Tag Archives: Spider-Man (Toyline)

#4120: Spider-Man – Web-Shooter

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

SPIDER-MAN — WEB-SHOOTER

SPIDER-MAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES (TOY BIZ)

“Not all of Spider-Man’s amazing powers came from the bite of a radioactive spider – some were created by Peter Parker himself. Case in point, his astonishing web shooters! Using his scientific know-how, Parker crated a device which, when filled with a secret formula of his own design, could duplicate the super-strong web of a spider!”

When Toy Biz started out with the Marvel license, they divided the characters into two sets, with one line dedicated to X-Men (which would also quickly spin-off into an X-Force dedicated line) and one covering…the rest.  Spider-Man was undoubtedly a major focus of Marvel Super Heroes, with multiple variants per series.  So, it wasn’t a shock that he was the first property outside of X-Men to get his own line, launched to coincide with his own animated series.  There were two Spidey variants in the line’s inaugural series, both dealing with his web-slinging powers, and today I’m taking a look at the Web-Shooter variant!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Spider-Man — Web-Shooter was released in the first series of the Spider-Man: The Animated Series line in 1994.  In contrast to the X-Men line, which was (mostly) a comics based line that happened to coincide with the show, the Spider-Man was a specifically cartoon-based line, with all of the official branding from the show, and Spider-Man figures clearly patterned on his show design.  Web-Shooter was pretty much the closest the first series got to just a standard Spidey.  The figure stands 5 inches tall and he has 9 points of articulation.  Apart from lacking a right elbow joint due to the action feature, he’s got the basic set-up for the Toy Biz 5-inchers, plus a waist joint.  Not a bad set-up.  The figure’s sculpt is something I’ve actually sort of looked at before, because its two-up prototype served as the basis for the standard 10-inch Spidey.  It’s a good, solid, basic sculpt, which does most of what it needs to.  It’s perhaps a touch stiff for a Spidey, and the right arm is very limiting, especially given than the “web missile” is attached to a string and therefore cannot be removed.  There’s a reason so many of these show up loose with the string cut.  The color work on this figure is pretty standard for Spideys of the time, being an almost exact match for the Web Racer from the same series.  The early figures all utilized painted webs, and, honestly, I’ve come to prefer that over the years.  Otherwise, it’s bright and colorful, and just a good looking Spidey.  Since his “missile” was attached to him, Spidey’s only accessory was one of those plastic clips that mostly served as a way of padding the figures out for the appearance of value.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I didn’t have either of the Series 1 Spider-Men as a kid, and both are much later, “hey it’s in front of me” sort of purchases, rather than actually actively wanting him…which is probably why this is one of those Toy Biz figures that I accidentally bought twice without even realizing it.  Whoops!  Well, I have him, and that’s the point.  He’s basic and a little limited by his action feature, but he’s certainly not bad.  Since we’d had so many Spider-Men from Toy Biz already at this point, experimenting a bit on these first two always felt like an okay choice.

Flashback Friday Figure Addendum #0086: Spider-Man – Spider-Sense

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Flashback Friday Figure Addendum and tagged with , , , ,

SPIDER-MAN — SPIDER-SENSE

SPIDER-MAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES (TOY BIZ)

Hey, whoah, it’s Friday!  Welcome to Friday, here at the Figure in Question, where we like to celebrate the week with a little bit of flashing back, with some addendums to older reviews.  Today?  We’re taking a second look at a Spider-Man variant that really should have seen it coming!

“Perched on a ledge high above the city, Spider-Man’s ‘6th sense’ begins to tingle – providing a split second warning that imminent danger looms behind him. Back-flipping with a speed and precision well beyond an Olympic athlete, Spider-Man turns to see the ledge blasted into airborne shrapnel thanks to the Scorpion’s thrashing tail! For on the day Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider, his life was changed forever. And although he gained super-human strength, amazing agility, and enhanced reflexes – it’s his uncanny spider-sense which alerts Spider-Man to the dangers of his adversaries – and benefits him the most!”

