I’m continuing my slog through the now ridiculously outdated Rhino Wave of Marvel Legends, and today lands me on the second half of the “Savage Force” slot with Chameleon. This is a figure that was not only an easy release for Hasbro, but also one that brings us all the way back to the earliest days of Amazing Spider-Man.

The figure comes in the typical Legends window box, this time branded for Spider-Man. Because he shares a slot with Kraven, his name only appears on the back of the package. There’s quite a bit of goodies on this tray, including two spare heads and three weapons, not to mention that giant Rhino arm, so let’s just jump right in and get started…

The most obvious thing about this figure is that from the neck down he’s just a repaint of the Legends Phil Coulson figure from that Agents of SHIELD 3-pack. That means, you’re getting a guy in a business suit. The slacks and jacket have been recast in blue plastic. The shirt is matte black and the shoes and tie are gloss black. You also get some nice sharp silver paint on the belt buckle and I absolutely love the sculpted row of buttons on the bottom of each sleeve. That’s just a lovely little touch. This is a great looking buck and apart from using a remold of it for Bruce Banner, I’m surprised we haven’t seen more of it. Personally, I would have loved to see Chameleon in the more classic smoking jacket, but I can understand Hasbro wanting to re-purpose this body and to be fair, it works quite well.

The Chameleon head is pretty cool. He’s wearing his creepy and almost featureless white mask with a seam running down the center. There’s some nice blue shading in the center and you can see his gritting yellow teeth through the mouth hole.

The articulation here is quite solid. You The arms feature rotating hinges in the shoulders and wrists, double hinges in the elbows, and swivels in the biceps. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, have double hinges in the knees, and swivels in the thighs. The ankles have hinges and lateral rockers, but I can get hardly any movement out of those joints on my figure. The torso feature a swivel in the waist and an ab crunch in the chest. Finally, you get both a hinge and a ball joint in the neck. While Chameleon can be a fun figure to pose, the lack of mobility in my figure’s ankles make him a chore to keep from falling over.

Chameleon comes with two extra heads to show off his ability to assume the appearance of other people. Of course, you can also just use these heads to make that character. It’s all up to your imagination and personal preferences. First off, we have Hammerhead. I absolutely love this head sculpt. It’s a wonderful sculpt and would be very distinctive even if it weren’t for the flat top head. Granted, he really should have a vintage gangster-style suit, but it still works OK with the body here.

And you also get the coveted, hypertensive noggin of  J. Jonah Jameson, which is quite frankly the biggest appeal of this set for me. This is another fantastic sculpt. It’s very expressive and I’d have absolutely no doubt in my mind who it is, even if I was just going by the head. The suited body works a little better for Jameson than it does for Hammerhead, even though it’s still not Jameson’s familiar attire. Now that I’ve covered the heads, let’s look at the weapons…

For starters, you get this little futuristic pistol, which kind of reminds me of Cobra Commander’s vintage sidearm. It sort of has that blow-dryer look to me. But, that may be me just mis-remembering what that old gun actually looks like. Either way, this is a really cool sculpt and I think it suits Chameleon quite well.

Next up is this behemoth! I have no idea what it is, but I love it. Despite it’s futuristic design, it has a pretty standard detachable drum magazine with bullets coming out of the top that peg into the slot under the rifle. You get a nice textured grip under the barrel and some red paint apps on the sides of the barrel. This thing may be too damn cool to let Chameleon keep it, but I haven’t decided who to give it to yet. It may wind up going to The Red Skull.

Next up is the Tommy Gun and since it’s commonly associated with gangsters of the 20’s and 30’s, this one really suits Hammerhead. While not quite as impressive as the amazing Thompson that DC Collectibles gave us with their Icons Joker, this is still an excellent weapon for this scale. The sculpt is spot on and you get brown paint apps on the wood fixtures on the stock, pistol grip, and the grip under the barrel. The black finish looks great too!

There’s really nothing in the way of accessories to give to Jonah. It would have been cool if they threw in a rolled up copy of The Daily Bugle. That’s OK, though. If I display this body with Jonah’s head, he’s always going to be waving his hands over his head in rage. It fits the shouting head sculpt so well.

