Tag Archives: sinister six

Oct 14 2019

Marvel Legends (Lizard Wave): Mysterio by Hasbro

I don’t often have a lot of trouble completing waves of Marvel Legends. Sometimes there’s a figure I have to pay a couple more bucks for on Ebay, but between Amazon and local stores, I do alright. And then there’s the goddamn Lizard Wave, which had two figures confounding me since all the way back in April of last year, when I began reviewing this assortment. Well, a few weeks ago I eventually gave in and used some Prime Rewards points to grab Mysterio off of Amazon for a crazy scalper price.

And here he is finally in my dirty mitts and getting him has been quite the journey. A while back a certain online retail offered him for pre-order, saying that Hasbro was doing a re-issue. I plopped down the pre-order and stopped looking for him. A short while later they cancelled it and said, Whoops! He’s not being re-issued after all. Sorry! Then when I finally bought him from an Amazon scalper, they sent me Spider-Punk instead. I had to ship it back for an exchange. Sheesh, Mysterio, you’ve been nothing but trouble!

Aw, but check him out! Even if I set aside the coveted Lizard leg BAF part, I think he was well worth the effort, if not the money. Mysterio comes wearing his classic outfit, consisting of a green buck with a cut grid pattern. His boots and gauntlets are also both original sculpts and cast in a brighter, pearlescent green, which looks somewhat ethereal.  The sculpted detail on his squared off forearms is particularly well done, with an ornately occult flavor to them. No, this may not be the most exciting Legends body out there, but it sure fits Mysterio perfectly. Also, huge bonus points for the hovering cape. It’s a design trope that I always love to see, and I’m always surprised how well it works when fleshed out in 3D plastic. And there’s some damn nice texturing on the interior of the plastic garment.

Of course, from behind, Mysterio is one big slab o’cape, so there’s nothing to see here. Because the cape is attached to the helmet, it stays on quite well just by gravity alone. And amazingly enough, I did not find it at all intrusive while playing with this figure.

And then there’s his glorious fishbowl helmet, which is recreated here with frosted clear plastic. It’s an excellent effect, as it doesn’t allow you to quite see in, but you can catch a glimpse of the horror that’s lurking behind it. That horror is a creamy skull with horrific Elder God style tentacles coming off of it. An interesting aside, the figure has been produced with this head and a green one as well. I want to say that the green one was the initial run and probably harder to find, but that’s just my guess. I do like this one a lot because the coloring makes it a lot more difficult to make out through the helmet and contributes to the creepy idea that there’s just some kind of ethereal gas floating around inside that globe.

Mysterio’s articulation is no mystery. The arms feature rotating hinges int he shoulders, bicep swivels, double-hinges in the elbows, and pegged hinges in the wrists. The torso features a swivel in the waist, an ab-crunch hinge under the chest, and the head is ball jointed. The legs have rotating hinges in the hips, double-hinges in the knees, swivels in the thighs, and the ankles have both hinges and lateral rockers. My figure does have a bit of an issue with his right shoulder, where it’s loose and doesn’t always support the arm being up. From what I’ve seen it’s not an uncommon problem with this release.

 

Mysterio comes with two effect parts and these are meant to simulate the horrors of his trickery. They’re cast in a very cool translucent green plastic and represent swirls of gas and tentacles. They are specifically sculpted to attach to his ankles and rest on the floor, but one of them works pretty well when extending from his wrist. You can also attach them from the front or back to offer a little variety to your display. I think he would have been a good candidate for the Hex Power effect parts that clip onto the wrists. Not that I’d rather have those than these, but both would have been nice. Still, I can always borrow the ones that came with Polaris. They’re more yellow than green, but they work OK.

In the end, Mysterio cost me $45. Or at least $45 worth of Prime Rewards points, which is really the same thing. Was he worth it? Yeah, pretty much. I’m not saying that in and of himself, he’s a $45 figure, but he’s a character that I absolutely needed on my Legends shelf and I damn sure needed that Lizard leg too. The way I look at it, I get a whole bunch of my Marvel Legends at pretty good discounts if I’m patient, so when a figure like this one gets away and costs me extra, it all works out in the end. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the only figure in this wave that cost me the big bucks. Next week, we’ll check out the other one.

May 18 2018

Spider-Man Versus The Sinister Six by Hasbro

Cards on the table time: This week has kicked my ass and I did not find a lot of time for blogging. Remember when I cut down to just three updates a week because I was going to be so crazy busy? Well, I’m glad I did that, because things have indeed been crazy busy. And yes, I did find the time to go see Deadpool 2 last night, so go ahead and say it. “Oooooh, he doesn’t have time to do a proper review, but he has time to go to the movie!” Yeah, that’s right. I regret nothing!!! Anyway, with time being limited, I wanted to do something a little different and check out an unopened set. Yeah, I spend most of my time opening toys to review here on FFZ, but here’s one of the few ones I’ve decided to keep sealed. Originally, I wasn’t going to review this set at all, because I wasn’t opening it, but ultimately I decided it would be a good alternative to having nothing at all today. So, let’s end the week with a little more Marvel and check out Hasbro’s 4-inch Spider-Man Versus The Sinister Six figure set!

