It’s Figure Friday and it’s also New Toy o’clock this week so let’s get into it!
Spider-Man: No Way Home S.H.Figuarts Spider-Man (New Red & Blue Suit)
It’s personal quirk of mine but I can tell how much I like something by how quickly I feel the need to buy a second one as a “back up.” Seriously, I have three identical sweaters because it’s just the right shade of blue and my a-hole cats already trashed one of them. That’s how I feel about this new S.H. Figuarts Spider-Man figure.
Since I have almost every prior iteration of the Figuarts Tom Holland Spider-Man, it was a forgone conclusion that I’d be preorder this one as soon as it was available. It’s also probably the best Spider-Man movie costume to date…and we only got it for a maddeningly short thirty seconds at the end of No Way Home.
The figure feels like it jumped right out of the comics with how well it adapts the classic comic design of the Spidey-suit. It’s an incredibly vibrant RED and BLUE, just primary colors for days and it looks like it was drawn by John Romita Sr. himself.
Honestly, it’s kind of hard to find fault with this figure…but I’m going to try anyway.
The crotch on this guy is a mess, which is something I overheard my doctor tell their assistant, but it’s true for this figure too. It’s super posable but at the expense of the figure’s aesthetics. There are joints, cuts, swivels down there to the point where Spider-Man looks like he’s sporting some adventurous underwear. That being said, you can pull of some pretty spectacular poses so all is mostly forgiven.
If it matters to you, the figure comes with an optional Spider-Man head but not an unmasked Peter Parker head. This is fine by me, I never utilize any of my figures unmasked heads and I was glad at the inclusion of an alternate Spidey noggin. Previously released had extremely tiny (and infinitely losable) lenses for the Spider-Man head which were a pain in the ass to swap out and never looked quite right.
You also get: 4 Pairs of optional hand parts, Spider webs: Long, Medium, Short.
If you’ve been holding out on picking up a Figuarts Spider-Man or if you missed out on the MAFEX Classic Spider-Man, this is absolutely the figure you’ve been waiting for.
Star Trek: The Next Generation USS Enterprise
A couple of things before we get started on this section, I am a massive Trekkie and I love a good deal.
I’m more than a little annoyed that Playmates fumbled the Star Trek license this time around but it was pretty plain to see the products they were producing weren’t what the consumers were after. The figures were solidly out of step with what the franchise was doing in 2022-23 and were too similar to what they had done thirty years ago. Give me some Strange New Worlds figures! Captain Pike with ACTION hair! The USS Discovery from…Star Trek Discovery! The USS Protostar from Star Trek Prodigy would have sold tons!
At any rate, a game I’ve been playing recently is stopping into a local Target on the way to my parents’ house for my weekend check-in with them, picking up the ST:TNG Enterprise toy (taking care not to disturb the dust build up on it) and scanning the price. Once of the things spooking consumers away from purchasing what’s essentially a reissue of an old toy was the steep $40 USD price tag. The TOS Enterprise is currently up for preorder on Big Bad Toy Store for an eye-watering $59.99 USD but somehow I managed to snag that for under $20 on clearance last year.
This Enterprise quickly became my white whale since it almost doesn’t exist. I’ve only ever laid eyes on it at this one particular store, it’s not on BBTS, but it IS on Amazon. I can only assume that I’m one of dozens waiting for the price to drop so I can add it to the Star Trek corner in my living room. Well, this past weekend I got my wish when Target (and Amazon) dropped the price to $23 which was good enough for me.
From a review standpoint the model is…pretty okay. It lights up and makes noise, the saucer section detaches, and it has an EXTREMELY flimsy stand. It could stand to be a little more detailed but I cannot complain for the price and if I get really fussy about it I can pick up some third party decals to make it more “authentic.”
Looks like this column kind of got away from me, so until next time…Live long and prosper.
