A year and counting

Hi folks,

It's been a year since my last post. I have been real lazy (and busy at work). It is bad to be in a foreign land where toys (the kind I am interested in) are not easily found. Been only back home once, and thanks to my many good buddies, got myself a stash of toys during a year of absence.

Think for the Spidey toys, nothing very exciting has been happening. The one worthy mention is that Hasbro reissued 2 new versions of the black Spidey. The one worthy of mention is the one from the BAF Red Hulk wave. I got myself a couple of those. I should do a review of it sometime soon, but I have not my old black Spideys to take comparison pics with. All in all a great figure with the exception of the non-articulated fingers and the hunch pose of the neck/ back.

Then there is this new Spidey wave of toys with the McG Venom, Tarantula and Juggy. Got my buddy to get me a set but I have not collected them. Will not be back for another 6 months or so, so I hope I get some time to write something about those soon.

Hasbro has been taking a more enthusiastic stand on the 3.75" figs and has slowed down on the 6". This is a sad thing. But then they are releasing the Secret Wars (my favourite Marvel crossover) figures which I cannot miss. We'll see how this goes.

I shall end this post with pics of the Hasbro black Spidey (pic gotten from the recovered MarvelLegends.net: http://comicfigs.net/)

SMC12 - Superposeable Spider-Man with Wall Crawling Action

Hi folks,

Pardon the long hiatus. Been real busy at work and now arranging my transfer (moving to Amsterdam for a job assignment). Still hope to be able to get toys over there.

Anyway, just when I thought I knew a fair bit about Spidey figures I found out something that totally escaped me.

One of my favourite Spidey is the Spider-Man Classics (SMC) 12 Superposeable Spider-Man with Wall Crawling Action, which affectionately known as McFarlane Spidey, but in actual fact, was inspired by J. Scott Campbell's (JSC) artwork. Just very recently, in a very innocent discussion, I found out that there are *gasp* 3 different batches (possibly more, personally I saw a UK version in London which happened to look just like Batch 1 though) of this JSC Spidey and each of them actually had a different headsculpt. My version (and to those whom I sold to) are all Batch 1, from the pics I see. I do hope that Batches 2 and 3 are not bootlegs.

Pilfering the pics on the sources I got, I will attempt to decribe each in detail. Not sure if anyone is such a Spidey action figures geek like me but I do like to go into such details especially for Spidey figures I like.


Batch 1 - The commonly known J. Scott Campbell (affectionately known as McFarlane) Spidey




Batch 2 - Different headsculpt (I suspect to be SMC16 Battle Action Spidey Head)

I am particularly interested in this Batch 2 because from this small pic, I cannot determine what is the difference from the Batch 1's headsculpt. What I understood is that the eyes are slightly smaller for the Batch 2. Somehow I have a tingling that this head could be the SMC16's Battle Action (BA) Spidey's headsculpt.
A side by side comparison of the JSC Spidey and BA Spidey's headsculpt (JSC-Top, BA-Below):


You can see that the eyes of BA Spidey actually curve upwards on the top of the lense versus the flatter one on JSC Spidey and that is the major difference. I am still in search of the Batch 2 "official" close-up pictures of the headsculpt to affirm that the Batch 2 is indeed the BA Spidey headsculpt.

A friend of mine (offloads from SGCollect) actually did this custom by combining a Battle Action Spidey's head with a Fearsome Foes Spidey's body after I posted a similar custom by WeaponXII from Fwoosh.

Some pics of the custom figure(s):
WeaponXII's masterpiece from Fwoosh



Masterpiece (he calls it BAFF Spidey) by offloads from SGCollect
The one on the left is the custom and the right is the JSC Spidey (likely Batch 1)


This custom recipe is a hit because of the recent hyped up price of the JSC Spidey (up to USD80 on eBay!!). This would be a (much) cheaper alternative. But little did I know that Toy Biz (now Marvel Toys) actually introduced this version into the amrket as well.

[note] virsago_mk2 bro from SGCollect (the friendly bro who notified me) affirms that indeed this Batch 2 is the Battle Action Spidey's headsculpt after some research


Batch 3 - Fearsome Foes Spidey headsculpt

I was totally surprised by this such that I thought this must be a "swaparoo" by some collector. This is exactly the same as the Fearsome Foes (FF) boxset Spidey with a lighter blue and without the webbing (some of the later (bootleg?) Fearsome Foes boxset also do not have the webbings and a different Lizard figure). As yet, I am still trying the gather evidence that indeed this made it to retail and is a running change. Not too excited about this figure as I do not particularly like the headsculpt. I only like the points of articulation of the base body. Basically a worthwhile get from fans who missed out on the JSC version.

