“Have no fear, Spidey’s here!” – Spider-Man
Truer words couldn’t have been said as Marvel Select has released their latest take on the web-slinger. A Disney Store exclusive, this 7-inch Spidey figure has been out for a couple of months now. As the newness has worn off and the dust has settled, let’s see how this figure ranks in MS’s ever-improving lineup. Better late than never!
Packaging
This is the standard Marvel Select package. Big, colorful, and it shows off the contents well.
Sculpt
When Marvel Select gets it right, they really get it right, and this Spidey is nearly perfect in my eyes. There isn’t a whole lot to say other than it’s just a great comic version of Spider-Man. The body size is right. The proportions are great. The web-lines and spider insignias are all sculpted. It has all the elements that I look for in a comic-based Spidey figure.
Articulation
Right out of the box, Spidey is equipped with 21 points of articulation by my count. He has a ball head, pin-and-disc shoulders, bicep cuts, double-jointed elbows and knees, pin-and-disc hands, ab joint, waist cut, pin-and-disc hips, thigh swivels, calf cuts, and rocker ankles. All of the joints are nice and tight and work well for the most part. The ball head doesn’t allow for much movement other than side-to-side, and the ab joint works only as well as a cut. There is virtually no crunching to be had.
Typically, I’m not one for modding my action figures. For starters, as someone with next to no customizing skills, ripping apart a $25 toy is not something I’m keen to try. And despite whatever flaws a toy might have, I like to keep things the way it was released — factory fresh, so to speak. That said, fellow Fwoosher Shinigami_PL posted a mod so simple that you’d be a fool not to try it. By simply cutting of a tiny bit of plastic on the neck and torso, you allow the head to actually look up and the ab crunch to work as it should. It took less than 5 minutes to do and has added SO much in terms of poseability to the figure. Be sure to check out his explanation complete with photos on our forum here. He also has some more complicated directions for modding the hips, but I’m not quite ready to try that one just yet.
Without that mod, I wouldn’t have been able to take the photos that I wanted, so thanks, Shinigami_PL!
Paint
Despite its relative simplicity, this is one of my favorite paint jobs by Marvel Select to date. The red and blue are the perfect shade and are evenly applied without any washes diluting it. The web lines may have a couple of weak spots here and there (the macro photo lens definitely amplifies this), but, overall, they’re clean and well done. And the whites of the eyes are vibrant and cut perfectly. Overall, this an extremely clean figure that, when combined with the sculpt, makes it look like he hopped right out of the comics.
Accessories
A $25 dollar price point for a 7-inch figure can sometimes be a tricky sell — especially for big-name characters that you can find just about anywhere. And it doesn’t get much bigger name than Spider-Man. Marvel Select has skipped out on including their usual detailed base and has instead given us some pretty awesome accessories — which definitely help justify the price. Included are four sets of hands: fists, gripping, “thwipp” web-shooting hands, and open crawling hands. All are easily swappable, and the joints are connected to the hands so you don’t have to worry too much about snapping a wrist peg. You also get a swappable Peter Parker head, Pete’s camera, and Spidey’s mask, which fits in the gripping hand. The sculpt and paint on the alternate head is extremely well done, but it just seems a little off to me. I think he might be a little too pretty for Peter Parker. I doubt I’ll ever display him with that head, but it does complement the included mask very well.
Right out of the package, this is a really good figure. The sculpt is top-notch and the paint is some of Marvel Select’s best. The only thing holding it back is the lack of functionality in the neck and ab crunch. Considering how great the rest of the figure was articulated, it was a little disappointing to have those two crucial joints fall a bit short. But, hey, this is the Fwoosh! And you can always count on someone to have a fix. And with that fix, this is no longer just a good figure — it’s a Spectacular one!
Thanks for reading!