Early in its run, Toy Biz’s 5-inch Spider-Man line actually tried to have some valid variants of its main character.  They weren’t always perfect, and sometimes there were some definite reaches to justify a whole new figure, but they gave it their best shot.  In Spider-Man: The Animated Series, there was this animation gimmick they had every time his spider-sense went off, where he’d get this drastically different, rave-esque color scheme for a few moments.  It was different enough in Toy Biz’s eyes to milk a few figures out of it, the first of which is today’s offering.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Spider-Sense Spider-Man was released in Series 5 of Toy Biz’s Spider-Man line, which hit shelves very late in 1995.  He was one of three Spidey variants in the line-up, with the other two being battle-ravaged and six-armed.  The figure stands just under 5 1/4 inches tall and he has 11 points of articulation.  His articulation scheme is kind of wonky, in that it doesn’t really match with any other figure Toy Biz produced, in this line or any other.  The arms move only at the shoulders, but the legs get all sorts of range at the hips and knees.  He seems to be built with a wall-crawling pose in mind, which makes sense with his built-in action feature, which sort of mimics this with his arms…or at least it did when mine still worked.  It was pretty easily worn out.  It’s a little odd that they didn’t put in a little motion on his neck, since its inability to move the head upwards kinda wrecks the credibility of most crawling poses, but there it is.  The sculpt follows the model of the earlier Spideys from this line, being quite sparse on the sculpted details, opting instead to paint most of them on.  In that respect, the paint’s pretty good.  It’s taken a bit of a beating on my figure, but it’s held up alright, and the color work matches the scheme seen on the cartoon pretty well.  It’s a somewhat unique look, and I can certainly get behind it.  This guy was packed with a web-line, web hook, and a collector’s pin, though none of them really did much for the figure.  But hey, extras are extras, right?

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

For Easter when my cousin Rusty and I were four, our grand parents bought both of us one figure from this series.  If you’re thinking this is the one I got, you’re wrong.  My cousin got this guy, and I got Six-Armed Spidey.  I wasn’t happy with that decision as I recall (which seems a but silly to me now, because Six Arm is clearly the better option.  Silly child Ethan), and my parents ended up working out some sort of deal (I’m sure related to cleaning my room or something) in order to take me to the mall and get me this guy for myself.  He’s not bad, but I don’t know how exciting he is, honestly.  I really wanted him, though.

This was a May 2020 review, which was written during the shut down, about a month ahead of publication.  He would have most certainly been a “pulled from the back catalog to fill out the schedule” review, which was a lot of what I was doing at the time.  In general, it’s a good stretch of time for my writing, so I think the review itself holds up pretty well.  Missing at the time of the original writing, I was missing all of the figure’s accessories, but in the mean time, I did manage to find both of his web accessories.  They’re still not really all that relevant to the main figure, but there they are.

Flashback Friday Figure Addendum #0085: Kraven the Hunter

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Flashback Friday Figure Addendum and tagged with , , , ,

KRAVEN THE HUNTER

SPIDER-MAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES (TOY BIZ)

I’ve been using this space here on Fridays to celebrate getting through the week a lot recently, and you know what, I’m really feeling that for this week in particular, because oh boy did it just keep going.  But I’m here at the end of it, and you guys are too, and that’s so very nice.  Good for us.  I’m using today’s Flashback Friday Figure Addendum to jump back into the Toy Biz Marvel well, because it brings me comfort and ease, and those are things I quite like having right now.  So, let’s jump in on return look at Kraven the Hunter!