[added] I just realised that this FF batch/version of the SMC12 Spidey has missing twist ties on the missiles as well as the right wrist. This comes across rather suspicious. I certainly hope this is not a bootleg/KO version of such a wonderful figure.


Sources:
Started in the discussion here then linked to here but unfortunately I am not proficient in Berhasa Indonesia (?)

-------------------
[Edited] Corrected J. Scott Campbell's name. Sorry to J. Scott and his fans.

Spidey Stop-Motion Animation

A wonderful Spidey stop-motion animation. Took me ages to find it after the last I saw it couple of years ago. Made by Xipster for that year's SDCC (San Diego Comic Convention).



Love the smooth and realistic web slinging action, not to mention the Aerosmith's version of "Spider-Man" song. If you pay attention, you will notice the seamless transition of the 6 inch movie Spidey to the 18 inch movie Spidey and back.

Enjoy!

Toy Review - SIC Movie Realization Spider-Man and Black Spider-Man

Bandai has been very successful with the toy line of Super Imaginative Chogokin (SIC) based on characters created by the late Ishinomori Shotaro. The success saw a number of spin-off toy lines. In 2004, SIC Movie Realization was created as a form of SIC reinterpretation of movie characters which includes characters like Devilman and Masked Rider.

SIC are very good with highly articulated action figures so if you put two and two together, you will soon realise that they would make a very good Spidey figure. Indeed they did just that, and in this review, we will be looking at the SIC Movie Realization Spider-Man and Black Spider-Man 2-pack.

This is in fact my first set of SIC figures and I am pretty sure many Spidey fans who do not own any SIC figures might actually pick up this set. Let’s get going then!

Packaging (4 out of 5)
This 2-pack set comes in a cardboard box (with a peg hanger hook) which is similar to the SIC line of figures. For MOC collectors, the cardboard box is a little flimsy and is very prone to damage. On my box, the bottom right corner is already dented probably due to a bump during transportation. The figures, however, are rather sturdy packaged and protected by the plastic tray with ample space given for any possible shock/bump which might happen. One setback is the numerous twist ties used to secure the figures. They also used cellophane tape to tape down alternate Venom’s mask, which might be a concern for MOC collectors as over time, the cellophane tape may degrade. The poor quality of the cardboard and the twist ties knocked off 1 point in this category.

The red/blue Spidey is packaged on the left and black Spidey on the right. The colours on the box also reflect the position of the figures i.e. red on the left side and black on the right side, which I thought is a very nice touch. The figures are clearly visible on the transparent window in front. In the background is an orange/yellow cardboard of Spider-Man 3 Spidey’s symbol. This cardboard can be used as a display backing on the shelf (I actually considered this as part of the packaging and not part of the accessories). The back of the box are some pictures of the actual figures in some dynamic (though not too much) poses. Rather attractive. Included in the package is another insert sheet showing the Venom interchangeable mask for the black Spidey with lots of Japanese words on it (which I cannot understand though).

Sculpt (4.5 out of 5)
This is an SIC interpretation of movie Spidey so I shall cut them some slack and not nitpick with the inaccuracies compared with the movie character. I believe you will either love the sculpt of this figure or you will hate it. Personally I like it, more than I expected myself to. The musculature sculpting on the chest and the thighs are simply impressive. What impresses me further is that Bandai instead jolly well just made repaints of the figures, decided to sculpt the spider symbols differently. And the symbols are movie accurate, both front and back!

The figure is about 18cm tall, which is around 7”. This means that this is not in scale with other Marvel Legends figures which is set at 6” scale. However, I believe they should be in scale if you pose them along with other SIC figures.

The overall body sculpt “flows” pretty smoothly, just that the SIC interpretation gives an armourish look to Spidey. The shoulder pads particularly stand out. The thick neck does bother me a little but I am slowly getting used to it. Maybe something worth mentioning is that the sculpt of the alternate Venom mask really capture the essence of the alien symbiote. Many would find that it looks more Carnage than Vemom though.

Maybe since sculpted weblines have become a norm, most people will not report this. Yes, the weblines on both red/blue and black Spidey are sculpted and raised, similar to the suit in movie and the other lines of movie Spidey figures by Toy Biz and/or Hasbro. If there is one other complaint, that would be that when black Spidey is being posed as Venom, the body used would be too small since Venom should be bigger and more muscular in size (of course one could argue Topher is not anywhere bigger than Tobey). I would also like to highlight that the lower abdomen piece can actually rotated like a belt. Spidey fans may not be used to this but it does not affect the look and the posing of the figures at all.

