review by justin anderson

the desription: Spider-Man is the focal point of the first wave, bringing in the character in his well-known costume.

the articulation: The figure is packed with joints, 34 in total, counting many paired joins as separate. The neck, upper torso, arms, fingers, hips, legs, and the toes are all jointed, allowing for a full range of motion, including posing the hands for a classic "web shooting" pose.

the design: The figure is sculpted based on a standing pose, but capable of taking any pose imaginable with his joint system. Not to mention they actually made the figure decent looking, along with all the joints.

It's the same basic mold as the black costume Spidey figure, with the addition of carved lines in the costume for the black web details and the eyes. In other words, the 2 figures actually share only a minor amount of pieces. As with his counterpart, the figure stands 6" tall, give or take.

Included is a circular base, painted as a brick wall cut into a large Spidey face with eyes and webs. The bottom edge is a recession with a camera webbed to it. The back features a slot to mount the base on a wall, by sliding it onto a large screw head. And yes, you can pose the figure to cling to a wall, peg it to the base, and hang it up. A waist clip was included which pegs to the base, but unless you're figure won't stay on the base, you can toss it.

Sadly, it's not perfection. First, the attempt at painting in the costume webbing failed. They tried McFarlane's "paint wash" technique, and it failed. So not only are half the webs not painted, the costume looks dirty. I'd suggest filling these in with a fine point marker. The discs which hold the legs on at the hips were cast in red, and painted blue, so paint may scrape off (casting them in blue would have been a much better idea, I would think).

The plastic in the elbows isn't the greatest. Bending them too far may show stress marks. I've seen a few other copies of this figure on the shelves with less than great paint jobs.

the review: It could have been the best Spidey figure to date (and I may even argue that it IS, considering some Kenner-style costumes I've seen the character burdened with over the years), but a few oversights hurt it in the long run. Still, for $6 and the ability to mount it on a wall, it's well worth a **** of ***** rating.

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