OLDNERD

Everything about this is complicated.

The decision to get Maximum Series Spider-Man was complicated. In principle, Hasbro making a decision to up its articulation and accessories game is right up my alley. I was expecting it to cost 40. I was prepared for it to cost 45. So when the preorders came in at 50, I passed. 

The price was the subject of a lot of conversation on the internet, but also the preorders sold out within hours, so it couldn’t have been that controversial. Anyway, a month or two pass, life goes on, and a few weeks back, someone puts up some bonus preorders. I’d been watching reviews and was comfortable with my decision not to get the figure, so I jumped on it.

Does that make sense? Nope. It’s complicated. There were three things going on. First, end-of-days nihilism. Tariffgeddon had just dropped, and the idea of a year’s worth of preorders getting a 50% surcharge was looming large, much less “continued ability to acquire food and basic necessities. Second, general collector FOMO. But third, it’s Spider-Man.

And if there’s one thing collecting has revealed, it’s that Spidey is my Number One guy, and, in fact, has been since I was a kid. I don’t have a ton of childhood memories - hell, everything before around ag 30 is a bit on the fuzzy side just because that’s the brain I got, but the more I think about it, the bigger Spidey is.  Which is among other things how I ended up with 13 Peter Parkers and literally dozens of other Spideys and related characters. I doubt the rest of the Maximums will tempt me (The $60 Hulk was an easy pass and there’s zero chance of a twinge of regret down the line), but yeah, Spidey made me pull the trigger.

The figure itself is… complicated. It’s very good. The big changes to the body are deeeeep butterfly joints, very significant drop-down hips, and a modified ab crunch and diaphragm ball that really goes hard in both directions. Making that first pose in the above pic possible unlike any other Spidey in the bin.

The accessories are much more of a mixed bag. The weblines are nicely sculpted but floppy. I did something about that but that’s another post. The hands are good and plentiful. Two fists, two wallcrawl, two (slightly new ) thwips, and two grips, two tthwips-with-short-web-effects, and two bare-hand web-shooter forearms. There’s two big web effects and a stand for them. Oh, and a Peter Parker head. A very bad, very useless Peter Parker head. It’s goofy and creepy and unnecessary. Oh, and a Spider-Sense effect that is one of the best accessories Hasbro has made in a long time. So, yeah. Mixed bag. I’d have traded the Web-Sperm concussive ball for a half-mask head or something. So, mixed bag. Not precisely “Maximum”.

And the pic is complicated. I knew what I wanted instantly, unbidden in my head, a comics memory from the distant past - the acrobatic sequence showing a sequence of flips and jumps. I took each of these pics twice and the last one a third time - first time to fix the lighting and the last pose to fix a weird butt problem caused by the angles and a weird distortion the iPhone camera can introduce at certain angles and distances. Then getting the Doc Ock shot so that the face and tentacle lined up right, then making a Shocker blast effect from scratch, then the usual lighting and shadow touchups.