The Spider-man Homecoming premier was held last night in Hollywood, and the reviews have started pouring in. By all accounts this is the best Spider-man movie since Spider-man 2 way back in 2004. This is great news, not only for the future of Spidey in film, but for Spider-man in the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe as a whole. So today we're going to take a look at another couple of the Marvel Legends Homecoming figures; Homemade Suit Spider-man and the villainous Vulture.
Possible Mild Spoilers
Lets get this out of the way right now, the Vulture Flight Gear Build-a-figure is complete bullshit. Period. I don't care how big the wings are, how much articulation there is, or how many paint ops there are, Adrian Toomes is not the Vulture without his wings. The whole concepts of the BAF is that if you collect the whole wave you get a BONUS figure. It is NOT about being forced to buy everything so that you can complete one figure. I'm going to go into this in more detail at a later date, but right now for every positive thing I say about the Vulture just add "but I shouldn't be forced to buy 6 additional figures to get the complete figure" to the end. Now, with that out of the way, lets begin.
The Spiderling, Crime-fighting Spider, Spider-boy? The Homemade Suit Spider-man and Vulture both come PACKAGED in the standard Marvel Legends box, with a nice big window to see the figure inside. Vulture is strangely packaged off to one side with a big empty space in the box. I guess this was done to fit the invisible stand in there, but I think they could have come up with better solution. The back of each package shows off the rest of the wave, as well as the BAF pieces, and has a little blurb about each of the character. Standard stuff for your Marvel Legends.
The SCULPTING and PAINT on both Spider-man and Vulture are excellent. The sculpting on Peter Parker's hoodie and track suit really make it feel like this suit is a crude first attempt at a Superhero costume. The sculpted mask looks great too, with my only nitpick being the sculpt of the goggles. They're just a little soft and there isn't a huge amount of detail there. The paint is clean and consistent throughout and the spider symbol on the chest looks great, even if it is slightly off center. It adds to the charm of this suit. The paint it a little sloppy on the hands, but I don't think it's a huge deal. Also, the sculpt of the interchangeable hoods are both great, and sit perfectly on his shoulders.
Vulture has a lot more sculpted detail than the Homemade Suit Spidey figure. His costume is much more complex, with lots of mechanical parts, buckles, and straps. The helmet looks great and is made out of multiple pieces. The two tubes and visor are all separate pieces, and the visor makes the painted eyes look as if they are glowing just like in the movie. I'm not sure how accurate the two tubes are because I've only seen one in the trailers, but they look great regardless. I really like the look of the fur collar, and the harness across his chest looks great. His legs, boots, and talons all look great although some of the detail gets lost in all the mechanical parts. This is where a wash would have worked perfectly to bring out that sculpted detail. Without it, the legs look a little one note and soft.
From what I can tell from the trailers and clips released, it looks like Vulture has a couple different sets of Wings in the film. The ones he uses to fight Spider-man on the Staten Island Ferry are much smaller that the ones he has on the beach next to the Boardwalk. He also appears to have gauntlets and an upper arm exoskeleton system that's not present with any of Hasbro's Vulture figures. There's a ton of sculpted detail in the wings and they do look pretty impressive when fully extended. The black color is a little flat and plastic-y looking, but the green looks really great. All the paint is nice and sharp, there's no slop but maybe just a little over spray here or there.
While this Spider-man figure technically has less ARTICULATION than the other Homecoming Spider-man figure, I felt that this figures articulation worked better and I had a better time posing him. Maybe it's the slightly longer limbs that lend themselves to better posing possibilities. The only things that is a little restrictive is the alternate full hood, but that's but because it's designed to sit a certain way on his shoulders and is no big deal.
Vulture has some great articulation too. He has a slightly longer peg in his neck so he has a greater range of movement especially around that big fur collar. He can almost look straight up! The legs again are the only disappointing part, the hips are restricted by some sculpted pieces on his belt. They are however rubbery so you've got some play in them, and I really wish the talons on his feet were articulated. I want to be able to open and close them so he could grab on to things. But, it's very minor and not a deal breaker.
Both figures are a little light when it comes to ACCESSORIES. Spidey comes with some extra hands which are always appreciated, and an alternate hood so you can display him with his hood up or down. Both look great, it's just a little tricky to swap to the full hood at first. After you do it once or twice you get the hang of it. An alternate Peter Parker head sculpt would have been nice, but I think he made out alright. He also comes with one of the very important BAF pieces.
Vulture doesn't really come with any accessories other than the BAF piece, and a very important stand. Vulture comes with a big backpack the Wings build off of, it's got some really nice paint detailing on the back. The most important accessory he comes with though is a clear plastic base that holds up the enormous Flight Gear. Without it he would never be able to stand. Just like Spider-man, I would have loved an unmasked Michael Keaton head. That would have been awesome.
OVERALL, we've got one great figure and one figure tarnished by a bad decision. If these two guys came packaged together in a 2-pack, even if they were priced the same as the Civil War 3-pack, I would have had no problem. I get that the wings are big, and ate up lots of tooling costs, but splitting them up and calling it a Build-a-Figure is just wrong. Hopefully Hasbro can learn from their mistakes, and it's smooth sailing from here on out.
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