Remember my review of Unmasked Spider-Man from just last week? Good, that means this intro can be a bit shorter. Like that figure, this one hails from ToyBiz’s Spider-Man: The Animated Series line from the 90s, and also comes from one of the boxed sets ToyBiz released exclusively through BJ’s Wholesalers. This time around, it’s Kraven the Hunter, one of the classic Spider-Man foes. He was a hunter looking for a more exciting hunt, which led to him fighting Spidey on numerous occasions and eventually joining the first incarnation of the Sinister Six. Let’s see how he turned out!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Kraven was released in the BJ’s exclusive Monster Mayhem set, which also included 5 other figures, all repaints. Kraven stands about 5 inches tall and has 9 points of articulation, which were both standard for the line. Kraven is 100% re-use, being a repaint of the main Spider-Man line’s own release of Kraven. The previous Kraven was based on his cartoon appearance, whereas this one seems to be more comic based. The biggest difference present is this figure’s leopard patterned pants in contrast to the previous figure’s black pants. The sculpt is a pretty good one, and is pretty in line with the classic Kraven design, so I can’t blame them for re-releasing it in a more comic accurate palate. The paint work is well applied and clean overall, and it appears to be a bit more detailed than the single release figure. Kraven included no accessories, which is a shame, because his hand is obviously molded to hold one.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I acquired this BJ’s exclusive at KB Toys. Yes, you read that right. Apparently, BJ’s would only actually hold on to these sets for a short while before selling them to KB for the rest of the distribution. Hey, it works for me. Anyway, I was on a trip to the beach, I think right before my brother was born, but I don’t recall for certain. My dad took me to the nearby KB and they had this set there. I had known about its existence, thanks to the internet, but I hadn’t seen it in person. I remember being pretty happy to get it, though it wasn’t really for Kraven. Still, he’s a decent figure, and does help bring back the memories of getting the set.

This is quite an early review for me, before I’d even made it to 200, and just outside the site’s first six months.  I can make a few quibbles stylistically, but for the most part, I had the formula of my reviews down pretty well at this point.  I will note that I didn’t actually talk too much about the figure’s sculpt, which is a shame, because it’s actually quite a nice one, with a lot of sharp, smaller detail work.  While most of the early Toy Biz Marvel figures were more comic than cartoon based, the Spider-Man line tended to lean more into actual cartoon accuracy in the sculpts.  That makes Kraven’s sculpt being so clearly a comics sculpt, not a show one, all the more notable, as well as the fact that the paint was haphazardly changed to match the cartoon for the single release.  It was evidently a late change, since this was the paint scheme shown on the back of the packaging of the original figure (which is part of why it was a good long while before I actually learned the two Kravens were different).  I did make a few factual errors in my original review, the first being that ‘’Monster Mayhem” was actually an eight figure set, not six, so there another seven figures that went along with him.  The second is that he actually *did* include an accessory.  While double checking the accessories of the single release, I realized I recognized the mold on his spear as the same as a random plastic spear I’d had in a parts bin next to my desk, but in a different color.  A quick double check revealed that, yes, this figure included the same spear as the single, but in black, rather than brown.  It’s quite a simple piece, and honestly doesn’t look or feel much like other Toy Biz accessories of the era, but at least it means he has something to hold.

#3704: Red Skull

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

RED SKULL

SPIDER-MAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES (TOY BIZ)

“The Red Skull, a notorious American enemy during World War II, continues in his quest toward world domination. And being the military and political genius that he is, the world better beware! Traditionally an enemy of Captain America, this evil villain has recently turned his attentions towards the amazing Spider-Man and his heroic exploits. And not that weapons-master Red Skull has employed his special “Giant Skull Catcher” device, this villain of all villains makes any rival easy prey!”

Nazis.  I hate these guys.