I’ll confess, knowing he was largely just a repaint of Agent Coulson, I wasn’t all that excited about getting Chameleon at first. But in hand, this figure is a lot of fun. Not only do the extra heads make it like three figures in one, but the weapons Hasbro packed in with this guy are all excellent. Not to mention there’s so much classic Spidey goodness bundled into this box that it’s hard not to love it. Interestingly enough, Chameleon was the hardest figure in this wave to track down. Amazon has been a good source of Legends for me in the past, but Chameleon has been languishing there in the $30 range for a while. I ultimately turned to Hasbro Toy Shop where I was able to get him at regular retail with free shipping.

“So what do they call you? White Mask?”

Another Marvel Monday, another Marvel Legends figure, and I’m continuing my slog through the old news that is the Rhino Wave. But I’m rather excited today, because I finally get to open one of my most anticipated figures in this wave… Kraven The Hunter! Hasbro did an incredible job on the 3 3/4-inch Marvel Universe version and ever since getting that figure I’ve been hunting (HA!) down as many comics as I could find in which he makes an appearance. I even went back and re-read Kraven’s Last Hunt earlier this year. That’s one of the cool things about collecting comic figures. Sometimes they make me take a second look at a character I didn’t give two shits about and suddenly my universe is expanded. Suffice it to say, I’ve subsequently grown pretty fond of Kraven and I have some pretty high hopes for this 6-inch Legends release.

The box is branded for Spider-Man at the top, along with a web-pattern illustrated on the tray behind the figure. This is another one of those instances of slot sharing and in this case the “Savage Force” consists of Kraven and Chameleon, which is certainly appropriate given their relationship. Indeed, this is one of the less tenuous character connections for one of these split slot packages that Hasbro has done in a while.

I’m not going to mince words, Kraven is absolutely freaking amazing. Thanks to his outrageous costume design, Hasbro had a lot to work with here and quite frankly they knocked it out of the park. About the only things really plain here are the upper legs and the bare chested buck and upper arms. Those legs get by with just brown paint for Kraven’s pants and the biceps have his animal print straps painted on. Everything else here is represented by beautiful new sculpting.

Kraven is sporting a pair of boots with sculpted wrappings and some wicked looking human skulls as knee pads with sculpted fringe around the legs.

The bare chest is covered by Kraven’s iconic lion head vest, which is basically a lion head split straight down the middle with the mane forming a rather large and regal looking collar that spills onto his shoulders and down his back. While I haven’t tried it, the vest appears to be pretty easily removed. Kraven’s forearms feature sculpted leather wrappings and fingerless gloves and he has a tribal necklace hanging around his neck. His belt is a separate piece that pegs together in the back and features enough pouches to make Deadpool jealous, as well as some sculpted sashes hanging down from his hips.

If all this wasn’t good enough, Hasbro ponied up for one of the better head sculpts that I’ve seen in any recent Legends releases. The detail in Sergei’s face is sharp, the skin tone is perfect and the paint… well, the paint looks fine until you get up really close and it starts to break down a little. Still, it’s fine.

The articulation on this guy is fantastic. The arms feature rotating hinges in the shoulders and wrists, there are swivels in the biceps, and the elbows are double hinged. THe legs are ball jointed at the hips, there are swivels at the thighs and tops of the boots, and the knees are double hinged. The ankles feature hinges and lateral rockers. There’s a swivel in the waist, a ball joint in the chest and the neck has both a hinge and a ball joint.

Besides one of Rhino’s gams, Kraven comes with a pretty cool spear accessory. It features a sculpted wood texture on the staff, a bronze painted tip, and some sculpted feathers strung around the base of the tip just to make it look pretty. His hands are sculpted so he can wield the spear in either hand or both.

Legends is a line that gets a lot of mileage out of simple painted bucks, but every once and a while a character like Kraven here give Hasbro a chance to shine.

After a brief hiatus to look at a rather unsatisfying statue, I’m throwing Marvel Mondays back into another stretch of Marvel Legends. This time, I’m tackling the long overdue and backlogged Rhino Wave so that I can press on to more current matters with the Doctor Strange figures and somewhere, somehow find time to check out that Abomination Wave, which I have not even begun collecting yet. Phew. You make it tough to be a Legends collector, Hasbro, but don’t ever stop!

