Ah, day three of the 2016 Preternia Advent Calendar is here! Now I did promise that I would get to some of that older stuff this year that I didn’t review. However, new stuff keeps coming in as well. Today I ran into lone Symbiote Spider-Man from the Sandman build-a-figure wave, and I had to buy. I literally did not have a choice in this matter. However, this puts me into a situation where I now need to hunt for the rest of the wave. I feel so lost, as this is the first time in well over a year that I didn’t just grab a Marvel Legends wave via a case order.
Hopefully it goes well! Shocker and Ms. Marvel are going to be a giant pain in the ass to track down, I just know it.
Preternia’s Review Advent Calendar 2016 Day Three:
Hasbro Marvel Legends Sandman BAF Series Symbiote Spider-Man
The runner up of the 2015 San Diego Comic Convention fan vote managed to hit the shelves prior to the winner. Sad! Symbiote Spider-Man, Mysterio, and somebody else was beaten by Angela (yes, the Angela from Spawn) to win the chance at a Marvel Legends action figure. Angela actually isn’t far behind. She’s featured in the first Guardians of the Galaxy wave for 2017 which should should probably start hitting stores any time now. But sorry Angela, black Spider-Man beat you to the shelf!
If you are familiar with the infamous Pizza Spider-Man then you know what you are getting here. It’s the same body with an updated head to accommodate the large-eyed McFarlane look. Not quite as many accessories, however, he includes a pair alternate open hands and two Sandman BAF hand attachments. I tried putting the attachments on Spider-Man … didn’t work out too well.
No ‘thwip‘ hands? No, he shouldn’t have them since his webs come out of the top of his wrist when he’s in the symbiote costume.
I have a few concerns over the longevity of the shoulder joints on my figure. On this body the shoulder balls are connected to a swing joint that allows you to move the arm inward towards the chest or out towards the back. My worry is that with the shoulder balls on mine being extra tight I practically pull the thing out when messing around with the arm. And this is a Spider-Man toy, I’m going to be posing him a lot! I actually noticed this issue on the right shoulder of my SDCC Spider-Man, so it looks like it could be a breakdown of the mold since the issue is continuing. I hope the folks over at Hasbro take notice and can fix it for future releases.
This figure is an absolute need for any Spider-Man collection. However, I can’t help but feel that they could have added some stuff to spice him up a bit. An alternate head maybe? A food item could have been great! The figure is still fantastic (once you get past the strange shoulder issue) and poses great. I just expect a little more at this point. There are so many Marvel Legends coming out these days that my standards have begun to shoot up, especially on such an important character.
Symbiote Spider-Man has been popping in and out of stock over at Amazon, if you are quick on the draw you could snipe one! Otherwise Entertainment Earth is also selling cases of his entire series.
Final Verdict: Sorry Spider-Man, that shoulder is going to land you on the NAUGHTY list!
Nice list – AT-AT Driver, Inferno
Naughty list – Symbiote Spider-Man
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I’m worried about those shoulder joints too. As much as I love the Hobgoblin wave Spiderman figure, I’m always cautious whenever I move his shoulders because those joints always look like they’re gonna pop out from my figure.
It’s weird. I never noticed it on my Hobgoblin wave’s Spidey, but since the SDCC box set it’s been really obvious. I’ve never actually broken it, but it sure feels like it could at any moment. That thing just moves around all over the place in there.