I wasn’t going to buy this figure. I didn’t know the character, hadn’t read any stories, and it didn’t call me until I saw him hanging on the pegs at my local Target. He just looked cooler to me in person than he had in the live streams and it had been ten seconds since I opened new plastic, so I picked him up. It also inspired me to get into reading the Spider-Boy stories available on the Marvel app. The good news there is that I enjoyed the comics and I’m now a fan, the bad news is that knowing the comics does highlight a few issues with the figure. Let’s take a look at the Marvel Legends Spider-Boy action figure.
The card is a retro style with the bubble sandwiched between two pieces of cardboard for a pretty durable display piece that shows off the figure well if that’s your thing. I do like the cross-sell on the back mostly as a throw-back to old style packaging, but also as a reminder of what’s in the actual wave since these seem to hit in full cases of single figures at different times now and I’m pretty forgetful.
Spider-Boy comes with almost the bare minimum of stuff including a removeable pack, two sets of hands (thwipp and fist) and an alternate head.
The thwipp hands are pretty standard for a spider-person, but this particular character doesn’t actually use web-shooters in the book. There is a bit of a running joke that Peter took them away after some unspecified incident that the reader is left to imagine. Now, I suppose he could have already got them back in the comic since I’m on the app timeline and not current or he will get them in the future, so this isn’t the biggest issue for me. I would have preferred wall-crawling hands and I think those do exist for this body and in the comic he’s usually got open hands with splayed fingers.
The pack has a couple of nice paint hits and secures to the peg hole in the back. It doesn’t have any real function other than to look cool and the metallics do elevate his look a bit for my taste. The highlight for me is the alternate head with the sort of monster teeth. The monster aspect is part of what appeals to me about Spider-Boy, so I’m glad they included it. I think I would have gone with gloss yellow paint for the eyes, but the gold is striking.
The sculpting of this figure overall is fantastic for what it is, but he does seem a little large for Spider-Boy. I think it reads more like Spider-Teen which makes sense because he re-uses the Ultimate Spidey/Miles Morales from the Space Venom wave body. That said, plenty of artists have drawn him closer to this size, but I chalk that more up to artists not having facility drawing little kids. He’s still tiny, but could stand to be half an inch shorter with less muscular definition.
Articulation is a little more old-school Hasbro Marvel Legends than other recent releases since he’s re-using an older body with swivel waist, ab crunch, and hinged neck. I think it works pretty well for this character but the ankles are a bit hindered by the shoes. Initially, I was not able to get much hinge at all in the ankles, but at some point the joint freed up and I was able to get a really nice forward hinge. Unfortunately, the swivel at the forward facing pin does not get any rocker movement. I do, however, like the inclusion of the boot cut and the hinged neck allows him to look up better than any ball joint on a domestic figure allows.
The paint work is clean, however I do take issue with the color choice. I don’t feel like the blue is true to the lighter blue in the comics.
Overall, I had a lot of fun with this figure, but I do see a lot of little issues that are annoying in the aggregate. I think ideally he would get his own new base body and the teen body re-use here is a pretty near miss. I don’t have a sense of how popular Spider-Boy is to the general public, so I don’t know if he’d warrant a re-do at some point, much less a whole new body sculpted. I loved the Spider-Boy issues I read which probably means it will be canceled next month, so I’m glad to have a figure, but there is definitely room for improvement.
Source: The Fwoosh