It’s a new wave, but the packaging is the same old collector friendly window box. This time it’s once again Spider-Man themed. Someone over at Hasbro sure digs Spider-Man. Alls I’m saying is I got a lot of Spider-Mans on my Legends shelf. Not a bad thing. This is actually the second time we’ve seen the Scarlet Spider moniker appear on a modern Legends package. Previously it was the Joe Wade incarnation released in 2013 as part of the Rocket Raccoon BAF wave.

Aw, yeah… it’s hoodie time! In the seemingly never ending number of variant Spider-Man costumes, this is certainly one that stands out. Blue hoodie over spider costume? Check! Slightly askew spider emblem to show attitude? Check! Ankle pouches? Check! This is a cacophony of ideas that should not work, and yet there’s something about it that tickles me. What’s more, this figure just pulls it off brilliantly.

There’s nothing outrageous about the sculpt here, it’s just that hoodie sculpt torso with some mostly generic arms and legs. But you do get the silver web shooter bracelets and those aforementioned ankle pouches, complete with painted silver buckles and snaps. The belt is also nicely painted and the overall coloring of the figure utilizes some bright red and pale blue plastic. The spider emblems are also neatly printed on the front and back. This is a snazzy looking figure!

The portrait is as basic as basic can get. It’s just too huge, painted eyes, and that’s really all that’s required here. But whatever Hasbro may saved on a head sculpt, they invested in extra hands. Scarlet Spider comes with three pairs total: Fists, splayed fingers, and… yup, you guessed it! Thwippy hands!

The articulation here is solid enough. You get rotating hinges in the shoulders and wrists, double hinges in the elbows and knees, swivels in the biceps and thighs, ball joints in the hips, hinges and rockers in the ankles, a swivel in the waist, an ab crunch hinge in the chest and both a hinge and ball joint in the neck. True, he’s missing those shoulder crunches, which make for a really good Spidey body, but it probably would have been tough to do with the hoodie.

Spider-Man, Star Wars… my standing motto is, “screw clones, they ruin everything,” but as I said earlier, I’ve always been fond of this costume, so I was actually looking forward to getting this figure on my shelf. And it didn’t disappoint! He’s fairly simple, but the gaggle of extra hands and solid articulation makes him loads of fun to play with, and I’m always happy to add another figure to my Spider-Man shelf. And at this point the associated characters are about to get bumped off, because I’m going to need that whole shelf just for my Spider-Mans.

Even with Mondays dedicated to Marvel Legends, I’m still falling behind, so today I’m checking out both figures in the “Edge of Spider-Verse” slot. This way I can get to the BAF next week and then start in on either the Giant Man Wave or the Juggernaut Wave. Sorry, Rhino Wave, I’ll have to come back to you. You’re all ready so far overdue, I might as well save you for a slow Legends month, if that ever happens.

This “Edge of Spider-Verse” duo gives us two worthwhile characters for our Legends shelves, touching on both old and new. We’ve got Ben Reilly in the costume he wore while standing in for Peter Parker as Spider-Man, and of course in Spider-Verse. And we also get the new hotness breakout hit that is Gwen Stacy as Spider-Gwen. I’ll confess that I sat out most of Ben Reilly’s run as Spider-Man back in the day and have always preferred him as Scarlet Spider, but I have been enjoying reading Spider-Gwen quite a lot. Let’s start with Ben Reilly…

I won’t spend a whole lot of time on Reilly, because in essence it’s still just another variant on the Spider-Man costume that we’ve been seeing an awful lot of in this 6-inch line. I’m not complaining, mind you, but I feel a little bad for any collectors out there who aren’t really into Spidey. And I mean that on a couple of levels. Anyway, this is the body that we saw recently used for both Superior Spider-Man, and the Hobgoblin Wave Spidey, so it features those additional lateral shoulder crunches and is overall an excellent buck for old Web-head. The main addition here in terms of sculpt are the external web shooter cuffs.

One of the things that struck me most about the Superior Spider-Man design was how much it called back to this outfit, particularly with the larger and darker fields of blue, and the pronounced spider emblem on the chest. It’s not my favorite look, but I do like it. The paint here is especially crisp and the red is quite vibrant. There’s a little red bleeding through behind the whites of his eyes, but nothing too terrible.

