It’s time for another Crawlspace catch-up action figure review! With Spidey soon returning to the big screen in his first MCU movie, it’s only appropriate that we say good bye to the Amazing Spider-Man movies. Originally I had said I wasn’t going to review the Amazing Spider-Man 2 Marvel Legends wave since I only had about half the figures, but I’ve actually picked up a few more of the figures since then, and what’s more, the Crawlspace’s own Zach Joiner has decided to lend me a hand! So let’s not waste any time! On with the review!

This was an interesting wave because it has a second release with a few different figures. The wave came with ASM2 Spider-Man, ASM2 Electro, Superior Spider-Man, and Carnage, Black Cat, and Ultimate Beetle were interchangeable with Toxin, Anya Corazon Spider-Girl, and Boomerang to build the Ultimate Green Goblin.

Zach: Yeah, this was unique among the Marvel Legends Line-Up that Hasbro has done. Toy Biz would occasionally do a ‘Chase Variant’ such as the Daredevil Yellow figure from the very first ‘Spider-Man Classics’ wave back in 2001, or the Unmasked versions of figures they did in 2-Packs later on. (That DD was as much as $500 bucks on Ebay 15 years ago!! Now Fing Fang Foom is that much, or Dragon Man!) But it is rare they would do this on this wave, so rare they never have done it again. (Perhaps complaints prompted this? I honestly don’t know). Back to ‘Bro! 

Considering I’m such a fan of symbiotes, lets start with them.

Sculpt and Accessories:

Here we have the two symbiotic spawns. One being the classic Carnage, and the other being the Toxin, but not the original Pat Mulligan one, but when Eddie Brock was the host in a “I”m my own Grandpa” sort of situation. Cletus himself looks fantastic, and the Bucky mold his body uses fits him fine, and not only do his claws and head look great, but the added little rubber tendrils on his arm add a great symbiotic effect to him. His paint is simple, but effective, and portrays the classic Bagley look for him very nicely. If the Marvel Select didn’t exist, this would definitely be my go-to Carnage figure.

And Toxin? Boy, where do I start? I was already a little disappointed that they made an Eddie Toxin instead of Patrick Mulligan one, but the disappointment doesn’t stop there. His Hyperion mold suits him well enough, but they didn’t even bother giving him different feet, so he still has soles on this ends of his “shoes”, and it just looks odd. The arms have nice little spiky details and the bigger claws look nice, but his head is another big misstep. The top half of his face looks great, but I don’t know what they were thinking with his mouth. He just has a very goofy buck tooth looking smile, and it’s hard to take him seriously. If that wasn’t bad enough, his paint is just really lazy, and is just a fade from bright red to dark red.

They both come with a tendril accessory that plugs into their backs, and while it works for Carnage, it really doesn’t look anything like the unique look Toxin had in the comics, so he continues to disappoint here.

Articulation:

These use the Bucky and Hyperion molds, so there’s nothing too noteworthy here I haven’t already mentioned in previous reviews, but it still mostly works for these characters. They both have a ball joint on the head with a neck joint, ball shoulders with bicep swivel, double jointed elbows, wrist hinge and swivel, ab crunch, waist swivel, ball joint hips, thigh swivel, double jointed knees, calf swivels, and ankle pivots and rockers. Pretty average articulation overall, but it works.

Carnage can look really far up which is great for creepy hunched over poses and leaning back and laughing, but if you try tipping Toxin’s head too far back, his head pops right off. Another complaint with Carnage is that his hips are extremely loose for me, and he jiggles around a lot. The tendril accessories also are pretty loose, and can fall out of their backs pretty easy.

Carnage:

Pros:

• Great paint job
• Very good likeness of the character
• Tendrils are a nice touch

Cons:

• Extremely loose hips
• Loose accessory

Grade: A

Toxin:

Pros:

• Body fits him well
• His eyes look great

Cons:

• Disappointing mouth and feet
• Boring paint
• Tendril accessory doesn’t fit him that well

Grade: C-

Now onto some “superior” figures

Sculpt and Accessories:

The Superior Spider-Man and his Superior Foe, Boomerang. I like these figures quite a bit. I may have not been a big fan of the Superior Spider-Man story line that much, but I liked the costume, and this figure definitely does it justice. He uses a brand new body, which I even like slightly better than the current body Hasbro is using these days, if only for the fact it’s not as awkwardly long. The big Spider emblem looks great, and continues onto his shoulders which looks pretty neat. The random cobweb design is also pretty nice looking, although I’m not sure why they decided on making the mask lenses a brownish color instead of black. Just looks a little odd. He comes with two pairs of hands, web slinging hands and gripping hands, and it’s a little disappointing he doesn’t have closed fists for punching.

Now onto Boomerang. This guy, right? He isn’t very new in terms of mold, using the same Bucky body as Carnage, with some cuffs and boots from other past figures. The head is brand new though, and while it mostly works, I can’t help but wish he was smirking instead of gritting his teeth. His paint job isn’t super neat either, and there are a lot of little blue specks on his white paint, and his teeth look a little dirty (though to be honest, that might just be in character for Fred). The Thunderbolts logo is a nice touch. Boomerang comes with his little back accessory and 4 boomerangs. It’s nice because his back piece has 4 slots to snugly fit his loose boomerangs so that you don’t misplace them. Some of them are kind of loose in his hands though, especially the two smaller ones.

