Tag Archives: Green Goblin

#0697: Green Goblin & Peter Parker/Spider-Man

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , ,

GREEN GOBLIN & PETER PARKER/SPIDER-MAN

MARVEL MINIMATES

Goblin&Parker1

The line may have made it well past 60 series, but Marvel Minimates had rather humble beginnings. It started with three series, each centered on one of Marvel’s hottest properties of the time. Since there was no guarantee of anything past those three series, quite a few heavy hitters made appearances. The figures were also a lot more simplistic than they are now, making for a very different product. Let’s jump back into the old days of the line with Green Goblin and Peter Parker/Spider-Man.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

This pair was released in the second series of Marvel Minimates, which was also the first series to be Spider-Man themed. It was far from the last.

GREEN GOBLIN

Goblin&Parker2You certainly couldn’t bring Spider-Man into Minimates without his greatest foe (aside from Aunt May’s health), Green Goblin! Goblin is presented here in his classic incarnation, pointy shoes, man-purse, and all. The figure is roughly 2 ½ inches tall and he has 14 points of articulation. He’s built on the older Minimate body, which is more or less the same as the current body, with the exception of the longer feet, which are just downright odd to see nowadays. The longer feet are actually hidden by a set of larger boot pieces, which were done in a slip on fashion here, rather than just being a unique sculpt as they would be now. The figure also features add-on parts for his hood/hat thing, a hand holding a pumpkin bomb, and the previously mention man-purse. All of these parts are pretty well handled, and they add up to a pretty decent version of the character. Paint-wise, Goblin is fairly simple, with mostly flat color work. There’s a bit of slop here and there, but nothing too terrible. He has detail lines for his face and belt buckle, which are nice and sharp. The face is definitely more on the cartoony side, but it fits with the style of the time. Green Goblin was packed with no accessories, since DST had yet to brave the goblin glider. Still, with the amount of sculpted pieces here, the lack of any extras seems reasonable.

PETER PARKER/SPIDER-MAN

Goblin&Parker3Given it was a Spider-Man series, it’s not really a shock that a Spidey variant found his way into this set. (In fact, Spidey was in every set in this series). This is probably one of the more unique figures from the series. It depicts Peter as he was sometimes seen, when his spider-sense would kick in while he was out of costume. Typically, it only showed up on his face, but I’m sure it manifested this way at least once. His lone unique piece is the hair for the Parker half of the head, which is actually glued in place, being that pegs had yet to be added on the hair pieces. It’s a perfectly fine sculpt, though it is, unsurprisingly, much more sparse on detail than the more current stuff. It ends up looking a little weird from any angle over than head on, but I don’t know that there’s a way to avoid that. The rest of the detail is handled via paint. For the most part, it’s pretty well handled. The biggest issue the figure faced was slop between the two halves, which gets pretty bad in a few areas. Some people weren’t fans of Peter’s goofy smile, but I kinda like it. Oddly enough, the Spider-Man half is painted in a different manner than the regular Spidey, so no parts were straight re-uses. The figure included no accessories.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

This set was one of my earliest sets of Minimates. After getting the Yellow Daredevil & Elektra set, and thoroughly loving them, I went back for more, and this and Series 3’s Cyclops & Jean Grey jointly became my second venture into the line. This isn’t the best the first three series had to offer, but I’m pretty sentimental about these guys, even if they’ve become outdated next to newer releases.

#0527: Green Goblin

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , ,

GREEN GOBLIN

SPIDER-MAN (TOYBIZ)

Alright guys, after a brief stop over into the strange bizzaro world of The Stapler in Question, we are back at home with the action figures. Yay! So, back in the 90s, the 5-inch scale Marvel figures, produced by the very much at the height of their game ToyBiz were totally my jam. The figures were (at least loosely) based on the then current cartoons. Amongst those cartoons was Spider-Man: The Animated Series, which ended up with a fairly nice toyline of its own, at least for a few series. So, let’s have a look at one of Spidey’s greatest foes, the Green Goblin, as he was presented in said line.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