Hasbro really loaded this guy up with extra pieces. For starters, you get a whopping three pairs of hands, which include two thwipping hands, two fists (hurray!), and two hands with splayed fingers. And that’s not all…

Probably the coolest thing about this figure is the inclusion of the head and hands to make Spider-Carnage. Considering how much is already in the package, this just feels like Hasbro going above and beyond. It’s a lurid love letters to fans of Web of Carnage and proves that even though Hasbro is cranking out Legends figures like crazy, they’re still managing to put in that little extra effort.

So, yes it’s another variant of the Spider-Man costume, and while I’m just that level of crazy where I can’t get enough Spidey variants, I can understand if some collectors are getting Spidey-Fatigue. Indeed, I think he’s catching up, or maybe passed, Iron Man as Hasbro’s Marvel Legends lovechild. But, regardless, this is a great looking figure and I never tire of playing with this buck. OK, moving on…

We have one of my more anticipated figures in recent Legends releases, Spider-Gwen. She’s been a breakout character from the Spider-Verse story and I’m glad to see that Hasbro wasted no time getting her a 6-inch figure. She was also an absolute bitch to get at a decent price, but thanks to Dorkside Toys, I was able to get her at a good price. Unfortunately, she doesn’t entirely live up to my expectations.

Her costume is simple enough and from the neck down the costume is achieved entirely through paint. The deco is largely black on white with some spider web patterns under her arms and inside her hood. Also, the soles and toes of her shoes are blue. The paint is fairly solid, although the lines could be sharper and there’s a little yellow discoloration on my figure’s chest and shoulder area.

You get a few options with the head. The figure comes out of the packaged masked and with her hood up. The paint on the mask features a gradient rose color around the eyes. The hood is separate from the head, so it doesn’t really impede the neck articulation much at all.

Also included is the extra unmasked head with a hood that’s sculpted in the down position. I think the head sculpt is excellent, and the paint is fairly tight, but I’ve said before that I wish Hasbro would paint the faces rather than leave them bare plastic. The waxy sheen on the skin is just a little off-putting. In fairness, it’s far more obvious under studio lights, but there’s always a little of it present making Ms. Stacey look like she’s been perspiring from working out.

Alas, you don’t get the same options with the hands. Gwen comes with a thwippy right hand and a left fist and no extras. Considering she comes in the same slot as the Ben Reilly Spidey I just looked at, it’s hard not to feel that the gal is getting shafted here. Then again, I understand that these figures need to cost out across each assortment. It’s a zero-sum game, so while some figures benefit from more, others feel it in the end.

Unfortunately, Hasbro still isn’t on the ball when it comes to the articulation of many of their female figures. Here’s what you get: The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, and wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, with swivels in the thighs and lower legs, and double hinged knees. The ankles have hinges and lateral rockers. There’s a ball joint under the chest and the neck features both a hinge and ball joint. Some of the biggest omissions as far as I’m concerned are the swivels in the biceps and double hinges in the elbows. Also, the lack of a waist swivel is a bummer. In some characters, those fewer points don’t always matter as much to me, but in the case of Spider-Gwen, the reduced pose-ability really hurts

I don’t want to come down too hard on Gwen. What’s here is fairly solid, but she is insanely acrobatic in the panels of her comic, and that’s something that just isn’t reflected nearly well enough in the figure. I never spend the extra bucks for Marvel Figmas or Figuarts. It’s too deep a hole to dive into. But I’d definitely consider it in the case of Spider-Gwen. It’s just kind of a shame that the umpteenth variant of Spider-Man in this wave feels like it got a lot more love and care than the one and only Legends Spider-Gwen. Of course, it helps that the former figure had a great body to build on, but maybe that just means it’s long past time that Hasbro invest in tooling a new and more agile female buck.

And that wraps up the individual figures in this wave. Reilly gives us Creel’s last two sets of arms and Spider-Gwen gives us… his ball and chain? Yeah, considering that she’s probably one of the most desired figures in the wave, I found it odd that she got bundled with a BAF part that you don’t really need, and a recycled one at that. Nonetheless, stop by next Monday and we’ll cobble together The Absorbing Man! With notification that my X-Men wave shipped today, I’m now officially backlogged with three whole waves!