Articulation:

 

For Boomerang’s articulation, just go above to the Carnage review, it’s pretty much the exact same as Carnage’s range of movement, except slightly less in some places like the wrists.

Spider-Man figures always need plenty of articulation, and this figure does not disappoint at all. Even though it’s an older figure, it has articulation on par and possibly even slightly better than the current Spider-Man figures Hasbro is putting out with a head ball joint with a neck hinge, butterfly joints at the shoulders with a bicep swivel, double jointed elbows that can bend very far, a wrist hinge and rotation, an ab crunch, hip rotation, double jointed knees, and then some ankle pivots and swivels. It’s also missing the calf swivel like the pizza Spidey mold, but overall it feels like every part of Superior’s body can bend just a tiny bit more than the pizza Spidey mold, and I honestly don’t know why they haven’t used this one again since.

Superior Spider-Man:

Pros:

• Extremely good posability
• His body shape is great
• Nice paint job with random webbing

Cons:

• No fists
• Brown lenses?

Grade: A

Zach: Love this guy, save for the Brown Lenses. You nailed that one. Interestingly, the head mold returns with the Parker Industries Spidey in the MJ 2-Pack.

Boomerang:

Pros:

• Great looking new costume
• Lots of boomerangs to throw
• Boomerang storage!
• It’s not his original costume

Cons:

• slightly messy paint job
• wish he had smirk

Grade: B

Zach: Yeah, the gritted teeth remind me of the first few pages that Stegman did in Superior Spider-Man #1, but you’re right, it’s annoying here since he is more of a joke character. But at the time the Superior Foes debuted, it wasn’t the case.

Last but not least (for me), the skyline sirens.

Sculpt and Accessories:

These ladies look very good. Anya has the teenage girl body, and her mask and ponytail are on point. The paint is done extremely cleanly, with my only real complaint being that there’s a gap in her spider emblem when you lean her back a bit. She doesn’t have any accessories at all, not even a hand swap, but at least the closed fist and open hand are a good combo, and allow for multiple different action poses, or some fun casual poses, which represent her character fairly well.

Black Cat is also an extremely nice looking figure, which purrfectly (I’m sorry) captures her curves, and her hair and fur give a nice overall texture to the figure. They even bothered to put little claws on the ends of her fingers, which is a nice detail. Her face is also perfectly painted, but her hair and fur have a blue wash painted into them, which looks a little odd in my opinion. And while the heels are appropriate, they don’t do much good balance wise, so expect her to fall over. A lot. The whip is her only accessory, and it’s a soft plastic which you can bend easily, but it just goes back to the default shape.

Articulation:

This is the part where both figure’s grades drop sharply. Anya has almost the same articulation Mayday had with a ball joint and neck hinge on the head (though her upward movement is somewhat blocked by her ponytail), ball shoulders with single jointed elbows with swivels that only bend about 90 degrees and hands with a wrist hinge and swivel. Her abdomen movement is extremely limited, and her legs are double jointed with thigh swivels, calf swivels, and an ankle pivot, but the hip joints are also pretty limited. Big downside for a spider character.

But if you thought that was bad, Black Cat is even worse. Her neck only has a ball joint, not even a hinge, and her hair is a very stiff rubber, so her head isn’t even easy to turn. She has a ball joint at the shoulders, but her single jointed elbow swivels don’t even bend a full 90 degrees, and her wrists have swivels, but the hinge only can move them up and down, not back and forth, and they don’t even move that far at all. Very odd choice. Her abdomen moves just about the same as Anya’s, and her legs are even more limited. The hip joint is about the same too, and she has thigh swivels, but she has no calf swivels and her  double jointed legs can’t bend too far because of the molded fur on the boots. At least her feet have plenty of movement with the swivel and ankle rocker, but overall, the articulation is such a downside for these figures

Black Cat:

Pros:

• Looks fantastic
• Very nice molding details

Cons:

• Extremely limited articulation
• Stiff hair gets in the way of posing
• Bad balance

Grade: C

Anya Corazon Spider-Girl:

Pros:

• Hair detailing
• Extremely clean paint

Cons:

• No accessories
• Very limited articulation
• Hair can get in the way

Grade: C

Zach: Everything you said was on point: Black Cat is hard to stand up. Those feet are the not the worst part, that’d be her head. Mine always pops off, which saddens Ashley.  

Alright, my portion of the review is done, so I’ll let Zach take it away!

Thanks ‘Bro! As mentioned earlier, I am going to review the remaining figures in this wave. First up, the main events, the dynamic duo that headlined this wave, Electro and Garfield Spidey! (Stella, I know you miss him!) I originally reviewed this back in 2015, thinking I would get to each figure. Alas, that didn’t happen (This is so much more fun.) This was the first figure that was packaged in the way we see them today. As seen in the thumbnail to the Right.

