks the oldest. And that is a major issue with her likeness to actress Lia McHugh who looks neither androgynous outside of her official shots in the Eternals and neither looks like my grandma. So what happened here? For one, she looks much older than how she looks on the trailer and product shots seen thus far.

The face of the figure does not look like the actress as she is smirking here. There is something off and it is hard to explain what it is. I like the figure, but this is not the best one in the wave in terms of likeness. The features are too coarse for such a young character. Making the head bigger will not hide the fact that she looks much older than she really is.

Sculpt

Sprite’s head is too big. He head is the same size as Ikaris and bigger than Makkari’s. While the bigger head reinforces the child look, it looks odd next to the other Eternals. There are many fine details on her suit but what I like the most is the cape that she wears. It starts on her left shoulder and flows below her buttock. She has sculpted in shoulder pads who look more prominent than those we can see on Ikaris. Her face attempts to look youthful, and her head feels a bit compressed. She smiles with a curious smirk on her face. Her head does suffer from the lollipop effect where it feels like it floats on a tiny neck.

Here is a funny anecdote. When I saw the first Eternal trailer, not having followed announcements and news about the Eternals’ movies, I thought that Sprite was a boy. I was surprised to find out later that she is a girl. Sprite has an androgynous look that only her hips dispel. Many of her proportions seems out of scale. Her arms are as long as Makkari’s but on a shorter body. In terms of construction, it appears that her cape is glued to her shoulder but that it could easily fall. This is not good.

Paint

There are some blemishes of the silver paint on Sprite’s chest. Hasbro used 3D painting on her chest as we can see the aqua pixels mixed with the silver ones to create a shading effect. That’s nice but the rendition is not perfect. Her face also benefits from face printing technology with plenty of freckles on her cheeks and nose. Her hair is also not uniformly red. There is much shading there too. You can see the pixels of her lipstick and on the paint applied to her irises. The silver paint across the figure robs off easily.

Scale

Sprite is the shortest Eternal action figure and shorter even than the Dagobah Luke Skywalker who so far had the record for being the shortest six-inch action figure in my collection (excluding Alpha Flight’s Puck, of course!). Yet she still fits in with the Eternals. Because of her bigger head, you could easily pose her with other Marvel Legends who are closer to the six-inch and a half range where her smaller size will also fit in. Because her head is so big, she will not look great next to G.I. Joe Classified figures or Star Wars Black Series. Yet, with the Plasma Series Ghostbusters or the Power Rangers Lightning Series, because of her cartoony scale, she will fit.

Stability

Even though her feet are small Sprite will stand up easily, although she may fall from time to time. She has very good balance, better than Makkari’s. You may want to put her on an action figure stand.

Articulations

The female Eternal action figures do have less articulations than the males because they lack the double elbow joints. Just like the Star Wars Black Series, the elbows rotate instead, which also replaces the bicep curls. The ball joint in her neck must be small because her head can rock better than most. You can give her all the attitude that comes with such a character that you want. Her head cannot bend per say. All the articulation is provided through her ball joint. Although her neck is a separate piece of plastic, it does not move at all.

Sprite can bend her wrists at the palm and rotate them. However, her sleeves will limit her how much she can bend outward because it peaks through longer than her wrists. She has a diaphragm crunch that can also rotate, as her waist does not twist. When you raise her torso too much, you will see a gap in her diagram. He hips joints allow her to raise her legs at about 90 degrees. She can possibly raise them backward, but her skirt gets in the way. As for the split, she can do 65 degrees split.

Plastic

Sprite is a mix of soft and harder PVC. Her cape and skirt are in soft PVC but do not cover her torso, unlike Makkari or Kingo. There are some baked-in wave gondola patterns in her chest and arms that ruin the sculpt a bit. Her hair is glued in on her scalp.

Props

As the smallest and possibly, least popular Eternal action figure, Sprite comes with Gilgamesh’s torso and an extra set of hands. These fists, strangely enough, are bigger than Makkari’s. This continues the pattern of Sprite’s proportions being odd for her stature. I prefer the open hands as they better reflect her powers of image casting and illusions.

Packaging

Sprite comes in the same Eternals box packaging that features images of the rest of the wave, minus Thena, Ajak, and Kro. There is a nice picture of Sprite that fully captures her right age, unlike the figure that makes her look like my grandmother.

Cost

Sprite is about $22.99USD or $33.99CAD. Prices may vary with some stores selling her for a few extra dollars, since Hasbro changed the price point on these toys in 2021. Even though Hasbro has had these toys in its warehouses for a year, it still used the new markup. I guess Hasbro charged collectors for the storage over the last year…

Availability

Sprite is available in most stores that sell Marvel Legends action figures such as Walmart, Target, Toys R Us, GameStop, as well as online stores. Released in late September 2021, the figure will be in demand because she has the full body of the build-a-figure Gilgamesh. I don’t perceive that Sprite will be the most popular character in this wave. Regardless, if you like this figure, just get it now before they run out eventually. If Sprite turns out to be a major character in the Eternals, she may become more popular.

Rating: 7 /10

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12

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