Paint (4 out of 5)
The paint varies slightly amongst the few packs I saw which is expected of mass produced figures. The main issues are the paint slips on the raised weblines on the body. Fortunately, they are all alright and I had not seen one with an atrocious paintjob like figures from other toy producers. But if you do have a choice to select, choose one with a better paintjob.

Another point worth mentioning is that the red/blue Spidey has gold coloured weblines. I know this had bothered a few people but I actually like it. Black Spidey’s weblines are painted accurate to the movie in silver.

Articulation (4.5 out of 5)
Having heard a lot of good things about SIC’s articulation on action figures, this is one department I am looking forward to. Bandai does make their SIC figures highly articulated and poseable. I am happy at how these 2 figures turned out. The figure can actually do a decent 4 point crouch! Both red/blue and black Spidey has the same articulation and the same range of movements. Plenty of joints and points of articulation (read: useful ones) for posing and playing fun.

Key point to note is that the figures are the “thwip” articulation, meaning that clenched fists would be impossible. I was hoping for some interchangeable fists for posing.

On the bright side, the double jointed elbows and knees are very well done. They follow the same design as the Hasbro Unleashed 360° figure (which I just reviewed a while back) but for Bandai, the joints came out looking way better. It could also be that this new double joints gave the armoured look which is in-sync with the SIC interpretation of Spidey. The shoulder/chest joint also allowed a wide range of movement which played a large part in allowing Spidey to get into a nice 4 point crouch pose.

Joints (4 out of 5)
The figures felt of higher quality out of the packaging. It feels more “solid” compared to the Marvel Legends figures. As such the joints also feel more durable to posing. Do note that the joints are not the rickety joints but they are tight for lots of proper posing.

I noted on both my red/blue and black Spideys that the left ankle joint seems to protrude more compared to the right ankle. However, this does not affect the posing of the figure a single bit. I am just trying to nitpick here.

Action Feature (5 out of 5)
This 2 action figures has absolutely no automated action feature! The only wonderful feature is that both of them can be posed however you like it (or close to) and this is the ONLY action feature you ever need in a Spidey. Perfect score here.

Accessories (Red/Blue Spidey – 0 out of 5, Black Spidey – 1 out of 5)
Coming from SIC, I was expecting more accessories. From other SIC figures, you will find loads of armour, weapons included with the figure and you have a single figure with close to 4 different armours! In this case, since it is a 2 figures pack, the amount of accessories would be less. But Bandai failed to live up to the expectation. For red/blue Spidey, there is no accessory at all, whereas for black Spidey, the alternate Venom mask is included. Quite a number of people who got this set do not care too much for the alternate Venom head, but it is still a nice addition.

Value (4.5 out of 5)
This is almost a full score for me because I manage to get it at my friendly local store for SGD65 (USD42). As this is a Japanese exclusive, the cost of getting this may be higher and if you are getting it at a much higher price then you may wish to knock off another point or two in this department.

It was brought to my attention that at more than USD20 a figure with next to none accessories this cannot be a high score. Whilst this is true, I was so impressed with the quality and poseability of the figure that I am actually willing to fork out USD20 for a Spidey figure of this quality. Yeah, that's the biased Spidey fan in me talking. However, it might just be an average score of 2 to 2.5 if you are looking for a value for money figure rather than a quality Spidey figure for money.

Overall (4.5 out of 5)
I must say I am pleasantly surprised at how much I like these 2 figures. Initially I bought this 2-pack for the sake of completeness and then I come to realise how much I will be missing if I had chosen not to purchase this. With the drought of good Spidey figures introduced recently, this 2-pack does certainly take the limelight. All in all, I really enjoyed posing and playing with these 2 figures very much!


Score Recap:

Packaging – 4 out of 5
Sculpt – 4.5 out of 5
Paint – 4 out of 5
Articulation – 4.5 out of 5
Joints – 4 out of 5
Action Feature – 5 out of 5
Accessories – Red/Blue Spidey – 0 out of 5, Black Spidey – 1 out of 5
Value – 4.5 out of 5
Overall – 4.5 out of 5

Toy Review - Spider-Man Unleashed 360°

It’s been a while since my last toy review. Recently, Hasbro has released a Unleashed 360° movie Spider-Man figures boasting of “Ultimate Posability”. Let us have a look at the Spidey figure and see how it fares on my chart.


