The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - Marvel Legends Movie Figure Review

As I was walking around my local comic book store (Bedrock City Comics in Houston, TX  #shamelessplug) this week I was excited to see the latest Marvel Legends series from Hasbro.  Marvel Legends has gone through a few marketing directions since Hasbro took over the line from Toybiz (R.I.P.) and now I hear that the Legends will be used soley as movie tie-ins.  Being that Marvel movies rock my face off, I don't find this disturbing news in the least.  What IS a bit distrurbing is the $25 PRICE TAG! What the what?!?  When Legends started (around 2003, i think), they were only $7 a piece and you got a reprinted comic to go with it!  You MAY be able to find them cheaper in the big box stores as compared to a specialty comic shop, but usually Bedrock City has comparable prices.  Luckily I had a $25 gift card burning a hole in my wallet from Christmas. Even without the gift card, THIS figure is worth it.  I can't speak for the others in the set though.

Spider-man is my favorite comic book hero, and thus I have owned many Spidey figures in my lifetime.  In college I sported an "all Spidey" collection, but as the movies took off it became clear that I would never be able to keep up and I sold all but my favorites.  Lately, the high quality of my Marvel Collection has gotten so high that I didn't have any Spider-man figures that I felt were good enough to display with the rest of them.  They either were too skinny, had questionable paint jobs, had a weird sculpt, or just fell over too much.  I had one really good Spidey, but he's wearing his new b&w costume and I wanted a classic costume figure for my Avengers shelf.  I am happy to announce that I have found the Spidey that the hole in my collection was waiting for!

The Marvel Legends Amazing Spider-Man 2 action figure stand 6" tall, right in line with previous Legends.  Sometimes some characters (cough, Ironman, cough cough) come out looking under-sized.  Not so with Spidey.  Mr. Parker fits right in beside Cap and Hawkeye in my Avengers lineup.  Since my Hulk, IronMan, Nick Fury, Hawkeye, and Spidey are all based on movie likenesses, this is the closest I'll get to seeing Spidey in the movie crew until Sony's rights finally revert back to Disney/Marvel...and I'll probably be long dead from old age by then...but I digress.

Spidey has a crisp paint job, comic-accurate colors, great sculpt, amazing poseability, light texture on the blue parts of his costume, and best of all (if I had to pick one thing) big, shiny eyes!  I obviously love this figure, based on the amount of words I've typed, so let's move on to the pictures, eh?

The new Marvel Legends boxes are a cool, new clamshell type package with slick graphics and nice matte background/glossy detail print effect.

 

Spidey comes with a set of fists and a set of webbing-ready hands you can interchange as well as the right arm of an Ultimate Green Goblin Build-A-Figure.

As with all classy Spidey figures these days, his webs are etched into the sculpt with a light black inset.  This beats the pants of painting the lines onto a flat figure.  

Now I'm going to show off his amazing posing abilities, mostly while interacting with a bunch of my other figures, because Spidey's cool like that.

One of my few complaints is the red pegs in his elbow joints (see the pics above and below).  I know they wanted the red to show up on the outside of his arm, but could they not create pegs that were red on one side and blue on the other?  Or find a paint that wouldn't peel off with wear?  Oh well, that's a small problem on an otherwise excellent figure.

And he wouldn't be Spidey without some whitty banter.  Banter away, Spidey!

Here's a couple more shots of Spidey taking his place on my Avengers (& friends) shelf.

And last, but not least, the Space Ghost interview...

Simply Amazing

Marvel Select Unmasked Amazing Spiderman Figure Review

I was surprised when I came upon this figure in the Disney Store yesterday.  I looked for it last Fall and they had already sold out.  I was pretty excited to finally find one.

If you haven't seen the Amazing Spider-Man movie, you're missing out.  I loved the old trilogy, but this new movie just really nails the character.  It was SO good!  Anyway, this is an action figure review, so lets stay on topic.

Spidey comes with a masked and unmasked head, gloved or ungloved forearms, and a detailed brick wall base.  The heads were pretty hard to pop on and off and I was afraid I was about to break something, but it got easier after the first time I switched them.  The hands were easy to switch, but once on stayed nice and tight in their joint.

The likeness isn't spot on, like some movie figures I've gotten, but it's close enough for me.  Check out the details on the raised webbing and the texture on the red and blue parts of his costume!  His hair also has some nice highlights to give it depth.  This is some pretty slick work by the Marvel Select team.

Here's a look at Spidey with his mask and gloves on.  In a rare change, the gloved hands are both in fists instead of the "web slinging" pose.  Almost all Spideys come with the web slinging pose these days, so I'm glad for a change here.

This figure actually looks great with his mask on OR off.  I had a hard time deciding which way to display him.  Again, check out that texture.  When I was a kid we were lucky to get the webs PAINTED on his costume, much less sculpted on!

Here's a size comparison with the Marvel Legends Avengers Hulk figure.  They're in pretty nice scale together, though he's too tall to hang out with my Marvel Legends.  I've decided to display him alongside my movie figure collection.  He's pretty tall and fits right in with those figures.  Hulk gets away with hanging out with the Legends because he's SUPPOSED to be a lot larger than them.  Spidey's supposed to be tall, but not a head taller than Cap.

Here he's facing off against my Marvel Legends Lizard.  Though this figure isn't over-sized and imposing like the Marvel Legends movie Lizard figure, I think he's a much better design & sculpt, so I decided against upgrading him.  This Lizard came in a 4 or 5 pack of Marvel Legends Spidey villains and I'm pretty sure that's they only time they used this sculpt.

Overall, I'm happier with this figure than I though I would be.  Getting him out of the packaging and checking out his detail and costume options...he's top notch.  I'm giving him a 9 out of 10 just for the fact that he's got a faulty knee joint and I think his head likeness could have been a bit better.  Still...this is almost a perfect Spidey figure.  Two enthusiastic thumbs up!

And now... your moment of Zen.

Monochrome Spidey

For those not in the "know", the Fantastic Four recently lost a member to a temporary death (as it turned out) and changed their name to the Future Foundation.  The new FF sported slick new black & white duds and invited Spider-Man to join in the fun.  I bought the first issue of FF just for the sweet Spider-Man suit.  Now Hasbro has released an awesome new FF Spidey in the latest Marvel Legends series!  Let's check him out!

First off, this is probably the best Spider-Man action figure sculpt yet.  Yes, his hands are frozen in fist/web shooting poses, but considering how bad the more articulated Spider-man hands have been in the past, I'd rather just have one that looks nice for once.  This Spidey is very solid-looking, features great posability, and the paint apps are almost perfect.  I'll compare this new Spidey to my previously displayed one and you can see the difference. The older Spidey features nice details, but he's creepy skinny and while they made him very posable, he just looks odd.  I love this new sculpt and would buy more Spideys from Hasbor if they would repaint this sculpt in the classic red/blue and black suits.

Is this suit design and figure followthrough not incredible?  Love it!

Check out these poses!

Here's the comparison  of the new Spidey to the now-demoted Spidey.  The old Spidey can almost match the pose, but look how awkward and fragile he looks.  Plus, look at those weird hands!  No contest.

I'm not usually a huge Hasbro fan (I haven't forgotten you ToyBiz), but they did Spider-Man right, which goes a long way in my book.  Nice job!