It’s Marvel Monday on a Wednesday! With a crazy work weekend and me still feeling like shit from whatever Non-Covid sickness I picked up, I just couldn’t get back here on Monday to finish any content. But, I’m here now, and I made good use of the delay, by preparing a look at another Hot Toys figure from the MCU! Yes, my interest in the upcoming MCU flicks is drying up (still excited for No Way Home, though!), I’m eager to get to reviewing the last few MCU-related Hot Toys figures on my pile. Last week, I checked out Mysterio from Spider-Man: Far From Home, and this week I’m here to have a look at Spider-Man in his Upgraded Suit from the final Act of the film. Cue the Led Zeppelin… I mean… AC/DC!

Cards on the table, this was a consolation purchase. I slept on the Hot Toys release from the first film (but I did get the NECA Quarter-Scale version!) and now that figure commands crazy money on the Hot Toys resale market. I wasn’t going to let that happen again, even if I’m not quite as in love with the Upgraded Suit as I was his Homecoming duds. Either way, here’s the box! I like the art style, but it’s still just a big window box with a sleeve around it and it’s doubtful that I’m going to hang on to it. I only keep the Hot Toys boxes that feel special and premium, and those are few and far between these days. Let’s get Old Web Head out and have a look!

So, the black and red deco looks nice, but I don’t like it anywhere near as much as the traditional blue and red suit. With that having been said, it’s the contrasts of texturing where this figure really shines. The black parts of the suit are fashioned from the usual thin vinyl material that Hot Toys uses for many of its super-suits. The red portions of the suit is comprised of a really nice, soft cloth material, which feels a lot more substantial than the black parts. I think the suit looks excellent, but the seams on his backside are a little obvious. In fairness, they have to go somewhere, and I guess that’s the best place for them to land. The spider emblems on his chest and back are both raised to give them a little extra punch.

The texturing can’t really be appreciated until you get in real close. Some of the black black portions have a vertical striped pattern, while other areas have a cross-thatched pattern, and some are just left bare. The white spider on his back has a faint cross-thatch pattern and thick borders. Meanwhile, the soft fabric red parts of the suit feature some bumps. All that black portions are raised, to look like reinforced areas, and the webbing on the red fabric appears to be part of the stitchwork. I often tend to focus more on the sculpted aspect of these figures than the tailoring, but this suit is making me take notice.

The head looks great and features more of that spongy, bumpy goodness. There’s a seam where the head meets the top of the neck, but it’s not visible from the front, just he sides and back. The material used for the head matches the suit perfectly!

You get several sets of eyes, which can be swapped out very easily thanks to magnets. The eye sets are pulled off from the top with a fingernail and the new ones just pop in, with the magnets practically grabbing them right out of my hand. These eye sets run the gamut from wide open eyes to squinty eyes, to completely closed eyes. These are expressive and great options to have, but beyond the regular open eyes and the half-squint, I don’t know how often I’ll be making use of them.

You also get an unmasked Tom Holland head, which is an absolutely fantastic likeness. This is actually my second Hot Toys Holland head, but since I have yet to review the Infinity War Iron-Spider figure, I’ll hold off my judgement on which I prefer. I’m just about at the point where I don’t know what else to say about these portraits, other than they’re extraordinary. The expression here is particularly good and it actually reminds me a bit of that moment of self-reflection after Peter was dubbed an Avenger by Stark in Infinity War. You want me to nitpick something? OK, the strands of hair over his right hair are a little thick, but that’s to be expected with sculpted plastic hair. And that’s it! That’s the worst I got.

You also get a mask for him to hold while using this head. It’s made of cloth and while it comes out of the box with a perfect fold, a little crumpling gives it more of a convincing look, like he just pulled it off his head. This is probably my favorite accessory in the box.

And before leaving the portraits, I’ll note that the EDITH glasses are included and they are wearable. They even work just like real glasses, by slipping on behind his ears. Yes, it’s a delicate operation, as you don’t want to stress those thin plastic arms too much, but I really appreciate that they went this way instead of putting holes in his head for the arms to pass through. The lenses have a bit of a tint and if you look through them at just the right angle, you can see the HUD for calling a drone strike recreated in tiny, tiny printing on the insides. And yes, I made up that last bit. Come on, Hot Toys, up your game!