When this was announced, I felt it was the best Spidey figure that Hasbro had produced. And up to the point it was produced, it absolutely was. The posability of the figure was top notch, and it would be hard to improve it… until they did. Now, comparing the Spidey Figure to the new ‘Gold Standard’ of Spidey figures, ‘All-New Marvel Now’ AKA ‘Pizza Slice Spidey’, this figure has one problem.

The problem is the shoulder joints. This may be because of the fantastic texturing of the figure, but they tend to get locked up and don’t move well. This is a similar problem to the Black Suit Spidey that came out in the sandman wave. Otherwise, the figure works really well.
The Eyes are just off enough to annoy you. Especially when you compare them to the Marvel Select Spidey that I got at the Disney Store on my honeymoon. (Don’t look at me like that! The Marriage may have been a disaster, but the honeymoon was fun! Plus the Disney Store left my town… aw, forget it.) Spidey comes with a few hand swaps, Fist and Thwipp hands. They’re nice and easy to use, and fit the tone of the figure.

I’ve provided a comparison to the aforementioned Select Figure, show below:

I mentioned the texture of the figure, and well… I love it. Some may not like how for the movie figures Hasbro tends to indent into the Spidey figures the weblines, but in this case, given that this was raised webbing, I feel it’s cooler than I thought it would be when I got it. The legs and arms are textured, but it also leads to the problem with the joints.

Bottom Line: A good Figure, and if you like collecting the Movie Lines, a nice one to add to your collection.

GRADE: B+

Oh No…. It’s Electro!

Oh Nooooo indeed. This figure is a mess.

First thing is first: This thing looks like it going to yell bad cold puns. That’s right! IT LOOKS LIKE MR. FREEZE. FROM BATMAN AND ROBIN. Sigh. For wanting to Electro so bad on the big screen, it is a profound disappointment that this figure was produced.
First, he comes with a swap head, and regular and EXTREME Electro Hands. One is a ‘normal’ Mr. Freeze like head, the other is with Electric Eyes that just suck. Yes they use the Bucky Mold, and they give this figure a ‘glow’ effect that is supposed to be menacing, but it just looks terrible and may be the worst

figure of this wave. Considering they did Toxin terribly, that’s saying something. It also looks like it soud glow in the dark, but it doesn’t.
Oh, for those who wonder, the hands do not fit in the Comics version of Electro, Despite using the same type of hands. The sad thing is, he doesn’t have the worst head swap of Electro’s Hasbro recent history: Remember that wonderful Face-Tat? Yup.

Posability is nice, but standard, and the rest of the figure is Blah.

 

Grade: D+

Last ‘Regular’ Figure we will tackle is Beetle, Ultimate Version.

Someone at Hasbro must love the Beetle. Seriously. Since this wave was produced, we’ve gotten the Ultimate Beetle, Superior Foes Beetle, and Now Classic Beetle. Seriously. Enough with the Beetle and give us a Proper Doc Ock Figure for goodness sake. This doesn’t mean that new HYDRA Ock either… give me the original without sucker arms. Please.

This wave was unique in how it was structured. As discussed previously, Beetle swapped with Boomerang, Black Cat with Arana-Girl, and Carnage with Nu-Toxin. That’s roughly half the wave that changed out. This ensured that the wave would be on the shelves longer than previous incarnations. 

Now, in terms of what Beetle does, he looks just like a Mark Bagley Ultimate drawing come to life. Very cool figure, and Looks nice. Articulation is nice, and it seems he is an original mold based on the Bucky Mold. He comes with his wings, but they don’t always stay on all the time. Otherwise, a fun figure and not the worst in terms of selection. If you’re building up your Rogues for Spidey, he’s a fine edition to them.

Grade: B-

Finally, the Main Event: Ultimate Green Goblin.

Man, did it take forever to build this guy. Each Figure comes with a piece, and because the wave had its chase features, Green Goblin is very nice… if you like him to look more like the Hulk.

“But why keep this Zach?” Simple: To Troll JR… Why else?

All kidding aside, this guy is everything you want in the USM Goblin. His sculpt is nice, and you can literally turn him into the Hulk with a head Swap and a change of arms. The torso and legs are perfect, and just need a foot swap (Hulk HAVE NO POINTY TOES) and to file off the white spikes. (MAKE IT HAPPEN HASBRO) He comes with Fire Hands and A Fire back… and LOOKS nice, despite my reservations with him. I mean, if you want to re-renact Death of Spider-Man, Ultimate style, you can with this guy. He’s mean, nasty and fairly well done. The only complaint I have is the lack of wasit articulation, but other than that he’s pretty good.

Grade: B+

While he’s not the worst figure in terms of Build a Figures, He certainly ranks below figures such as Sandman, Venom (Space Knight Flash Thompson) and the Rhino. But I’d put in over Absorbing Man, just because at least he’s a major baddie, unlike Absorbing Man. I mean who really craved Absorbing Man?!

Oh, yeah, Vulture’s Wings looks sick. Just saying.

And that wraps up this Crawlspace Catch-up review! Normally the Rhino wave would be next, but I may or may not be getting the Homecoming wave very soon. Until then, let’s leave you with some miscellaneous pictures!