Marvel Legends: Spider-Man and Mary Jane 2 pack

While I eagerly await the amazing looking Lizard and Mysterio figures Hasbro just announced at SDCC, I thought I’d distract myself with some new figures Hasbro just released recently. And it’s none other than Marvel’s best couple that they can’t seem to stand, Spider-Man and Mary Jane!

I was very happy to get this Toys R Us exclusive 2-pack, even if it Peter is wearing his All-New-All-Different suit, which I’d be fine with if it weren’t for the glowy bits. I understand Hasbro wanting to put him in though, because they probably were worried an action figure of just some non-powered girl wouldn’t sell very well in toy stores, but for me, she was more or less the main reason I bought it.

I’ll be going into a bit more detail than I usually do with this review, because it’s only two figures.

Sculpt and Accessories:

I figure we’ll get ANAD Spider-Man out of the way first, since it’s just a repainted mold for the most part. This is the Pizza Spider-Man body they’ve been using for awhile, but there is one noticeable change. Instead of just using the normal head, they used the Superior Spider-Man head, which is an interesting choice. It doesn’t look too different, it just means the eyes are more narrow.

The paint choices are the next obvious change. Just like the new suit in the comics, there’s slight alterations to the normal design, with the slanted web lines and pointed belt area. I never thought it was too bad, even if I did prefer the classic look better, and I didn’t even mind the new emblem that much. They also seem to have used a much brighter blue than the other Spider-Man figures have. However, one aspect I very much disliked of the ANAD suit was the glowing eyes and emblem, and not only is that present on the figure as well, but it’s also one of the worst parts of the figure. The eyes more or less look fine if you like the glow, but I really don’t think it looks good on the emblem. Instead of making the border of the spider symbol glow, it just looks like the sprayed a blotch on his chest and slapped the spider emblem on it. It looks incredibly sloppy and not well done at all.

Here’s a comparison of the suit compared to previous figures.

Now onto the Mary Jane figure. This one is really nice. It appears to be a mostly new mold, maybe only having the same arms as previous female figures. Her jeans are beautifully modeled, and you’re able to see a all the detailed lining, pockets, and folds. And if that wasn’t good enough, her head looks great. They even nailed the freckles! I personally kind of wished she had some sort of smile or smirk, but a plain face works for me well enough. Let’s not forget one of MJ’s defining features either, her red hair. It looks really good, and it starts out dark red and sort of fades to a reddish brown farther down. It looks really nice.

MJ only comes with one accessory, her purse. I was happy enough to get the MJ figure that I don’t really mind, plus there’s a new accessory for Spider-Man I was very happy to get, so I think it’s a fair enough trade off. And it’s not a bad looking purse either, so it works. Apparently MJ and the goblins shop at the same store though.

Now, I saved Peter’s accessories until the end of this section for a reason. He comes with the standard 3 pairs of hands we’re used to with Spidey figures, the fists, open hands, and web shooting ones. They do have the slightly angled webbing design though. However, Spider-Man also comes with an unmasked Peter Parker head, which is something I was very happy to get. Before we had only had the half mask head, and more recently the bearded Peter one from cosmic Spider-Man. This was very nice to finally get, for all the pictures I want to take, especially with Mary Jane now.

And yes, it can fit on the other bodies, so don’t worry if you don’t like the All new suit (word of warning though, if you want to put it on the suited Chameleon body like I did, it might be a little loose when you put it back on the Spidey body)

Now, why did I save the Peter head accessory for last? Well, while I am very happy to have it, I also need to put it with my con section of the paint and sculpts. It’s modeled very well, and I love the hair lines and nice smirk he has. It overall looks really good…
…from the side. When you look at it straight on, it’s very obvious to see his eyes are looking in slightly different directions, and it’s incredibly distracting. If you can buy this 2 pack in the actual stores instead of online, see if you can pick  one up that doesn’t look as silly.

The only real blemish MJ has is on her left ankle. Someone got a bit sloppy with the skin colored paint, and got it on her jeans, so now it just looks like a dog bit her pant leg or something.

Overall, these aren’t enough to distract me from loving how the figures look, but the Peter eyes are pretty annoying, and prevent me from wanting to take any pics straight on like that, which is a shame because that head and MJ were the two main reasons I bought this set.

Articulation:

If you’ve seen my reviews for the other Spider-Man figures with this body, you pretty much know what to expect at this point. It’s a very nice range of motion, and the only real difference between this and Pizza Spidey is that the legs have a bit better range of motion. All the joints seemed pretty good, nothing too stiff or loose. Like I said, the Peter head is a little loose because I put it on the Chameleon body, which has a slightly bigger ball joint and stretched it out somewhat, so careful of that.

Hasbro’s female bodies have been known for not being too great, but I was pleasantly surprised with Mary Jane’s articulation.

While Mary Jane still has the not so great arms, with no bicep swivel and a single jointed elbow twist and swivel that can’t really go beyond 90 degrees, her legs are another story entirely. As you can see in the picture, posed next to the other Spider-women, her legs go much farther directly to the sides than either of them. It’s a really fantastic range of motion I wasn’t expecting from her, and it kind of puts the Spider ladies to shame in comparison.

Her torso actually moves around a fair bit as well, and it can bend back and forth a little more than the previous female bodies, so you can get some nice poses out of that. It’s still not as good as the male ab crunches, but it’s a definite improvement.

Along with the arms, the only other negative thing I can say about her is that like a lot of female figures, her hair can get in the way when you try to move her head around, especially when she’s trying to look up. It’s a bit better than others because her hair is made of a somewhat soft rubber, so you can sort of force it where you want her to look.

Despite some of the negatives I brought up, this is still a pretty great 2 pack. At $40 retail, the price might be a bit steep if you don’t like the All-New Spidey suit, but for me, it was worth it to get an MJ figure. Plus, the alternative would have been just to repack the Pizza Spidey figure, and while that would be good for people who haven’t been able to get the highly sought after figure, it would have been a pointless purchase for me, someone who already had it, so it’s nice they tried to give me a little variation (And hey, if you really want the pizza Spidey figure, they just revealed a slightly different retro re-release at SDCC). Peter’s head is also a really great bonus to have, even if the eyes were unfortunately painted a little off. Still, I’m glad I can now take photos of my favorite couple in comics.

All-New-All-Different Spider-Man

Pros:

• Nice to not get a repack
• Peter Parker head!
• Slightly improved leg articulation over something that was already pretty good

Cons:

• I already didn’t like the glowing bits on the suit, and the sloppy green behind the emblem doesn’t help
• The eyes on Peter Parker are pretty disappointing

Grade: B

Mary Jane

Pros:

• Beautifully sculpted details
• Fantastic paintjob
• Really decent range of motion overall

Cons:

• Little paint error at the bottom of one of the pant legs
• The range of motion on those arms is not great

Grade: A-

Overall Grade: B+

And like always, I’ll leave you with a bunch of photos I took of the couple. I used mostly the normal Pizza Spider-Man body because I just think it looks better. I did use a bit of photo editing to make some pics a little more fun though. It’ll be pretty obvious which ones.