So, remember when one of Captain America’s most prominent Toy Biz era releases was inexplicably in their Spider-Man line?  And that was kind of weird?  I mean, I guess there was a whole arc with Cap in Spider-Man: The Animated Series, so it wasn’t *that* weird.  Cap was supposed to get his own cartoon, but it was ultimately the victim of Marvel’s bankruptcy.  That left Cap and his supporting cast without a real landing spot, so Cap was in the Spider-Man line, and so was his nemesis Red Skull, the aforementioned Nazi, who I hate.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Red Skull was released in 1998 as part of Toy Biz’s Spider-Man: The Animated Series tie-in line, as part of the “Flip ‘N Trap” assortment, which was an odd gimmicky assortment under the larger “Sneak Attack” sub-line.  It’s sort of strange that he was in an entirely separate assortment from Cap, and wasn’t even released in the same year, but there it is.  Maybe he sat around for a bit before release?  This was the first ever Red Skull figure, which has its own sort of notability.   The figure is a little over 5 inches tall and he has 12 points of articulation.  Skull got a lot upgraded articulation, which was honestly pretty cool.  The sculpt was an all-new one, and I don’t believe any of it was re-used later.  Despite being in an animation-based line, the Skull’s sculpt doesn’t seem to be based directly on his animated appearance.  It’s more of an all-purpose Red Skull, I guess.  The sculpt’s slightly wonky.  The proportions are slightly odd, with notably large hands and feet.  The head also seems a little too actually skull-like for his usual looks.  The left hand appears to be sculpted to maybe hold, oh, I don’t know, a cube, or something?  But nothing of the sort is included.  The color work on Red Skull is generally basic, but there’s some decent accent work on the head to help with the sculpted details.  Red Skull is packed with his own “Flip ‘N Trap” thingy, which is a backpack with a large red skull thing at the front.  It launches these small yellow rubber spider things.  It’s honestly more of a space filler than anything, and doesn’t really do much for the core figure, but it’s not terrible.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

When I was a kid, on a trip to Toys R Us with my dad, I recall having the choice between getting this guy or X-Man.  I chose X-Man, because I guess I’m more of a heroes guy.  I did wind up getting Red Skull later down the line, obviously, courtesy they guys over at Cosmic Comix.  I lost some of the weird launcher parts over the years, but I was able to re-complete my figure thanks to trade-in at All Time.  Honestly, he’s kind of a weird figure, but then, so have most of the Red Skull figures.  I guess this one just sort of set the precedent for the ones that followed.  Ultimately, he’s not terrible, but he’s wonky.  I suppose that means he just matches up with the corresponding Cap in quality.

#3674: Stealth Venom

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

STEALTH VENOM

SPIDER-MAN (TOY BIZ)

“In the past, Venom has been both hero and villain, and Spider-Man knows how powerful he can be! With his chameleon-like abilities, Venom can even blend into his surroundings and virtually ‘disappear’ from sight. So, although Venom is unpredictable, one thing is certain; when he does appear, things heat up!”

Ah, yes, Venom’s chameleon like abilities. Of all the Spider-Man villains out there, surely it’s Venom whose abilities could be best classified as “chameleon-like.” …look, guys, I can’t just stand by and let this Chameleon erasure happen! He’s the original Spider-Man villain. Can’t we get him some respect? No? Well, I tried. I guess I’ll just review this “chameleon-like” Venom.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Stealth Venom was released in Series 7 of Toy Biz’s Spider-Man line.  The whole set was dialed into Toy Biz’s tendency to give their lines the occasional repaint-heavy line-up, so there were minimal new parts across the board, all dialed into more recognizable characters.  This was Venom’s third time in the line, and the first of the kind of made-up variants.  It was far from the last of either thing, of course.  The figure stands a little over 5 inches tall and he has 7 points of articulation.  Venom lacks elbow joints for reasons I’m not entirely sure of, but there it is.  Otherwise, it’s pretty standard stuff.  His sculpt from the neck down was the same as the unmasked Venom from earlier in the line.  It’s honestly not a bad sculpt, and in particular it captured the animated approach to Venom pretty well.  He got a new head, which removed the removable mask feature…un-removed?  I don’t know.  There’s no unmasked head is my point.  It’s really bulky at the neck, and I’m not entirely sure why.  Also, he’s got this sort of permanently looking up thing going on, which seems odd for someone of his stature.  Venom’s stealth-ness came from the color work, which was translucent.  There were actually two different versions; the one seen here was the one that more closely mimicked Venom’s usual set-up, while the second one inverted the colors.  This one’s not nearly as different at a glance, especially in the photos, but I guess it works out alright.  Venom was packed with two clip-on hand attachments, as well as a web-line that was wrapped around his waist.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I was surprisingly short on Venom figures growing up.  I had one of the 10-inchers, and I jumped on the original Spider-Man Classics one pretty quickly, but the 5-inch ones all eluded me until later in life.  This guy was mixed in with a handful of Toy Biz figures that got traded into All Time a month or two ago, and he was surprisingly complete, so hooray for me!  He’s kinda goofy, obviously, but it’s not like I’m collecting the Toy Biz stuff for its serious adherence to the comics lore, am I?  Now, I guess I just have to track down that variant.

