Hasbro Marvel Legends Superior Spider-Man Review

Is there any way to track Marvel Legends waves anymore?  I think Toybiz stopped around 13 or 14, so that would probably mean we are in maybe the mid to late 20’s?  Possibly the early 30’s?  Anyway, everybody likes a good theme wave and this Spider-Man wave picks up the slack that the dedicated Spider-Man line left when it was discontinued.  The build-a-figure for this wave probably won’t be found on any top ten lists, but the Ultimate Green Goblin is a decent sized figure for those craving a large-sized BAF.  This wave also runs the gamut for source material: the movies, the comics, and the classics all in one little wave!

We’ll start out this wave with a look at Superior Spider-Man, a fairly recent take on the character.  The story behind Superior Spider-Man is that basically Otto Octavius takes over Peter Parker’s body while Peter ends up dying in Doc Ock’s old body.  Sound weird?  It is.  As you can probably imagine comic book fans did not take to this very well and there was quite a bit of hate thrown towards Dan Slott, the writer of the series.  People even went as far as claiming he turned Spider-Man into a rapist, because Octavius had sex with Mary Jane as Peter Parker … or something like that.  That “controversy” was pretty weak and died off fast.

So here we are with our first Superior Spider-Man action figure.  I’ll also assume it’s going to be the last since I just saw something about Peter Parker being back.  But anyway, I’m not as much into comics as I am the toys.  However they want to mess with the Marvel Universe is fine by me.  I barely watch the movies or read the comics, but dammit if you make a toy of it I may just buy it!

A new Spider-Man body has been developed for this wave.  Dare I say it may be one of the best so far?  It’s pretty impressive.  It corrects a lot of the issues the Bullseye body (which was used for previous Hasbro Spider-Man figures) had such as the height, long neck, and general aesthetic.  The black parts of his suit are actually black as well!  They decided not to use the blue shading technique they have done in the past and for this I thank them!  I understand that the Toybiz “McFarlane” Spider-Man is held up as one of the best Spidey toys ever made.  However, I do think that some of the design choices in this version of the web-slinger put him over the old favorite.  I mentioned in the Captain America review I am especially glad to see the ball hips gone, it benefits this figure even more than Cap.  His smaller size also makes him seem like a more proportionate human, and not just a gigantic seven-foot tall “slender-man.”

Superior Spider-Man comes with an extra set of hands and the right leg for Ultimate Green Goblin.  You end up having the option to have a holding or “thwip” hand on each side.  The hands snap in and out pretty easy, but aren’t loose enough to fall out.  Again, I like the option of swappable parts because I never felt the articulated fingers work particularly well with six-inch Marvel Legends.  There is usually only one hand pose that works … well, middle finger poses work too, but we are mature adults!  Mature adults that collect toys …

I paid a little more than I probably wanted to for a Spider-Man variant because Toys “R” Us was charging $19.99 each.  But it’s tough to hold out when you actually see those toys on the shelf, it doesn’t happen that often!  I don’t regret it thought because he is a fantastic piece even at that price.  You can, however, get him much cheaper if you check Target where he goes for only $14.99.  Of course being a Spider-Man variant he will more than likely end up being one of the cheapest of the bunch if you want to try Amazon.

Welp!  Two new Marvel Legends down!  Next review should be from the Captain America wave since I think I’ll do an alternating series until all figures have been reviewed … I did just ship a “pile of loot” so there should be some interesting things coming my way!  Stay tuned.