They can rebuild him. They have the technology.
You know, I’m just going to come right out and say it: I want YET ANOTHER regular Spider-man on this Sunfire body. Because as much as I like the latest newest retro Spider-man with the all new body and the drop down hips, I also really like this Sunfire body for Spider-Man. The legs actually get a wider lateral spread, and the head has the disc-hinge that allows him to get his head back without that little notch in the back. The torso doesn’t quite have as much range as the retro one, so there are some trade-offs, but I wouldn’t mind having one on this body in addition to the other one.
I’m beginning to think you just can’t have too many Spider-men.
Cyborg Spider-man is one of those designs that popped up and popped out pretty fast but somehow grabbed on to the Life Preserver of Niche Ideas and has remained afloat for the past few decades. There’s something so bizarrely evocative in making Spider-man into a robotic looking thing.
Cyborg Spider-Man is on a retro card to evoke the original Cyborg Spider-Man figure that was made in the 90s to coincide with the comic. I never had that figure, as I usually tried to stay away from all of the variants that were pumped out over the years. There were scores of different Spider-men filling up the line back then, but at least Cyborg Spider-Man was straight out of a comic.
Cyborg Spidey debuted in Spider-Man #21, which was smack in the middle of “The Revenge of the Sinister Six” story which was cycling through all of the Spider-man titles in the spring of 1992. That was a fun one with all kinds of guest stars like Solo and Deathlok popping in and out. At one point, Spider-man (as usual) got in over his head and ended up with a hairline fracture in his arm. The cyborg arm is the result of a cyberneticist giving him a working cyber-cast that allowed him full functionality while he continued on. There’s also a cybernetic eye, some bandages and a belt with pouches, because you got ostracized if you didn’t have a belt with pouches.
All together, it makes for a very unique Spider-man figure that has a decidedly aggressive look to it. The figure itself is a big bucket of fun. The Sunfire body has always been a good one, with a great range in all of it’s limbs and excellent butterfly shoulders, so Spider-man is a natural fit for it. The “cybernetic” arm is pretty much the star of the show here, and I like how it is a little beefier than the other arm so it feels as if it could have his normal arm encased inside it, instead of feeling like it replaced his regular arm. It replicates the original design right down to that odd ring of metal eggs around his bicep.
The weird metal shingles on his shoulder don’t do much to get in the way of his motion, so he can get into all the spidery poses you want.
I’ll be reviewing the Negative Zone Spider-man later in the week which uses the Pizza Spider-man body and though I liked that one initially and have never had the issues that other people have had with it, I wish the NZ Spidey had been on the Sunfire body as well.
Spider-man comes with a default fist for his right hand, but he comes with an extra thwipp hand for one handed web swinging. He also comes with that attachable webbing accessory that I never can make look good.
Nowadays any variation of Spider-man can easily slot into a Spider-verse collection as come alternate Spider-man. I know there was an actual Cyborg Spider-Man as part of Spider-verse, but that one had a different design. Still, that doesn’t mean in some alternate universe there wasn’t a Peter who was still looking like this. For reasons. Comic reasons.
