In spite of living in a world of pajama-clad wall-crawlers and sexy g-string ninjas, Electro is often singled out as having a silly costume. And while his green underwear and starfish mask looks more than a little dated next to to today’s heroes and their shiny, high-collared combat armor and bat-black paramilitary gear, no attempt at updating Electro’s costume has ever stuck for long. It remains to be seen how his appearance in Sony’s upcoming The Amazing Spider-Man 2 will effect his look, but it’s a safe bet that when you say “Electro” most comic book fans are always going to think of this:
A fairly basic figure in his own right, Electro was nonetheless one of the highlights of Toy Biz’s Sinister Six box set. Considering he was packed alongside the original Black Cat, a tan-and-happy reissue of Kraven, and a pre-Marvel Legends-era Doctor Octopus, that’s hardly an accomplishment. Yet, in spite of a limited tooling budget and his workman-like execution, Electro was a decent figure that filled an important hole in Spidey’s rogues gallery. Well, if you managed find him, that is. The Sinister Six set was fairly rare and most collectors missed it completely at retail. While a variation of this figure was released later in the Spider-Man Classics line, it was marred by an ugly, poorly-constructed action feature, making this particular version of Max here all the more desirable.
Electro is built on the Marvel Legends series five Mister Fantastic. It wasn’t a body ToyBiz pulled out too often, and it stands in nice contrast next to more muscular setmates like Kraven and Venom. When you’re working with a figure that’s 90 percent reuse, the head has to be a slam dunk. Thankfully, Electro’s pointy noggin looks terrific. He has an characteristically evil smirk on his face that’s tells you instantly he’s up to no good. His “starfish” mask is a separate piece, glued to the front of the head. It’s not removable even though there’s a finished masked head sculpt underneath.
Where Mister F had interchangeable hands, the ‘Tro sports his trademark yellow lightning-bolt gloves. It’s easy to mock details like this as corny and dated, but visually they provide the character with a distinctive, almost kinetic look and dynamic that’s suggestive of his power even when he’s standing still. If it’s true that the mark of a good comic-book character design is it’s ability to be identified by silhouette alone, then Electro fries the competition.
Unsurprisingly, Electro is molded in green plastic with painted details. Yellow is the bane of many an action figure, and sadly Electro is one of the afflicted. The lines here are conversely thin and sloppy or fuzzy and undefined. It’s not so bad from a distance, but up close the paint’s problems become clear. Another issue is the black wash. It’s very inconsistent and has pooled badly, especially at the abdomen and ankles. As always, your mileage my vary — it’s entirely possible I just got a bad one.
Electro’s costume sports no raised details, but there’s really no reason why it should. Sparky took a DIY approach to his look; like Spidey, he’s just a guy in spandex. One could argue there should be seams at the jagged boot cuffs, but, honestly, it’s funnier to think of the suit as a big pair of footie-pajamas. Remember those? You could shuffle across the carpet, build up a static charge, and then reach out and zap someone. Très à propos!
Electo features the standard ToyBiz articulation scheme. That’s is to say, lots of it. He has a ball-jointed head and shoulders, swivels at the bicep, double joints in the elbows, swivels at the upper wrist, a hinge at the lower, along with hinged fingers. He was a torso crunch, a swivel waist, goofy-lookin’ ball hips,thigh swivels, double knees, rocker ankles, and hinged toes.
This particular figure has the same problem my original Electro figure had: the ball of his left shoulder is frozen in place. It rotates, but in spite of the usual tricks it simply will not move downwards. My original Electro’s arm broke clean off when I tried to fix it, so this guy will forever be saluting on the shelf.
Electro is a nice figure in spite of his flaws. He looks great on his own, but even better in the middle of a big gang of villains. He can hit just about any electricity-slinging pose you want — well, other than his arm hanging naturally at his side. If you have this figure and yours has a similar problem, comment below. Thanks for reading!
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