I’m right at the halfway mark in my jaunt through the Marvel Legends Absorbing Man Wave. Last Monday, I checked out, Speed Demon, the first of the two baddies from the “Superior Foes of Spider-Man” book. Today, I’m opening up the other half of that slot, Janice Lincoln, aka Beetle!

Beetle shares the exact same package layout as Speed Demon with her name only appearing on the back and “Superior Foes of Spider-Man” on the front. The box is branded with the “Spider-Man” logo and the spider emblem on the top flap. This is, of course, the third person to don the alter ego of Beetle and the most recent to appear in the funnybooks.

I was expecting a new head and a straight repaint of Ms. Janet Van Dyne from last year’s Ultron Wave and I was only partially right. The arms, legs, and wings are all from the same mold, but surprisingly the torso has been redone to include fresh sculpting for her corset, top and shoulder straps, as well as the flares at her thighs. Hasbro could have easily gotten away without any of this new sculpting, so I’ll give them kudos on going that extra mile, especially for a character like Beetle. The portrait is simple but very well done.

Also simple, but excellent is the paintwork here. The entire deco consists of her metallic purple costume and green “skin” with only her two yellow eyes to break up the palate. The paint itself looks great and the lines are sharp and clean with no virtually slop to be found. The coloring is capped off by a brilliant translucent purple cast of the wings. All this adds up to a rather striking figure.

If you own the modern Legends Wasp figure than you’ll know what to expect from Beetle’s articulation. You get rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, and wrists, ball joints in the hips, double hinges in the knees, hinges in the ankles, a ball joint under the chest and both a hinge and ball joint in the neck. The wings connect to the body with rotating hinges and the lower wings are hinged as well. There are no mushy joints here and she is lots of fun to pose.

I was expecting a phoned-in figure, but the fact that Beetle features some actual new sculpting is a nice surprise. The paint quality is great, I like the colors, and while the recycled wings are rather conspicuous, I still think this is a solid figure and another fine addition to my growing collection of Marvel baddies.