it's March 24th 2007
The nationwide release of Spiderman 3 toys has arrived. You get yours yet? Like before there is a mixture of collector friendly figures and those with action features for the kids, unlike before the scale is now down to 5 inches, about a head taller than the JLU figures on the market now.
Are these as good as the previous series of movie figures? Let's find out.
BACKSTORY: this is the basic spidey, no weird aliens attatched, he's the one you've been seein' for the last two movies, let's call this one "classic" and call it a day.
SCULPT: Remember the old Spiderman 2 movie figure? Sculpt-wise about the same, no real problem, nothing overwhelming- just a nice recreation of the character as he looks in the movie. Nothing major standouts, his head sits a little odd, but it's nothing we haven't seen before. He is a little scrawny in comparison to how he looks in the film, but then Spidey IS scrawny, or he should be.......Raimi and Co. be damned....
To be frank it looks like every other movie spidey to date... just smaller, to wit he reaches to about spidey 1 movie figures chest emblem for height.
PAINT: No washes, like most of Hasbro's offerings, thankfully the costumes look doesn't really make that a problem, however I would have liked to see some around his thighs to highlight the musculature.....
For the most part his paint is clean, the blue areas are glossy blue paint (his base is red) the eyes are a pearl color, which looks nice.....definitely the best way to recreate the glass lenses without resorting to basic white, I approve. Shockingly enough the chest emblem is without fault, it looks great. His webpattern is of concern as it's often off by 'just this much,' but this may lie more in the scale than anything else, so I suggest looking through em for the best one.
ARTICULATION: A smaller scale must mean less articulation... well it must since he's down a few points since the last time Sam Raimi's vision of him has been cast in plastic.
He's now missing forearm cut joints, joints on his ankle, the fingers,shoulders,toes,and waist. That's quite alot, which i know some had to be booted (like shoulders) but no waist? The hell?
Complaint from me begins by his hands, since he lacks the much needed forearm movement......just like the Origins Iron-Spider, maybe this wouldn't be so bad if his left hand was sculpted in the grasping pose.....eh hey now you re-enact the now homeless spidey goes 'hey mister got a quarter?'
The lack of finger movement is bothersome as it limits poses, I don't want him in webshooting mode ALL the time. Hasbro really should've gave him some extra hands , that would've been nice.
He has the standard upperarm movement so no surprises there.
He has the OLD mid-torso movement, and I thought I missed this.......but now I miss the hinge, hell I can't even move him, not certain if this is true on all figs, but this one can't move at the torso AT ALL. his head is a ball joint, however it barely allows him to move his head....and it tends to pop off as well. No waist as stated before....and I go WHY? Lack of this makes no sense.
His legs hold the only new articulation- in lieu of thigh movement or a ball joint at the top of his thighs, this one holds added movement at the knee, a sort of reverse of the standard....it doesn't work that well on him however, in fact most of his movement will come from uppersection.
The ankles and toes have nothing.....dammit.
Funky poses will be hard with this one since hes' no more articulated than those battle board (whatever they're called) figures toy biz had- hell these could sub in that game.
ACCESSORIES: Only a wall stick web. Many Spidey's have had this and I suspect many more will. For what it's worth this may be the finest looking one I've seen yet, cast from clear rubbery plastic and showing some good sculpting for what it is.
OVERALL: This is a good toy for kids, which is what Hasbro seems to be aiming for with this line, hmm an interesting idea- appeal to kids not adults....well weirder things have happend. So for a kid it's a good toy, if that kid isn't like I was and this shit mattered to me then too (which sucked cause I was a kid when it was only the "BIG 5" for movement).
Now for us..... grab it if you're a fan of the movie, the biggest flaw this line has is a lack of articulation, the sculpts are fine overall (aside from the hands....but that's more of a articulation problem).....then there's the scale....which many don't like since it doesn't fit with the rest of the movie lines....well at least Hasbro is releasing the earlier films villains at this scale too. I like that :teeth Bottom line is whether you mind this scale or not, I suspect that's a big factor here.
but I'll give this one 3 out of 5, with the subtractions being based SOLEY on the articulation.
