SPIDER-WOMAN

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“Julia Carpenter becomes an ally of Spider-Man and the Avengers after she is given spider-powered abilities by a secret government experiment.”

So, last year, I returned from my fourth of July review to a set of Spider-Man-themed Marvel Legends with a review of a Spider-Woman figure…and I’m doing that again.  What are the odds?  To be fair, while the codename’s the same, this is a distinct character from last year, specifically the Spider-Woman of the ’80s and ’90s, Julia Carpenter!  Though she’s faded into relative obscurity these days, Julia was a somewhat prominent character for a while there, and even became a member of the Avengers before her predecessor, as well as netting a pretty sweet supporting role in the ’90s Iron Man cartoon, where she was for all intents and purposes merged with Pepper Potts.  After the ’90s, her toy luck wasn’t so great, though, and she’s mostly been relagated to being a quick variant whenever Jessica Drew gets a figure.  Not the case today, though.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Spider-Woman is figure 5 in the Molten Man Series of Marvel Legends, and is the penultimate figure needed to complete the Build-A-Figure.  She’s the most loosely Spider-Man-related of the figures included, bit is still a slightly better fit than Jessica Drew was last year.  She’s wearing her classic costume, which is really the only way to go, as it’s by far her most striking.  The figure stands 6 inches tall and she has 27 points of articulation.  Spider-Woman’s built on the Phoenix body, which is a solid choice for the character, especially since the two characters even shared parts back in the 5-inch line in the ’90s.  She gets a new head sculpt, which isn’t a bad match for her ’80s appearances.  It’s also distinctly different from both Jessica Drews, which is more than can be said for a lot of Julia’s figures.  Julia’s paintwork is actually some quite solid work.  The costume is a nice, stark black and white, which has very sharply defined lines that all work very well.  On the flipside, the hair actually has a lot of accent work going on, which was something of a surprise to see, but definitely a pleasant one.  Spider-Woman is packed with an extra hand with a web attached to it.  The actual web is slightly purple and iridescent, which is a nice change from the basic Spidey webs.  Spider-Woman also includes the torso of the Molten Man Build-A-Figure.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Pretty much everything I know about this character comes from the Iron Man cartoon.  In the comics, I’ve never had a huge attachment, so I’ve not really gotten many of her prior figures.  I can certainly appreciate her design, though, and after two versions of Jessica, finally getting an update to Julia is definitely nice.  This is a solid figure, and probably the best the character’s ever gotten.

I purchased Spider-Woman from All Time Toys, who set me up with this whole set to review.  If your looking for other Legends or other toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay storefront.