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.

Flashback Friday Figure Addendum #0020: Captain America

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Flashback Friday Figure Addendum and tagged with , , , , ,

CAPTAIN AMERICA

SPIDER-MAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES (TOY BIZ)

It’s been a year and a half since I’ve done one of these, but it’s Friday, and I’ve got some addending to do, so, behold, a new Flashack Friday Figure Addedum!  I’m diving back into an older Toy Biz Marvel review, from way back in the site’s very first year, waaaaaaaaaaaay back in 2014.  I hadn’t even seen The Winter Soldier when I wrote this!  Crazy!  So, let’s look back around to Captain America!

By the time this review is posted, I will have seen Captain America: The Winter Soldier.  I’m hoping that I love it as much as I am expecting to, but I’ll just have to wait and see (EDIT: I saw it!  It was amazing.  Go check it out!).  In the meantime, to celebrate the release of the movie, I’ll be taking a look at my very first Captain America action figure.  Back before Cap was the household name he is now, the only way to get a Cap figure was in the tie-in line to the Spider-Man cartoon, of all places.  Cap had just made an appearance on the show, so Toybiz was gracious enough to put him in the eighth series of the line, dubbed Electro-Spark.  How does the figure hold up almost 20 years later? Let’s find out!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

 

The Spider-Man line was 5 inch scale, but Cap was a big guy, standing almost 6 inches tall and featuring 9 points of articulation.  Toybiz seemed intent on depicting Cap as quite the hulking figure (not that one).  He’s so big, it’s almost like his super-soldier serum took super-soldier serum.  This was not a Cap you wanted to mess with!  The sculpt had some nice touches, particularly the scale texture on Cap’s torso, which is simple, but very effective.  The gloves and boots also show a nice level of detail.  There’s lots of folds and creases, making them stand out nicely.  The face depicts Cap in a very angry state, which wouldn’t be my first go to for the character, but it was the 90s.  Everybody gritted their teeth like that.  The paint work on Cap was simple, but it fits with the time, and it was fairly cleanly applied.  I quite like the stylizing of the “A” on the forehead.  Cap included his mighty shield, though this is probably my biggest issue with the figure.  The shield was reworked to give it some sort of light-up feature, which means it’s really small and like an inch thick. Plus, the star’s not even the right color!

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As I mentioned in the intro, Cap was my very first figure of the character.  It was also the only version available for a few years, so this is what I had to live with.  The figure is probably one of the most dated sculpts of the old Spider-Man line, but I can’t help but love it.  I guess I just got used to what I had.  AS a kid, there was no thrill like getting to watch my VHS copies of the Ruby-Spears Captain America cartoon while holding this figure.

Here’s the part where I get all hyper-critical of my old writing.  I mean, a little.  Honestly, this one’s not bad.  It breaks format a bit, since his release info is in the intro, and the “Figure Itself” segment jumps right to the stats of the figure.  Also, it should be “Toy Biz was generous enough” not “Toybiz was gracious enough.”  Wrong “g” word past-Ethan!  Beyond that, the review covers its bases pretty well.