Articulation here is about as solid as I can expect from a Hot Toys figure, and the suit is remarkably forgiving, even in the crotch and the upper arms. You even get some nice ratchets in the sholders! As always, you get tons of hands, some are more useful than others. You get fists, splayed hands, an accessory holding right hand, a two-fingered peace symbol left hand, and of course thwippy hands, which I’ll come back to in a bit. The hands do a pretty good job of matching the suit, but since they’re plastic, it’s not a perfect match.

You get a cell phone accessory with a printed texting screen. There’s a right hand that’s perfect for holding it, but I wish it was a left hand, so I could do a better selfie-shot with the peace symbol left hand. I love that they included a little crack on the screen. The thwippy hands are designed to be used with the web effects and swap out web-shooters, and to showcase these, I’m going to have to swap out backdrops to better showcase the milky-white webbing, because you can’t see them against the white.

Ah, that’s better! The thwippy hands have removable plates in the palms, which can be switched out with the shooting web plates. These have some web build-up, which the web effect parts can be socketed into. You get two medium sized web strands with globby bits on the ends, and these work very well. They remain in place, they don’t weigh down the arms. They stay straight and they look pretty convincing to me.

You also get a few different lengths of web strand, which can attach to the web funnel piece. The weight of the funnel piece does cause the web stream to droop a bit, but it’s not at all bad.

Next up is a couple of web pieces for Spidey to hold onto, one of which works well for reproducing his web-swing. If you have any other recent Hot Toys Spidey figures, these are all probably familiar, as they’ve been packing these same pieces in with a lot of them. I’m not usually all that big on effect parts, but I dig these a lot. I wish Hasbro would create a bunch of these for their Legends line and sell it as a Deluxe set. What you won’t see in today’s review are the final web effect parts, which are supposed to attach between the legs and under each arm to recreate the flying-squirrel feature of the suit. These plastic pieces are supposed to attach with magnets, but they barely hold on and I just don’t think that they look good at all. Swing and a miss on that one, Hot Toys!

And we’re still not done with the accessories, because you also get one of Mysterio’s Drones. I thought this was going to be a throwaway accessory, but it is an amazingly detailed piece. When I first got it out of the box, I spent a good bit of time just turning it around and marveling at the sculpt. All the little VTOL fans can be seen, as well as vents, tiny screws, and exposed wires. And naturally, it’s brimming with guns! This is designed to attach to the stand, and thankfully it works with Mysterio’s stand too, because that’s where I’ll likely display it! The sheer beauty of this little guy makes me wish I had picked up the Drone accessory set that Hot Toys released.

And that brings me to the stand, which is a colorful hexagon with the front corner cut out for the nameplate. The Far From Home logo is on top surface of the base, and the nameplate reads Spider-Man Upgrade Suit. The support is the standard bendy flight post with a waist-grabber, so you can get him into those epic poses that you shouldn’t keep him in for fear of creasing the suit! And yes, this is a different style base than they gave to Mysterio, and the lack of coordination there just irks me.

I’ll confess that if Hot Toys had reissued the blue and red suit from Homecoming, I would have definitely gone for that one over this one. But, with that having been said, this is still a very nice figure, and I’m happy to have it in my collection and displayed next to Mysterio. The black looks good against the red, and I’ve already gushed enough about the textures. This figure also feels like they packed a lot into the box for a $250 figure. And so, while he’s not my first choice, he’ll still do a fine job representing the MCU Web Head on my Hot Toys shelf. Well, he’ll have to share that role with Infinity War Iron Spider. I’d be reviewing him for the next Marvel Monday, but…

Friday starts FFZ’s very first Halloween Horror Month! Throughout October I’ll be confining myself to reviewing only spooky figures, so break out a white board, set up an office pool, and place your bets to see how long I can keep that shit going! Can I go three weeks with no Marvel Mondays? Do I even have enough horror themed figures to carry me through the whole month? STAY TUNED TO FIND OUT!!!