Packaging (5 out of 5)
Packaging is a clear plastic box, much like the Icons series Hasbro has been introducing. I like this box as you can see the figure clearly. There are some movie pictures at the side of the box and there are pictures of the figure at the back of the box. If you look closely at the pictures behind the box, the spider symbol is slightly different. The symbol resembles the movie black Spidey’s symbol with the extended legs. So maybe we will be seeing a repaint of that as black Spidey soon.

Opening up the box, I realised that there are no irksome twist ties, which is a great improvement from Toy Biz era. And now the figure is held to the plastic tray with the help of transparent rubber bands. All in all, I like this packaging though it might take up more space than norm.



Sculpt (3.5 out of 5)
The figure stands at 8 inch tall and is not of the typical scale we are familiar with. Sculpt of the figure is acceptable, even though the shoulder articulation seem to detract the “flow” of the body a little. The head sculpt takes a dip in the point because somehow I find the head unlike the movie and it looks much too cartoonish to be desired. One other point to nitpick would be the very very thick neck which makes Spidey looks puffed up at the upper torso.



Paint (3.5 out of 5)
Paint is acceptable for a mass produced figure. Quality is similar to what I expect from Toy Biz. On the few that I saw on the shelves, a few have some paint slip around the eyes and the region when the transition of blue into the red. The silver lines on the costume also does not necessary fall on the sculpted lines. This is also true of the spider symbol, so if you can, do choose the best paint of the lot as it is not consistent. Pay particular attention to the eyes area.

One thing to note is that the head’s red colour seems to be a slight tint deeper than the rest of the body. This is consistent with the few figures I see on the shelves.


Articulation (2 out of 5)
As I am a fan of highly articulated figure, the claim on “Ultimate Posability” (I thought it is poseability) tempted me to buy this figure. Even though this figure may be the best articulated Spidey figure Hasbro has produced (discounted the re-issue of the 2nd movie 6 inch Spidey) to date, there are still some issues I cannot swallow.

This figure has the basic points of articulation (POA) like the neck ball joint, shoulder twist/swivel, double jointed elbows and knees (more on that later), wrist/ankle twist and swivel, upper torso twist, lower torso swivel, hips ball joints and toes swivel. But the bicep twists, neck swivel as well as the very basic waist twist are missing from this figure.

Let’s get the positive points out of the way first. The one good thing about this Spidey is that it has individual articulated fingers! Hasbro seems to have decided to do away with this wonderful articulation on most of its Marvel Legends figures and such. But we see the full glory of the articulated fingers back here. The individual fingers pales in comparison to Campbell (McFarlane) Spidey and/or Icons Spidey but is definitely way better than Marvel Legends 10 First Appearance Spidey.


Next up, is the new type of double joints Hasbro has decided to experiment. You can see in the following pictures the way these double joints look in the elbow and the knees. Personally, I prefer the older version as this double joints break up the smoothness of the body sculpt and make Spidey looks more like wearing an armour.



The other downside to this figure’s POA would be the weird direction of the peg into the hips and feet. As can be seen from the diagram below, the ball joints at the hips now rotate horizontally. It becomes rather difficult to pose the figure if you are familiar with posing Toy Biz figures (even though the poses are still achievable). Toy Biz figures typically has the peg directed horizontally or at 45° into the hips, making posing almost like second nature.


The direction of the pegs into the feet results in certain poses unable to be achieved.


I tried to make the figure get into the Spidey 4 point crouch (see picture below) and this is the best he can do. You can see the comparison of the Fearsome Foes Spidey getting into a 4 point crouch with Unleashed 360° Spidey in the pictures below. The lack of a neck swivel also means that Spidey cannot look upwards and that limits many poses that would make this toy fun to pose with.


All in all, a disappointment because of lack of some of the most basic yet critical POA and poor design on joints.


Joints (3.5 out of 5)
The joints are generally good except that the double joints at the knees got a little loose after some posing. I hope this will hold up over time.


Action Feature (5 out of 5)
None. I give full marks in this category for the lack thereof of action feature! Toy companies should know that action features are not welcomed especially if the feature takes away some of articulation that the figure would originally has.


Accessories (4 out of 5)
The package comes with a large poseable rubber webbing (about 9 inch in diameter). The webbing comes with a “skeleton” that has some ball swivel and bendable “tentacles” that allow you to get the soft rubber webbing into the pose desired. The last picture shows the fully set up webbing. I guess this webbing is more for children playability though it can also be a very good backdrop for diorama posing.



Value (4 out of 5)
I got my figure at SGD24.90 (~USD16.60). I think this is a very good deal. The original retail price is SGD40 (~USD26.70) and if at that price, I would knock off 2 more points out of this category.


