I have to admit, if there are two things in the Marvel Universe that I don’t seem to be as into as most people, it is Deadpool and the whole Symbiote thing. Yet, here we are, and here we go …
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t dislike either one of those things. In fact, Deadpool has really grown on me the past year and half or so, but I haven’t been a super fan of him or the Symbiote saga, well, ever, really. However, we are living in an age of comics and movies where neither of these things can be avoided, so I have decided to just go with it because it wasn’t gonna wait for me anyhow. It all starts with the toys for me, and Hasbro knows the popularity and marketability of both of these things, and Deadpool is in for a BIG year of plastic and cinema. So, while we wait for the full Deadpool Marvel Legends wave to drop in early 2018, Hasbro teamed up with GameStop to bring us this “Back in Black” version to tide us over.
Like Walgreens, GameStop has been stepping up in a big way to bring us some pretty cool exclusives over the last year or so, and more exclusives means more figures, so I am all good with that. They have all been pretty easy to secure via their online shop (where I nabbed this guy), so that makes things much easier with store exclusives. This BnB Deadpool is an interesting exclusive with a striking look, so as a born again Marvel Legends completist, I wasn’t going to pass this figure up, even though I am not familiar with the storyline for this Merc/extraterrestrial bug team-up.
In true Deadpool fashion, the story takes place just after Marvel’s seminal Secret Wars storyline from the 1980s — you know, a decade before the character was created? Yeah, apparently the Symbiote decided it would reject Peter Parker and attach itself to Wade. If this were any other character, I would classify an idea like this as enthusiastic shoehorning, but since it is DP, I say it works. I mean, the figure and design is pretty damned ’90s to me, so the figure fits in well with the big Symbiote boom that was about the time DP was created. The good news is that the packaging graphics are totally ’80s, and maybe my favorite character-specific ML packaging yet. The fonts, backgrounds, and colors all work so well, and if this DP wanted to start an ’80s Metal band, he has his album cover all set.
So, since we are going with it here, Wade actually looks pretty great in the full black and white get-up, and that has always been virtue of the Symbiote – the striking color combination looked great on Peter, as it did on Eddie, and it does here on Mr. Wilson. Like most retailer exclusives, I cannot count a fully new unique piece, unless the DP head is new. It might be, or it might be really old, but the base body is reuse, as are the hands, and the Symbiote head and hands are from the Rhino wave Venom, and the tendrils are carryovers from the Walgreens exclusive Agent Venom. That is okay, though, because they all come together well here. I don’t think I will get much use out of the Symbiote head and hands, but I am glad they were included for variety’s sake.
I do actually dig the Symbiote arms, and even though there are some weapons included in this set, since this is Deadpool we are talking about here, the arms can hold tacos, chimichangas, or any other hilarious implements you might have sitting around. However, the reused Katana swords are back, not in black, but in a translucent hot pink, and I am pretty sure I love them. On their own, the color pops, but as the only swath of color in this black and white set, the pink is a prefect complement, and DP looks good wielding them, or having the Symbiote do the work for him. Maybe I am too jazzed about hot pink swords, but I don’t think so.
2018 is going to bring us a lot of Deadpool in plastic and onscreen, and with a Venom movie coming (maybe toys?), there will be plenty of Symbiote talk as well. GameStop gives us this perfect primer, so I would recommend this figure, and that is coming as a very casual fan of both parts of this mashup. We have more Marvel Legends stuff coming up this week, so stay tuned.
