SPIDER-MAN — LAST STAND

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

Fun FiQ Fact #0116: The older, rougher Peter “Pete” Parker of the “Last Stand” story hails from Earth-312500.

I can’t say I’ve ever been the world’s biggest Spider-Man fan.  Sure, I dig the character overall, and there’s so much out there that it’s hard to not be a fan of at least some of it.  One of the cooler aspects for Spidey is just how many different versions of him there are.  The Spider-Verse movies have certainly popularized the concept, but it’s been toyed with my times over the years, including in the finale to Spider-Man: The Animated Series, which was my first proper introduction to it.  Since then, I’ve been pretty fascinated in the concept, especially as it pertains to action figures.  One of the coolest things to come out of the “Spider-Verse” comics event was just how many spider-variants from it got toys pretty quickly.  Almost a decade later, we’re still getting new ones, like Last Stand Spider-Man, who I’m looking at today!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Last Stand Spider-Man is part of the latest Retro-carded assortment of Spider-Man Marvel Legends.  There’s a split of old and modern style cards, and he’s on the modern side, which makes sense, since he wasn’t even introduced until 2003.  The figure stands about 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 27 points of articulation.  He’s sporting a brand-new sculpt, courtesy of sculptor Fred Aczon.  Aczon’s work for Hasbro has been predominantly on the GI Joe side of things, which honestly work to this design’s favor, since it’s got more of a faux-military flair about it. It does a good job of taking the John Romita Jr artwork of his original appearance, and translating that into a more generalized look to fit with the rest of the line.  I quite like how the jacket has translated to figure form; something about all those flaps just really works for the figure.  I enjoy how his whole look reads as Spider-Man, without really having many explicitly Spidey elements.  It’s got sort of similar vibe to the WW2 Cap look, though they of course have very different backstories in-universe.  While the sculpt is certainly a strong one, the color work is…well, it’s not quite as strong.  He’s got blocks of red and blocks of off-black, and that’s really it.  Unfortunately, a good deal of the sculpted detailing gets lost in the bright red and dark black, and there’s very little accenting to bring any of it back out, resulting in very little pop.  It’s not *awful*, just not terribly impressive.  Last Stand Cap is packed with two sets of hands, one in fists, the other in open gesture.  He’s an all-new, head to toe sculpt, so a lighter accessory count is somewhat expected, but it’s still too bad we couldn’t maybe get an unmasked head for him.

THE ME REMAINDER OF THE EQUATION

Like Jack O’Lantern, I waffled a little bit on this guy.  I really dig his look, but I’m slowing down on Legends, and I’ve got a lot of Spider-Men already.  Ultimately, though, I just couldn’t turn down this design as a figure.  He’s not without his flaws, but that sculpt is just so very nice.

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 and their eBay storefront.