I think I’m in love with this Spider-Man figure. I won an Adventures in Collecting holiday raffle, which had the Spider-Man Animated Series Retro Cardback figure. I heard their Best of 2023 episode, where it not only made the list but also called it “perfect. I would change absolutely nothing about it, it’s amazing.” It seems almost impossible for a figure to live up to that kinda hype, and yet when it arrived in the mail it turns out they weren’t liars. This figure is absolutely fantastic.
“Which Spider-Man?” is always the question that needs answering when it comes to Spider-Man figures. There’s no shortage of hated Spider-Man suits, between the Spider Armor or Cyborg Spider-Man, it’s a long list. Even among the “good” Spider-Man suits, there’s still a lot of wiggle room.
After writing a post about the 31 points of articulation of The Loyal Subjects’ BST AXN figures, I’ve paid much more attention not only to the posability of figures, but the decisions that were made about the joints.
The dual torso joints go very far in making this Spider-Man figure feel like Spider-Man. Spider-Man feels nimble and weightless and this figure does a good job visually portraying that feeling. Part of that is that the figure is the figure’s flexibility, which this figure excels at as well. Six points of articulation in each of the legs, butterfly joins in the shoulders with ample room for movement are part of the (I think) nine points in each arm, two in the torso, and two in the neck allow the figure to remain expressive, light, and very Spidey.
I think it’s only appropriate to mention the 2003’s Spider-Man 2 18″ Spider-Man, which had 67 points of articulation. I’ve never touched it in my life, but I listened to Merlin Mann talk about it on the Back to Work podcast over twelve years ago and I still remember it. This figure is my Merlin Mann 67 point of articulation Spider-Man.
The coloring can’t be ignored either. The 90’s animated Spider-Man suit is as close to a quintessential Spider-Man suit as you can get and this faithfully recreates that. The touches of shading aren’t overwhelming but add to the visual depth of the figure, which Spider-Man figures often lack. See the 1984 Secret Wars Spider-Man from Mattel as an example of “a paint job so bad it comes all the way around to good.”
It’ll be hard to top this figure, but I look forward to further attempts.