Friday, January 10, 2014

The Amazing Spiderman 2 Marvel Legends Infinite Series: Carnage, Electro, Beetle (Green Goblin BAF) action figure review

Remember when Marvel Legends was just Marvel Legends? Each year they get more and more titles tacked on to them. Recently it's a great excuse to attach Marvel Legends to a movie title and get retailers to order that series. While there's only two figures in this series from the movie, don't tell Big Retail that! Here we take a look at some of the bad guys, Marvel's Electro, Spawn of the Symbiotes, and Deadliest Foes. To save money the names 'Carnage and Beetle' aren't on there so they can share the same package as Boomerang and Toxin.

Normally I skip the packaging unless it's something special. Well folks, it's something special. We now have COLLECTOR FRIENDLY PACKAGING. Open either side flap and slide out the tray. There's no twisties either. Some cases have the side flaps taped while others are open. The packages themselves are excellent looking. The black background is matte but all print and pictures are a slightly raised gloss. It makes them look like real collectibles on the shelf. On the back is a quick bio and pictures of the other characters (Black Cat, Superior Spiderman, and Amazing Spiderman) that make up the wave.

We'll start with Carnage first. His sculpt is based on the current body (US Agent, Black Panther, Hawkeye, etc) with brand new lower arms and legs. These have tendril wisps sprouting from them and even the feet are new. Carnage's head and hands are classic looking and the claws are flexible enough to grasp objects. There is no raised sculpt on the body, the black lines are paint but that's how he appeared in the comic anyway.

Carnage's articulation is top notch and the range of it allows for dynamic leaping/slashing poses. Like the other figures reviewed here he can look almost straight up or down thanks to a vastly improved ball jointed head. Everyone has the new tilt ankles! His paint work is primarily cast read plastic with clean black squiggles. His face has the pink inner mouth and is equally cleanly applied. His accessories include a 'tendril backpack' that attaches to him or any of the other figures with a port on the back for strangling-spawning-action!

Electro is supposedly Jamie Fox's character in the new movie tho the headsculpt looks like a generic bald human and nothing like the actor. His body is a unique sculpt all the way around and has burnt/melted sections, I suppose from him gaining his powers in the movie perhaps. There's all sorts of ports on his suit and a neat collar. Electro's paint work is a cleanly applied light blue airbrushing to the black cast plastic and some rusty burnt color to the damaged sections. His clear blue head and hands are opalescent as well and look pretty neat.

Electro's articulation has plenty of range and only his ankles are slightly hindered from the forward/back motion because of his pants cuffs. Side to side they're great. He comes with the most accessories, an extra head with charged-eyes, two electric blast hands, and two fists. The fists are tiny, watch out or you'll loose them. They pop in and out snugly.

The Beetle is his current almost robotic-looking incarnation with another completely unique sculpt. He's slender with detailed bands along his red undersuit with a great headsculpt. On his forearms are raised blasters and his large two-toed feet make for easy posing. The Beetle's paint work is a bit more involved with separated silver sections and big yellow eyes. His wingpack sports a great looking green-to-yellow gradient to it as well.

The Build-a-Figure for this wave is Ultimate Green Goblin which is the Avengers Walmart exclusive Hulk body and upper legs. Everything else are new sculpts with a bumpy, scaly texture and broken horn tips. The paint is a little messy on the horned parts unfortunately. Here even the accessories have accessories! Goblin's arms come with awesome looking removable flames and Carnage comes with the head/black flame. These flame effects can be clipped on to other figures just for kicks or used for custom flame effects.

So what's the verdict here? These figures are nice, really nice. They're sturdy, everyone has fully updated articulation and range of movement. All the pvc plastic is firm, not rubbery as well. While they don't have amazing paint jobs what's there is clean and looks great. The ability to put the figures back in the boxes is something we've needed to truly make Marvel Legends a collectors line and is a welcome change. Snag this set at our Sponsor Big Bad Toy Store or head over to Amazon and see if you can catch them on sale but watch out, their Super Saver Shipping has been raised to $35 worth of product now. It's still a deal if you're buying them all tho.






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