Hey, how about a Marvel Monday for old time’s sake! I’ve been picking up a lot of Legends lately on deep discount and I may do a couple speed reviews of some of those waves, but before even considering any of that I wanted to swing back and check out a couple of Deluxe releases that came out late last year. I have to imagine that it was a general malaise over the recent MCU films that caused Hasbro to drop their bucket back into the Spider-Man: No Way Home well and produce some new figures based on what was probably the last MCU flick that really hit home with the fans. No pun intended. We got a wave of retro-carded figures and these two Deluxes, which had me excited for MCU figures for the first time in a long while.

Both figures come in fully enclosed boxes with some nice artwork and shots of the figures. I don’t mind the enclosed boxes for these Deluxes, but I am getting tired of tiny accessories wrapped in tissue paper just begging to be accidently thrown away. Interestingly enough, Doc Ock is billed as being from Spider-Man 2 (the second Raimi film), while Gobbie is billed as being from No Way Home. Obviously the Goblin figure design is very specific to that movie, but Octavius could really work for either film. I’m guessing it was maybe a licensing issue, similar to the one that put the Andrew Garfield Spidey figure on an Amazing Spider-Man 2 card. Anyway… let’s start with Doctor Otto Octavius.

I’m starting with Ock, because I don’t have quite as much to say about this figure, but that’s not to say it isn’t fantastic. He comes out of the box with his articulator arms permanently attached. The body features a textured black top, black trousers, and brown shoes. He’s got some double trench coat action going with a brown one layered under the green. The brown coat has a set of gold zipper tracks while the outer coat has buttons and lapels with some tiny sculpted stitching. Wrapped around his waist is the silver harness to secure the arms to him. It’s a fairly basic costume design, but the figure handles it well with the different muted colors and some very subtle textures.

The head sculpt is pretty solid likeness to Alfred Molina. I really love the hair sculpt and the way the glasses turned out. Lord knows it ain’t easy to do decent looking specs in this scale, but Hasbro certainly pulled it off here. It killed me to turn down the Hot Toys figure, but that head sculpt just wasn’t working for me in terms of likeness or expression. Certainly not on a $300+ figure! So, at least Hasbro came through on the $40 version. I also dig the dour expression.

The articulator arms are cast in a very dense, but pliable plastic and they do a fairly good job of holding the shape you bend them into. They have a sharp, segmented sculpt and you get six sets of claws to work with: Two flat ones to act as feet, two grasping claws, and two articulated claws. Octavius himself even comes with two sets of hands: Fists and grasping hands.

And I have to say, posing the arms is lots of fun, especially when mixing up the different claws. There was certainly an issue of compromise here between durability and playability, and I think Hasbro made the right call by allowing just enough from each column. It was nice to really give the arms a workout without worrying about breaking or tearing them, even if that meant they weren’t always going to stay put exactly where I wanted them.

The arms are robust enough to act as legs and support the figure, but that stance does start to widen as the arms slowly attempt to pull back to their original configuration. I will likely use a clear rubber band to hold them closer together so I can display Ock with them supporting him. Although, I suppose a display stand supporting the figure would also do the trick.

Octavius turned out great! He’s one of those figures that takes up residence on my desk for a while after I opened him because he’s just so much fun to mess around with. I’ve wanted a figure like this ever since I first saw Spider-Man 2, and now that I have him, it’s nice to see he doesn’t disappoint. Let’s move on to Green Goblin!

So, unlike Octavius, who can work for either film, Norman Osborne is decidedly based on his appearance in No Way Home, where his armor is all kinds of messed up and modified. It’s an interesting look, which brings the design a bit closer to some of the comic book beats and away from the Power Rangery flavor of the original Raimi film design. Personally, I never had an issue with the older design, but this one certainly makes for a more interesting action figure. And boy is there a lot going on with this sculpt! Parts of the suit’s covering have been ripped away to reveal the internal supports and framework, painted in both gold and silver. He’s added a belt with shoulder strap and satchel as homage to the comic look, and you get the remnants of his purple hoody, cast in plastic and sitting on his shoulders. The green paint for the suit has a nice metallic sheen to it. He’s also has sculpted rockets on his both forearms and extended blades on his left. This is undoubtedly one of the most complex sculpts I’ve seen on a Marvel Legends figure and it looks fantastic!

Osborne does come with the Goblin mask head, even though it gets smashed fairly early on, but I’m happy to have the option to display it and it certainly maintains the quality found in the rest of the figure. The deep set eye globes are painted gold and if you look into the mouth you can see the mesh screen that covered Norman’s mouth on the costume. There’s a bit of swirl in the plastic here and there, but it doesn’t bother me. The only thing here that’s kind of off-putting is the lack of a neck piece for when he’s wearing the mask, so you just see his exposed skin. That looks kind of weird, but I don’t think this figure is really intended to be regularly displayed with the masked head. It’s probably more of a bonus.

Because you also get the unmasked head with goggles and hood, which is represents Gobbie’s new look for No Way Home, and Hasbro did a really nice job on this head sculpt! Willem Defoe certainly has a unique look about him, so I’m thinking that may have given the sculptors more hooks to hang their sculpt on. Either way, it turned out to be an excellent likeness, right down to his maniacal, toothy grin. And once again, the hair sculpt here is just pitch perfect! The goggles fit over the head pretty snug and the head goes into the hood and is secured around the neck hole. As much as I love the Goblin head, I’ll likely be displaying the figure unmasked and with the Goblin head somewhere on the shelf in front of him.

Of course, you also get the glider, which is a pretty fine piece of kit all on its own. The sculpt is pretty complex with panel lines, hydraulics and various mechanical bits and bobs all over the place. The bulk of the glider is painted in a metallic gray while the panels on the wings are textured and painted purple. The glider connects to a transparent stand via a ball socket, and this is the same type of stand that Hasbro uses for their Star Wars Black Series speeder bikes. The wings also articulate independently of one another. The only thing to watch out for here is the blades on the front of the glider, which are made of slightly bendy plastic. If you plan on storing this in a tote, I could see them getting bent or warped pretty easily.

Gobbie attaches to the glider by slipping his toes into the stirrups and pegging his heels into the pedals. The pedals are pegged into the glider, so they can swivel to accommodate different positions. It also helps to make securing him easier, as I preferred to pull out the pedals, attach them to his feet and then peg them back into the glider. A little balance is required when getting the ball socket on the stand to support his weight, but I was able to make most poses work out. I think a little nail polish might help make the socket connection more firm and supportive.

Green Goblin’s final accessory is a tiny grenade, or what passed for a pumpkin bomb in the films. It’s just a tiny orange ball with a green light painted on it, but it fits perfectly in the right grippy hand.

Goblin feels like the more substantial offering of these two figures with a crazy complex sculpt, extra head, and the glider, but considering how awesome Ock’s articulator arms are, I think everything balances out in the end. As for the quality of the figures, there’s not much to complain about here, as I think Hasbro knocked each of these right out of the park. I can distinctly remember the moment I saw that these guys were coming back for No Way Home and thinking about the opportunity for new Marvel Legends figures, and sure enough here they are. And at $39.99 each, I think the pricing is actually right on point, as they both feel like premium releases. I don’t really have any interest in a No Way Home Lizard or Electro, so displaying these guys with the Sandman from the retro wave gives me all the MCU Spidey villains I wanted!