Hasbro has been taking every available opportunity to rectify previous mistakes, and this new take on the Ben Reilly version of Spider-Man is no different. Where the previous Ares wave figure was a disappointment in both articulation and body (and oddly mismatched webbing — sculpted onto the head and painted onto the body), this new version is clones ahead.
The “clone” storyline is some of the most polarizing Spidey material this side of deals with Mephisto, but it’s hard to argue with the long shadow that so much genetic foofram has thrown over Peter’s life. Clone-related stuff still pops up regularly in Spidey titles, so you can’t say that it was a forgettable era.
PS: Ben and Spider-Gwen share an “Edge of Spider-Verse” package designation. Let’s get a Spider-Ham out of all this Spider-verse stuff, please.
Storylines aside, it’s still Spider-Man, so let’s take a look at the figure free from all the baggage. I’ve always liked this particular version of the spider-suit. It keeps the vast amount of iconography we associate with Spider-Man with the webs, the color scheme, and the chest spider, and alters them just enough so that it’s immediately recognizable but noticeably different. The best part about it is that, despite being designed in the ’90s, a decade not known for subtlety, the overall look is fairly free from a lot of overt ’90s-isms. There’s no pouches, there’s no gigantic guns, there’s no shoulder pads. The only major difference is the external web-shooters, which can be removed if you don’t dig them.
This Spider-Man, like all of the most recent spider-guys, is built on the “Pizza Spidey” body. It keeps all the strengths of that body, but still retains a limited lateral spread for the hips, a product of a little extra bit of plastic that doesn’t need to be there. I was hoping that at some point that extra bit of plastic would disappear, but it seems as though it will continue to be an issue for anyone using this body.
Despite that, the rest of the articulation is great, and he gets into plenty of wall-crawling and web-swinging poses just fine, something the previous go at this costume was deficient in accomplishing.
I had no issues with paint on mine. The lines are nice and even, and there’s no noticeable runs, drips, or errors.
Spideys have been coming with a nice supply of extra hands lately, and Ben is no exception, even going one step further than the others. He comes with a set of fists, a set of wall-crawling hands, and a set of thwipping hands that all pop in and out easily. It’s fantastic to have to many options. You just can’t punch someone with a thwipp hand.
In addition to those extras, Ben comes with yet another set of distinctive hands and a second head. Clones were popular in the ’90s, and so were symbiotes. What do you get when you put a clone and a symbiote together? Spider-Carnage! Yes, with a simple head and hand swap, you can put together your very own Spider-Carnage from when Ben Reilly was briefly bonded to the Carnage symbiote. I know symbiotes are a sore point for a lot of fans, and I might agree it got excessive there to a certain extent, but I do have a soft spot for all the wacky nuttiness that came out of trying to stretch that particular plot point out way past its prime. Like clones, symbiotes still factor heavily into Spider-Man stories, so they won’t be going away anytime soon.
You won’t be able to make an exact approximation of Spider-Carnage with just a head and hand swap, as the original Spider-Carnage had an extra helping of tendrils wrapped around his limbs. Obviously those extra red tendrils go a long way in symbioting-him-up a bit more, but if you’re willing to put in the legwork yourself for those, or you just don’t mind his missing out on those extra tendrils, this is a nice little two-for-one figure. If you buy the case with the extra figure, you can forego having to swap heads and hands and have one perma-symbioted and one regular.
The Absorbing Man series featuring Spider-Man is in stock at Big Bad Toy Store. You can order a case with just the 7 figures needed to build Absorbing Man, or buy the case with an extra Ben Reilly Spider-Man for an extra five dollars