What it *doesn’t* cover is the extra accessories I didn’t have at the time.  In addition to that surprisingly thick shield, Cap also got a weird transforming plane/jetpack thing.  It’s extra goofy and silly, but, hey, why stop that now.  I honestly had completely forgotten the whole thing at the time of my original review.  But, thanks to an assist from Max (who I totally am gonna blame, by the way), I got a second copy of this Cap, which had all of his accessories, and look, now he’s all complete!

#3235: Hobgoblin

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

HOBGOBLIN

SPIDER-MAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES (TOY BIZ)

“A criminal mastermind bent on Spider-Man’s destruction, the Hobgoblin employs an eerie arsenal to carry out his malevolent schemes. Hurling pumpkin bombs and razorsharp bats from his jet glider, the Hobgoblin has Spider-Man constantly on his guard!”

When Spider-Man: The Animated Series was going into production, its story editor John Semper, who guided the show throughout its run, was not part of the initial crew.  When he arrived, he discovered that a number of odd decisions had been made by higher ups, in an aim to keep the show more relevant.  With the Green Goblin identity having been abandoned in the comics and Hobgoblin serving as the main goblin antagonist, initial plans had Norman Osborne assuming the Hobgoblin identity, rather than Green Goblin.  This choice was so cemented that Toy Biz’s tie-in line’s first assortment had already gone into production with Hobgoblin in its roster, in place of the more classic Green Goblin.  Semper disliked the choice, but was forced to keep Hobgoblin for merchandising purposes.  However, rather than make Norman Hobgoblin, Hobbie was kept a separate character, and the order of the goblin appearances was reversed, with Norman’s Green Goblin joining the show later.  But, Hobgoblin was still in the show’s opening line-up.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Hobgoblin was released in Series 1 of Toy Biz’s Spider-Man: The Animated Series tie-in line, with re-issues in both the Marvel Universe and Marvel Super Heroes lines.  The mold was also up-scaled for the 10 inch line, and downscaled for the diecast line.  He was based on Hobbie’s classic design, just like the show design.  It was really his only look at the time, so it made sense.  The figure stands about 5 inches tall and he has 7 points of articulation.  His articulation scheme is rather odd; he’s got shoulders, hips, and knees on both sides, but only his right arm gets elbow movement, and he lacks a joint for his neck.  It winds up making the figure rather stiff.  His sculpt was an all-new one at the time, and wound up more or less remaining unique, though there were a couple of re-issues and minor re-colors.  It’s a decent one for the most part.  Some of the details are a little bit on the soft side, but the general layout of everything looks pretty decent, and he wasn’t a terrible match for the animation design.  His paint work is generally pretty good.  The application’s not particularly intensive, but it’s generally clean.  Though he’s clearly got sculpted elements on the hips for his shorts to go a little further, they are unpainted.  It’s not terribly noticeable, though.  Hobgoblin was packed with his Goblin Glider and a pumpkin bomb.  His arm is spring loaded, and there’s a notch in his hand so he can fling the pumpkin bomb, and the Glider also features a launching missile at the front.  None of it’s terribly obtrusive to the figure’s design, which is certainly a plus.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I didn’t have the regular Hobgoblin as a kid.  I was never much attached to the character, really.  I did have the little diecast version, and one of my cousins had this particular release, but that was the real extent of it.  The one seen in the review came to me courtesy of Max.  I’ve been working on my 5 inch Marvel collection for a while, and he had snagged this guy, but ultimately didn’t feel like he needed to keep him, so he was kind enough to pass him on to me.  How very kind of him.  The figure’s okay.  There were better Hobgoblins and just better figures in general in the line.  Even the basic Green Goblin’s honestly a better figure.  But, he’s certainly not bad, especially for the era.

#3185: Vulture

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

VULTURE

SPIDER-MAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES (TOY BIZ)

“When his business partner attempted to swindle Adrian Toomes out of the flying harness he had invented, Toomes stole the harness back and embarked on a life of crime as the high-flying Vulture! Recently rejuvenated, the Vulture is now a more dangerous threat than ever – as Spider-Man has learned, to his lasting regret!”

