Is A Blokees’ Model Kit Worth It? Reviewing The Champion Class ‘Marvel Rivals’ Jeff The Land Shark

If you’ve been following the trends in the toy space recently, you might have noticed that Blokees is a brand that is rising in prominence. It’s obvious that it’s time that we sat down with one of their Champion Class model kits to check it out, and who better than Marvel Rivals’ breakout star, Jeff the Land Shark!

Jeff made his debut in West Coast Avengers Vol. 3 #7, by Kelly Thompson and Daniele Di Nicuolo, after MODOK unleashed a pack of Land Sharks on Los Angeles earlier in the volume. Gwenpool adopted him, and the character quickly became a breakout hit. He soon transitioned into his own digital first series, It’s Jeff by Thompson and Gurihiru, and continued to grow in popularity from there.

When Marvel Rivals debuted, Jeff was one of the first wave of characters, and was an instant breakout favorite. That led to even wider popularity, such as appearing in Disney Junior’s Spidey & his Amazing Friends.

Now, Blokees are not action figures, but model kits. They’re the cousins of the popular Gundam “gunpla” models (though I don’t know much more about gunpla than that they’re fairly similar to Blokees but have been around since the 1980s).

Pulling the kit out of the box was initially very intimidating. I looked at the various pieces, thinking that this would be a chore. However, pulling out the instructions, I realized very quickly this was closer to Lego than it was anything else. The frames and pieces are very clearly labeled on the plastic, with the instructions making it clear how to put it together.

The pieces came out of the frames easily, with no plastic left behind on the components. I also liked that the instructions didn’t dictate anything be done in a specific order. I personally started with Jeff’s head, but you could easily start with his limbs or his body. His adorable grinning face was too hard to resist though

Putting the model together was easy too. I never felt like the pieces were difficult to snap together, or that the plastic was too fragile to put pressure on. Once a larger component was together — such as his head — it was very easy to snap it together, requiring no tools and pretty minimal pressure.

And in the end, well, I got a Jeff that scales pretty perfectly with my collection. He’s highly posable, cute, and very fun to have in hand.

Now, he’s not perfect. The plastic quality isn’t quite as good as what you’d see from Hasbro or Mattel. The pieces come together pretty well, but they’re not always perfect. And because they don’t require glue, the limbs can pull apart if you mess with it too much. Oh, and it’s not very easy to pose Jeff’s mouth, which either makes the default an open-mouthed grin or requires popping the head off and back on.

Overall though? This is an absolutely great little project. I was very hesitant to to try these (even though their much smaller, cheaper Transformers blind boxes were fun), but Jeff turned out so great even my largely non-geeky wife had fun playing with the end result. He’s highly recommended.

Blokees Champion Class Marvel Rivals Jeff The Land Shark is available now anywhere toys and model kits are sold.