And the packaging here really is the star of this show. I don’t want to knock the figures. These are universally excellent figures, nearly all of which are repainted re-issues from Marvel Universe. And since I already own almost all of these all from when they were originally released, this is a set that I bought specifically for the awesome presentation. So, what we have here is a collection of seven carded figures folded up accordion-style with a sleeve placed over it and it is a goddamn brilliant piece of package design. The sleeve features a cut-out on the front to allow Spidey’s bubble to show through and it features a background of muted comic panels and a deco meant to invoke the vintage Marvel Super Heroes line complete with the blue border on top and yellow stars. The character art and lettering on the front is colorful, and it just looks fantastic up on the shelf.

The left side panel has an image of an original comic cover with Spidey fighting The Sinister Six, while the ride side panel has head shots of all the figures along with some brief bios in multiple languages. In addition to Web Head himself, the box includes Doc Ock, Mysterio, Kraven The Hunter, Vulture, Electro, and Sandman, all in their classic costumes.

The back panel has more of that vintage packaging charm along with a shot of all the figures lined up in a “Collect Them All” style picture. But you don’t have to collect them all, because you already did by buying this set!

Lift off the sleeve and you can get an idea of how the whole thing is folded up. It’s so damn clever! It’s also really, really long when you unfold it all the way. The only knock I have against this set is that it isn’t at all collector friendly. Even if I didn’t already own previous releases of these figures, I think I’d be torn over whether or not to open it. Let’s take a look at each of the carded figures so I can get out of here and get on with my weekend!

Spidey has been released countless times in the Marvel Universe line. I first got him back in 2010, but this is a completely different figure then the one I picked up back then. The paint is especially nice on him with a nice bright and flashy red, pale blue, and some sharp lines for the costume’s webbing. His left hand is thwipping and his right hand could be used to hold something, but he doesn’t come with any accessories. The deco for the card is identical to the front of the sleeve.

Second in line is Doctor Octopus. This figure was last released in 2015 as part of the Marvel Universe Infinite line, only back then he had a green jumpsuit with a yellow belt and yellow boots and gloves. Here he’s been repainted in all purple duds and his manipulator arms have been repainted from silver to a darker gray. Given my druthers, I think I prefer the previous release, but this one sure isn’t bad and I think he matches the character art quite well. And speaking of character art, the presentation here is so much better than the dreadful black cards `Hasbro was using when they re-branded that line to Infinite.

Electro is the one figure in this set that I did not previously own. He was released in the Marvel Universe line and I could never find him on the pegs. At one point I was considering dropping $25 on him online, but I never did get around to pulling the trigger. Either way, this is a great looking figure and the green and yellow deco really makes him pop. I also love the head sculpt and the way they executed the mask. Just beautiful!

The fourth slot is occupied by Kraven. This is a pretty damn impressive sculpt when it was released back in 2013 in Marvel Universe, and this release is not just a simple repaint, but has a few changes to the sculpt. The biggest of the changes are the lack of his boots with the cool skull kneecaps. He’s also missing his belt. The rest of the changes lie in the more comic-orientated paint. I have to say I definitely like the previous release better, but this is still a pretty cool variant and both the head sculpt and the lion head jacket are still really well done.

The Fifth figure is Vulture, and this guy was released in the same 2015 wave of Marvel Universe Infinite as Doc Ock. I’d say this is the weakest figure in the bunch, mainly because of the way they did his wings. They tab into the arms and are basically designed to be displayed with his arms raised over his head. Anything else looks weird. This version has a clean white collar and there are some black lines to add some definition to his costume. I do like the head sculpt a lot, but all in all, this is one figure that I think looks better sealed in the bubble.

Number six is the set is Mysterio and this one is a straight repaint of the figure released back around 2014. The gold boots and gauntlets have been repainted with a lime green and the bodysuit features a grid pattern printed over the green. The cape is now lavendar with pink clasps and the helmet is less a little less of a smokey transparent as it a pearlescent finish. I liked this figure a lot back then and I like this version quite a bit too.

And the final member of the Sinister Six in this set is Sandman. Released as recently as 2016 in the Marvel Universe Infinite line, Sandman saw two variants in that wave, one normal and one all sandy. This version is similar to the normal release but with smaller striping on his shirt. He’s pretty cool, but there isn’t that big a difference from the previous release to make him terribly exciting.

And that’s the Sinister Six set in all it’s glory. I picked this up a while ago when Amazon was blowing it out at $15. FIFTEEN BUCKS!!! How could I not? It would have been well worth that price if it included only half the figures, and those were just wrapped up in a garbage bag and thrown into a shoebox. I’m not a Mint-In-Sealed-Box kind of guy, but even I couldn’t resist presentation this good and at a price so low. I’ll confess, this set also makes me a little sad for the demise of Hasbro’s 4-inch Marvel line. Sure, it’s kind of redundant as Marvel Legends has stepped up to be the Universe-building line that we fans wanted, but there was a time when this smaller scaled collection was the way to go. It still lives on in various multi-packs and the local big boxes still have some of the single carded figures swinging on the pegs, but let’s face it, the heyday of 4-inch Marvel has gone, and I can’t help but miss it sometimes.