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.
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...