Egads, it’s been a long trek through this wave of Marvel Legends, but here we are at the final boxed figure, and it is none other than old Web Head himself, Spider-Man. I was very happy Hasbro included him in this wave, because before now I didn’t have a plain old vanilla Spider-Man for my 6-inch shelf. I’ve got Raimi Spider-Man (a figure which has not aged well), Shitty Reboot Spider-Man (shitty reboot, but not a shitty figure), Superior Spider-Man, 2099 Spider-Man, but regular old comic book Spidey? Nope! So, here he is…

It’s the same packaging we’ve been seeing here on Monday for weeks now and I’ve got nothing new to add, other than it contains some fun little extras, as well as the last piece I need to build my Hobbie figure.

We’ve got the same basic buck, with a few modifications, that we saw for Spidey 2099 and Superior Spider-Man with a brand new paint job. I don’t think there’s another Marvel costume that I like more than regular old Spider-Man, and it’s all in the colors. There’s just something about that red and blue mixed with the web pattern and the big white eyes that I find so aesthetically pleasing, and this figure drives it home.The shades of blue and red on this guy are just plain gorgeous. Sure, there are a few blemishes, like the unpainted pins in the inside of the arms, or the miffed web pattern on the lateral shoulder hinges, but overall, this is a great looking figure.

A familiar buck means familiar articulation! Spidey features rotating hinges in the shoulders on top of shoulder hinges. The rest of the arms feature double hinged elbows, rotating hinges in the wrists, and swivels in the biceps. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, double hinged at the knees, and have swivels in the thighs. The ankles are hinged and have lateral rockers. The torso swivels at the waist, has an ab crunch hinges, and the neck is both hinged and ball jointed. Not bad!

Accessories! It doesn’t always happen, but every once and a while Hasbro blows a kiss to one of these Legends releases and bestows upon it a passel of extras and that’s what works here to take a very good figure and make it just that much better. Spidey comes with a total of three pairs of hands: Fists, web thwip hands, and open hands. By now, you all know I’m not all that big on changing out hands, but Spidey is one of those few characters where I think it really is a must.

You also get the goods that makes figure affectionately referred to as “Pizza Spidey.” That would be a slice of delicious pizza and a head with the mouth exposes so he can enjoy that delicious pizza. What’s cool here is the pizza is actually flavored plastic, so if you lick it it tastes like pepperoni. Go on try it! Haha, I got you to lick plastic for no reason. Sorry, I shouldn’t have done that. I hope I haven’t completely lost your trust.

Considering how many versions of Spider-Man have been released in the Legends line since it’s return, it’s nice to finally get a standard version of the webslinger for my shelf. A few minor paint issues aside, this is a great figure and my 6-inch Spidey-Verse is just about at that critical mass where it’s going to need its own shelf. And that’s impressive, considering I still haven’t finished off the Amazing Spider-Man 2 Green Goblin BAF Wave. And speaking of BAFs, next Monday I’ll finally put this wave to bed with a look at the Build-A-Figure Hobgoblin!

It feels like it’s taking me forever to get through this wave of Marvel Legends, but I’m finally nearing the home stretch. Today I’m checking out Spider-Girl who shares a slot with the Ultimates Spider-Woman. In the past when Hasbro has done this, the two variants in a slot shared the same BAF part, but in this case, you actually need to pick up both spider ladies in order to build your Hobbie. Now that the variants are shipping in the same case, I’m a big fan of doing things this way, so I don’t have extra BAF parts kicking around.

Package shot! Is there anything new to say? Not really. Because this is one of those slot-sharing figures, neither May Parker’s real name or alias actually appear on the front of the package, only the back. Instead the front features the “Warriors of the Web” moniker. It’s also worth noting that with both Hobgoblin’s head and wings included, there’s probably just as much plastic devoted to the BAF parts here as the actual figure.

