GREEN GOBLIN

MARVEL LEGENDS

Ah, yes, ToyBiz’s Marvel Legends. What a bunch of mixed feelings that was. When they were new, I loved the figures, but they were impossible to get. Now, they’re a lot easier to get a hold of, and… well, it seems there was quite a nostalgia filter.

One of the things about when ToyBiz was handling the line is that they consistently had a Spider-Man line running alongside it. This generally meant that any Spider-characters would appear in that line, not in Marvel Legends. However, there were three instances of the unofficial rule being broken. One such case was today’s figure, the Green Goblin!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Green Goblin was released in the 13^th Series of ToyBiz’s Marvel Legends. The series was officially titled the “Onslaught Series” after its Build-A-Figure, and unofficially titled “Bring On the Bad Guys” due to the fact that it was a series of nothing but villains. It was actually a pretty novel idea, but seems like the sort of thing that would never happen now. Goblin is roughly 6 inches tall and he has 36 points of articulation. All that articulation, and he still couldn’t stand on his glider the right way. It’s mostly the fault of the hip joints, which were common to this era of ML figures and were notorious for their inability to forward and back and side to side at the same time. You had to pick one or the other. This figure does actually represent one of the few times that the toe articulation proved useful, so that’s a plus, though the finger articulation was as pointless as ever. The figure’s sculpt may or may not have been new to him. This figure was released around the same time as a Hobgoblin from the Spider-Man line, and they shared all but the head, pelvis, and shins. I don’t know which one of them used the pieces first, or if they were in fact designed to share the pieces from the beginning. Regardless, the figure sports one of the best Green Goblin sculpts, pretty much ever. The build is actually pretty great for the Goblin, and the scales on his arms and legs look fantastic. The highlight of the figure is easily the head, which translated Goblin’s grinning visage perfectly to three dimensions. This is easily one of ToyBiz’s best sculpted efforts from this time-period. While the figure is fantastically sculpted, the paint leaves a little bit to be desired. The biggest thing is that it’s just way too dark. Goblin’s a character who really needs to be bright and garish, so the subdued green and not quite purple doesn’t really work. The washes are also a little heavy and uneven, and they just make the figure even darker. From a purely technical standpoint, the paint is clean; cleaner than a lot of other ToyBiz Legends, so kudos to them on that. The figure included his trusty satchel, a display stand in the form of his signature glider, and a piece of Onslaught. The glider ends up with the most issues. For one thing, it seems a little droopy on the sides. The biggest issue, though, is the completely opaque piece holding the glider up. They didn’t even try to make it a little inconspicuous, which just feels lazy.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Goblin actually comes from the point in the line where the figures became a little easier to get a hold of. He was picked up from my local comicbook store, who had started getting the figures in for a slightly higher price. I can’t remember exactly what led me to get Goblin, as I’m not the character’s biggest fan or anything. I will say he’s one of the nicer figures the line had to offer, and, aside from the hip joint issue, he actually still looks pretty good with modern Legends.