GreenGoblin90sWilsonGreen Goblin was released as part of Series 3 of ToyBiz’s Spider-Man line. The cartoon did this odd thing where Hobgoblin preceded Green Goblin, which resulted in Hobs taking the Goblin slot in Series 1. And Goblins never go for even numbered series. That’s just not how they roll. The figure is about 5 inches tall, with 9 points of articulation. He’s pretty much standard for a ToyBiz figure of the time. He’s based on the character’s animated appearance, which itself was a fairly faithful recreation of the comics design. Mostly, it just comes down to style cues, resulting in a slightly “friendlier” looking Goblin. Surprisingly, Green Goblin got his own sculpt, which shared no pieces with Series 1’s Hobgoblin. I think that may be the only time these two have both appeared in a line with no re-use at all. Impressive. The sculpt itself ends up being quite impressive, with not only some pretty good proportions, but also some killer texturing, especially on the scaly arms and legs. They aren’t super-detailed like some of the sculpts that followed, but they are a great example of using just enough detail to suggest the rest (which, incidentally, is how Goblin was drawn for most of his classic appearances). Also, it’s an odd thing to point out, but this figure has some of the best hand sculpts of any figure from this time. Most were molded in a generic clasping positon, but Goblin has one splayed as if it’s just thrown a pumpkin bomb and one in a pointing position. I don’t know what he’s pointing at, but at least it’s different. Goblin’s paintwork isn’t quite up to the same level as the sculpt, but it’s pretty much on par with just about everything else being offered at the time. The colors match up pretty well to the show’s design. The colors don’t so much match up to themselves, however. The purple ends up changing a few times over the course of the figure, which is rather distracting. There is also some rather noticeable bleed over around the edges of the gloves and boots, and the edges on the shorts aren’t even close to being even. Green Goblin included his faithful goblin glider (which even launched missiles) and a pumpkin, but pesky child-Ethan lost them! (Or did he?)

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As into the ToyBiz Marvel stuff as I was as a kid, I actually ended up avoiding a lot of the Spider-Man line. The cartoon never really gripped me like the others, so I just never really had the connection. So, Goblin here wasn’t part of my “initial collection.” He was a later acquisition, fished out of a bin of low priced figures at a nearby comic book store sometime around the mid-00s. I don’t know exactly why I picked him up, but I imagine I was just filling in some gaps in the collection at low prices. Going back to review this guy, he surprised me. With most of the 5-inch figures, the nostalgia filter is firmly in place, but not for this one, and yet he still impressed me. That really says something.

#0497: Green Goblin

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , ,

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 13th 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.

#0229: Green Goblin

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , ,

GREEN GOBLIN

SPIDER-MAN: THE MOVIE (TOYBIZ)

 

The first Spider-Man movie may have been surpassed by other superhero movies in recent years, but when it was released it was my favorite superhero movie, and remained in that spot until it was dislodged by its sequel. The movie was also one of the earliest comicbook based movies to get a decent tie-in toyline, on par with, and perhaps even better than the comic stuff at the time. I’m certain it surprises no one that I owned a few of the figures from that toyline, and today I’ll be looking at one of the figures of the film’s big bad, the Green Goblin.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The Goblin was part of the first series of Spider-Man movie figures. The figure stands 6 inches tall and features 38 points of articulation. He has an all new sculpt based on Willem Dafoe’s performance as the character in the film. It’s a pretty good sculpt and, whether you like the suit or not, it’s a good representation of the suit’s design. Under the figure’s removable mask is an unmasked Norman Osborn head, which bares more than a passing resemblance to Dafoe. The resemblance might be a bit closer were it not for the slick back hair style, but it was necessary in order to facilitate the removable mask feature. The mask is a well done piece and is essentially a scaled down version of the real thing, though it is missing the backing it had in the movie. This is once again to aid the removability. The paintwork is cleanly applied, with no real issues with slop or bleed over. His skin tone is a tad too yellow for my tastes, but only a tad. The figure came packaged with his goblin glider and a flight stand, but both of mine have been lost. Sorry! (EDIT: Okay, not quite…)

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I got Green Goblin from the KB Toys in my local mall shortly after the first series was released. That would have been a few months before the release of the movie. For some reason, I wanted Green Goblin, but none of the other figures in the series. So, I only had the Goblin for a while. He’s a quality figure for sure, but that goblin costume looks worse every time I see it.