May uses the same buck as the Spider-Woman variant in this slot. That was easy to deduce because the right arm on my figure is fused at the elbow. Considering the other figure’s elbow broke with almost no force applied, I dropped her right into a pot of boiling water and everything worked out fine. With that having been said, I think this is a great looking figure. The costume is a wonderful design that both pays homage to classic Spidey, but with the larger spider emblem, darker blues and her more prominant mechanical web shooters. The coloring on this figure is fantastic, with just a few hiccups where the shoulder hinges interrupt the web pattern and the unpainted blue knee pins.

She’s also inherited that fine, fine Aunt May Ass. Maybe MJ had something to do with it too.

Articulation consists of rotating hinges in the shoulders and wrists, with those odd elbow hinges. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, double hinged at the knees, and have swivels in the thighs and lower legs. The ankles are hinged and feature lateral rockers. You get a ball joint in the torso and the neck is both hinged and ball jointed.

I like this figure a lot, despite the fact that I’m not a big fan of the What If books and I’ve never read Amazing Spider-Girl or Spectacular Spider-Girl either. I’m far enough behind on my regular comics, without dipping into the shenannigans of Earth-982. She looks great, the colors are pretty, and she has an interesting backstory and I’m always happy to pad out my Spidey shelves. Next Monday I’ll take a look at the final boxed figure in the wave, Spider-Man himself!

It’s another lovely Marvel Monday and I’m continuing my push through the Hobgoblin Wave. Today I’m digging into the dwindling stack of figures with a look at Miguel O’Hara, aka Spider-Man 2099. I took a good part of the 90’s away from comic book reading and worrying about real life. When I came back to get caught up, I was at first intrigued by the different 2099 series, but in the end I never became a huge fan. With that having been said, it’s safe to say that Spider-Man 2099 and Doom 2099 were my favorites.

The packaging is the same as we’ve been seeing in this wave. You get the Spider-Man logo at the top and the figure’s name at the bottom. The window shows off the figure nicely along with the two BAF parts he comes with, Hobgoblin’s leg and sword. Given 2099 Spidey’s appearance in the Superior Spider-Man comic, I was a little disappointed we didn’t get him in the last Spider-Man wave, but now all that’s forgiven.

And speaking of Superior Spider-Man, this guy is built on the same buck as that figure with new hands and head and some added barbs to his forearms. There’s also a peg hole added to the back for his cape. Of all the things to come out of the 2099 books, I gotta say this costume is probably my favorite. It’s dark and a little sinister and it reflects the shitty world that O’Hara comes from quite nicely. And boy did Hasbro do a fine job recreating it here for the figure. The dark blue metallic paint is gorgeous and it pairs beautifully with the crimson. The paint on this figure is pretty clean too.

The web cape pegs right into his back and is appropriately cast in a milky, semi-clear plastic. It looks like it’s molded to be blowing off to the side, which is alright, but I think I would have preferred a more symmetrical look to it. Angled to the side a bit it looks fine, but straight up and down it looks a little weird. I’m nitpicking, I know.

I was both surprised and pleased to see that the patterns on Spidey’s mask are actually part of the sculpt. It would have been really easy to just paint a blank head and I’m glad that Hasbro decided to go the extra mile.

Because Spidey is built on the Superior Spider-Man body, he sports some exceptionally good articulation, and let’s face it, that’s something any Spider-Man figure should boast. The arms feature that extra lateral hinge in the shoulders that I love so much, along with rotating hinges. The elbows are double jointed, there are swivels in the biceps, and the wrists have rotating hinges. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, double jointed at the knees, and ahve swivels in the thighs. The ankles are hinged and have lateral rockers. The torso can swivel at the waist, has an ab-crunch hinge, and the neck is both hinged and ball jointed. The double hinges are a tad gummy, more so than on my Superior Spider-Man, but they’re not too bad.

Having O’Hara make an appearance in Superior Spider-Man was a treat in itself, but doubly so when I consider that there’s a good possibility that we owe this figure to that appearance. Either way, I was thrilled to see this figure make it into this second Spider-Man assortment. This costume has been a favorite of mine for a while and it feels great to have it represented on my Legends shelf, especially since I was never able to find the Marvel Universe 3 3/4″ version at a price I was willing to pay. If it had to be one or the other, this is the scale I’d prefer to have him in.