Man, the ’90s were definitely rough on some characters, especially as they tried to stay hip and relevant.  Spider-Man foe the Vulture, perennially defined by being, like, the oldest man alive, got saddled with the whole “making myself young again by draining off other people’s lifeforce” thing, in addition to also getting a new armored look, which also had a headband built-in.  It was, like, all of the ’90s things at once.  And it didn’t really stick, which was probably for the best, really.  Man, what a time.  And that’s how we got his first action figure, no less.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The Vulture was released in Series 2 of Toy Biz’s Spider-Man: The Animated Series tie-in line.  He was based on the character’s revamped design, which got a special focus on the show.  And, more specifically, he was actually kind of animation-based, in contrast to the likes of the X-Men line.  The figure stands just shy of 5 inches tall and he has 11 points of articulation.  I’ve actually looked at most of this sculpt before, albeit at twice the size, when its 10-inch equivalent was re-used for Savage Land Angel.  It’s a rather awkward sculpt, all things considered.  The body’s kind of scrawny and goony looking, and the head is rather large in comparative scale, which just makes the scrawny and goony thing even more apparent.  The armor detailing is at least pretty sharply handled.  You know, if you like your Vulture to be armored.  The paint work on the figure is basic, but pretty well handled.  There’s a little bit of bleedover on the edges of the lighter green, but otherwise it works well.  Vulture was originally packed with a small gun sort of thing, meant for storing in his side holster, thought that piece is missing from mine (and most loose ones, honestly; it was super easy to lose).  He also featured a “Spreading Wing Action”; squeezing his legs lifts his arms, thereby spreading his wings.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Okay, you know how I was ragging on overly ’90s Vulture?  Yeah, well, as stupid as it may be, I kinda like the overly ’90s Vulture.  That being said, I didn’t own this figure, for whatever reason.  I remember looking at it, but I just never picked it up.  I wound up getting one loose a few years back at a toy show, in one of my pushes to complete my Toy Biz run.  He’s a really goofy figure, and I don’t know that he really captures the design as well as he could.  Or maybe he does, and it’s just destined to be forever super goofy.  You know what?  It’s probably that.

#1369: Spider-Woman

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

SPIDER-WOMAN

SPIDER-MAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES (TOY BIZ)

“Once an illegal operative, Jessica Drew left the group called Hydra to fight crime as the original Spider-Woman! With the ability to climb walls and emit bio-electric spider-blasts, Spider-Woman put many super-villains behind bars. Eventually giving up her identity as Spider-Woman, Jessica Drew now fights crime as a private investigator!”

When does a spin-off character have nothing to do with the original?  When they’re Spider-Woman, of course.  The first Spider-Woman, Jessica Drew, was introduced in 1977 as little more than a way of preventing Filmation from putting out a cartoon with their own Spider-Woman.  She had a similar power set to everyone’s favorite wall-crawler, but there the similarities ended.  The two characters wouldn’t even meet for quite a long time after her creation.  Which makes the fact that her very first figure came from a Spider-Man toyline all the more amusing.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Spider-Woman was released in Series 7 of Toy Biz’s Spider-Man: The Animated Series tie-in toyline.  She wasn’t based on a cartoon appearance (likely to avoid viewer confusion; her successor, Julia Carpenter, was a regular on the Iron Man cartoon at the same time).  In fact, Series 7 was right about the time that the series stopped focussing on following the cartoon, so Spider-Woman was not the only non-show figure in the series.  The figure stands about 5 inches tall and she has 8 points of articulation.  Jessica’s sculpt is a reworking of the Julia Carpenter Spider-Woman from Series 1 of the Iron Man line.  This would be the first time they’d share a sculpt, but far from the last.  Given the similarities in design, it’s a rather practical way of getting an extra use out of the molds, I suppose.  She’s been tweaked to add in elbow joints and also to remove Spider-Woman II’s action feature.  Sadly, they didn’t go as far as to add back in the neck movement lost due to the action feature, but that would have been a more hefty re-working, I suppose.  The sculpt is a pretty decent one overall.  The proportions are fairly balanced, and pretty decent for the time.  The hair has a pretty nice sculpt, and sits nicely, and the face isn’t too terrible.  The one main drag with this sculpt is just how stiff it is.  She doesn’t really look natural in any pose.  It’s largely to do with the arms, or more specifically, the hands.  She’s got this karate chop thing going on, and it just looks rather out of place.  The paint is really the key part of this figure, and it’s pretty decent.  The colors match well with her comics counterpart, and the work is generally on the clean side.  Some of the black lines are a little fuzzy, but it’s not terrible.  In terms of accessories, Jessica was about on par with most of the other figures of this time, which means she has a bunch of random stuff that doesn’t amount to much of anything.  There was like a shield and a weird gun-thing I think?  Mine has neither piece, and that’s just fine.  [EDIT 01/09/26 — It turns out it hasn’t just fine, so I’ve replaced them and talked about it in my Addendum!]

