SHRIEK

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“Frances Louise Barrison, a.k.a. Shriek, escapes from captivity and forms a twisted family with like-minded villains to terrorize Spider-Man.”

In the ’90s, Venom was all the rage, so Marvel spun-off Carnage from him.  And then Carnage became all the rage, so, in 1993, Marvel used him as the central player in a Spider-book-wide crossover, “Maximum Carnage,” which teamed him up with his own band of super villains.  Mostly, they were repurposed from elsewhere, but brand-new to the crossover was Shriek.  Though certainly prominent within the story, Shriek has struggled to do much of note since then, so she’s not had much in the way of toy coverage.  She did get a Minimate three years ago, and now she’s also has a Marvel Legend.  Lucky her!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Shriek is figure 6 in the Armadillo Series of Marvel Legends, where she is the second of the two comics-based figures.  Her spot in the line-up is no doubt due to the character’s presence in the Venom sequel, since it did elevate her profile at least a little bit.  The figure stands 6 1/4 inches tall and she has 29 points of articulation.  Shriek is built on one of the smaller female base bodies, but it’s been slightly tweaked to update some of the aesthetics, removing the visible pins on the knees, as well as updating the elbows to double joints.  The elbow construction is a little bit iffy, at least on mine. I wound up having to do a little bit of clean-up on the excess plastic at the edges, as it was causing the joints to get stuck and risk tearing.  After the clean-up, she was just fine, but it’s certainly something to keep an eye on when taking her out of the package.  In general, Shriek’s sculpt is a rather basic and straight forward one, but that’s something that Hasbro’s come to excel at, so she looks pretty good.  She’s quite clean and sleek looking.  A look like Shriek’s requires a very well-executed paint job, since it’s all just black and white.  Fortunately, she’s got some of the sharpest paint in the assortment, so her look winds up really sticking the landing.  Shriek is packed with a whopping three sets of hands, in fists, gripping, and open gesture poses, as well as the largest section of the Armadillo Build-A-Figure, the torso and backplate.  I suppose some effects might have been cool, but it’s hard to do sound as a visual thing, and I do really appreciate the extra hands.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I’m not the world’s biggest Shriek fan by any stretch of the imagination, but I won’t deny that the character has a pretty cool visual, so the fact that she’s been such a rarity in the toy world is kind of sad.  I wasn’t really rooting for her to get a spot here, but I also was definitely not opposed, and I do have to say that the final product turned out rather nicely.  She may be a rather by-the-numbers figure, but she follows those numbers well.

Thanks to my sponsors over at All Time Toys for setting me up with this figure to review.  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website.