Overall (3.5 out of 5)
It is an acceptable movie Spidey figure from Hasbro comparing with the 5 inch figures which I passed on. There is definitely room for improvement especially in the articulation department. Due to the large scale, it can only be posed and played with other Unleashed 360° figures. But as a figure on its own, it is still a fun toy.


Score Recap:
Packaging – 5 out of 5
Sculpt – 3.5 out of 5
Paint – 3.5 out of 5
Articulation – 2 out of 5
Joints – 3.5 out of 5
Action Feature – 5 out of 5
Accessories – 4 out of 5
Value – 4 out of 5
Overall – 3.5 out of 5

Custom - Broken Peg Fix on Anniversary Spawn

Backdated entry. A little ashamed actually, promised a good friend of mine > 6 months ago to fix his Anniversary Spawn for him.
By the way, I will be giving a detailed description of what I did. So to start with, what is wrong with it? Here is a pic of it after being fixed. So sorry I did not take any WIP because I didn't know if what I did will work or not.



Looks cool and nothing wrong right? But the effort put in was really much more than I had expected. Here is the pic with the problematic parts:

1. Right elbow peg was broken
2. Both ankle pegs were broken
3. Hips were loose because the hips was cracked open and was glued back poorly, causing a loose hip.

The pegs were broken and I wonder if this is the quality of McF figures, because I don't own many McF figs and definitely not this Anniversary Spawn fig. I tried supergluing the pegs back but when I try to fix it back, it broke again, then I conclude that superglue will be unable to give the strength required to keep the joints up. I tried thinking of what to replace it with. It was a headache. Finally I found what to do.

I decided to use nails to put in place of the pegs. What can be stronger than metal pegs right? Anyway I cut the nail (with much difficulties) and hammered the end in to make the peg head. Then using Apoxie Sculpt, I build up the middle of the peg to resemble the original peg shape (red boxed area).

It seems to work beautifully. I started with the right elbow peg first and then proceed on to the ankles. The nail head was way bigger than the peg "mushroom" head so I had to use my dremel to "round" the edge off to the right size. After fixing the metal pegs into the joints, I decide to cover up the ugly metal pegs showing in the peg hole. I used Apoxie Sculpt to cover the peg hole then I mix my Folkart paints to get the right colour and paint over them. Check out the pics below:

For the loose hip, I did a couple of things. I crack open the hip again, remove the nasty "lousy" glued residue and then re superglued it. This time using a tough crocodile clip to hold the hips together overnight to make sure the bond was really good. Had to paint the area to cover the superglued parts. Had a hard time trying to match the red.


However, after that I find the hips still loose. Then I used the superglue drip method to tighten the part. For the first time I tried Jin Saotome's method (http://www.thefwoosh.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18335) of dripping water to crystallise the superglue to prevent freezing up the joints. The disadvantage of this method was that immediately, white residue of the superglue started to form. Since this figure had black joints, it was easily painted over. Be careful about using this method if you have complicated colours at the joints you are trying to tighten.




After the whole figure was fixed, I used Citadel's Chainmail silver to paint over the paint chipped spikes and then I sealed all the parts I painted with Mr Color's Matt Top Coat sealant to prevent paint rub.

There you go, that's the completed fixed Anniversary Spawn. Personally was quite satisfied with the outcome. It may not be a big project for the pros here but it is my first figure fix! Let me know what you think. Cheers.

Custom - Broken Peg Fix on Marvel Select Black Spidey

Ok, not really a custom but another figure fix of mine...
I broke the right arm of my Marvel Select Black Spidey sometime back. Had a bit of a heartache as it is the first Marvel figure which broke on me and it had to be a Spidey...

So I remember seeing somewhere of using screws as a way to replace pegs. So I decided to go ahead with it.First I dug out the remnant of the peg that was embedded in the arm. You can see that the remnant of the peg was not really a peg already. If it still remain as a peg, I could have used it for the fix.

Then I cut a screw to a suitable length copying the peg length from the left arm.

Using the other undamaged side as reference:

Thereafter I screw the screw into the part where the peg should have been and adjust to the appropriate length. After test fitting using the "boil and pop" method for the arm, I finally found an optimal length of the screw which would not make the arm look jutting out and neither will it be too tight for the arm to turn.
Then I drip a drop of superglue into the newly drilled hole and screw in the screw to the desired length. Then I coat the screw head lightly with oil (since the screw head is slightly larger than I would like it to be) and heat the arm and pop it back on again. Presto! My Marvel Select Spidey is whole again!!!