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Spider-Woman wasn’t one of my childhood figures.  My dad had one, but I didn’t, largely due to not being overly familiar with Jessica Drew.  I’ve since picked up some knowledge and appreciation for the character, so I’ve been on the look out for this figure.  I found her at Yesterday’s Fun last week, but ultimately put her (and a few others) back in favor a few other things.  My Dad apparently took note of this, and presented me with the whole lot the next day.  He’s nice like that.  She’s a decent enough figure, I suppose.  Nothing amazing, but certainly entertaining.

#1356: Kingpin

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

KINGPIN

SPIDER-MAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES (TOY BIZ)

“The colossal overlord of the underworld, the Kingpin has his dirty hands in almost every criminal enterprise on the East coast. His enemies often mistake his massive girth for flab – it is, in fact, over three hundred pounds of solid muscle!”

What’s this?  Kingpin in a Spider-Man line?  What?  It’s almost as if he was originally a Spider-Man villain or something.  Yes, before becoming the big (in every sense of the word) bad for Marvel’s resident horn-head, Wilson Fisk began life as a foe to everyone’s favorite friendly neighborhood arachnid.  So they put him in the ‘90s cartoon, and that meant he got his first action figure!  Let’s have a look at him!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Kingpin was released in the second series of Toy Biz’s Spider-Man: The Animated Series line from the ‘90s. The figure stands a little over 5 inches tall (he’s a bit taller than the average figure from the line), and he has a whole 3 points of articulation.  Woooooo.  This guy had an all-new sculpt, based on his show appearance, which was also his standard look in the comics for a very long while.  It’s certainly a unique sculpt; it’s almost as wide as it is tall.  No doubt the cut articulation was to help ensure he’d cost the same as the others in the line.  The quality of the sculpt is fairly decent, but not without a few issues.  The head is way on the small side, or perhaps the shoulders and arms are in the large side.  Either way, the proportions are off.  In addition to that, he’s wearing the wrong style of jacket for animated Kingpin; it should be double breasted, but it isn’t.  Beyond that, it’s actually pretty decent.  The head definitely captures Fisk well, and his overall size is definitely impressive.  The paintwork on Kingpin is fairly good work.  The colors are all appropriate to the character and the application is all nice and clean.  Kingpin is packed with a diamond topped cane, which can be placed in either hand.  He also has a “crushing” action feature.  His arms can be pulled upwards and clipped into place; when the lever on his back is pulled, they swing down.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Kingpin is another more recent addition to my collection. Like a few others I’ve looked at recently, he came into my collection courtesy of the supremely cool Bobakhan Toys & Collectibles.  More specifically, he’s a Super Awesome Girlfriend purchase.  Honestly, he’s not a character I was ever dying to track down, and the figure’s just so-so, but I’m still happy to have added him to the collection!