Marvel Legends Hobgoblin wave

Today I’m gonna look into the Marvel Legends Hobgoblin wave. Some may call this the ‘Spidey Hobgoblin’ wave or the ‘Pizza Spidey’ wave. I personally prefer ‘Pizza Spidey’ because that’s how I remember things i.e. by slapping them some sort of an identifiable trait that’ll immediately spring my memory box open. Besides, it’s more fun to use such phrases in conversations with your fellow geeks. Imagine saying to each other....”I just got myself the Pizza Spidey wave!” then the next geek will say...”Really? Well, I just snagged the Open-Jawed Ghost Rider wave myself!”... See, it’s geekier that way. Haha. To each his own, eh?

Anyhoo. I’ve been holding off from getting this set because I was saving up my moolah to get that blasted Hulkbuster wave into my collection first. As my readers are probably aware by now, I already have the ‘Buster wave in my collection and I took my geek factor to a whole higher level by re-painting my Hulkbuster BAF with the appropriate metallic colours that it so deserved. With the ‘Buster wave safely displayed in my action-figure room, I immediately turned my attention into getting the Open-Jawed Ghost Rider wave (see what I just did there! Haha) although I wasn’t so inclined to get the Rhino BAF.

Let’s talk a bit about the price of these Marvel Legends. These MLs costs a bomb over here in Malaysia and I think the pricing is about the same in our neighbouring countries like Singapore or Thailand as well. It’s USD20 – 22 in the States but when these are converted into our local currency, it’s way more than that!

Which brings me to my next point.

I admit that my plans to save up for the Open-Jawed Ghost Rider/Rhino BAF wave got derailed the other day when Hasbro announced that they’d be holding their end-of-the-year warehouse clearance sale. Upon seeing the sale poster for the first time, I immediately went “Uh-oh. I smell impulse purchases looming in the air!”. Come sale day, I found myself battling it out with other Marvel Legends enthusiasts at one of the stalls where them Hasbro staff was literally throwing out figures from the Pizza Spidey/Hobgoblin wave to the zombie-like crowd. I was lucky enough to have used my physical attributes to snag myself all six figures that make up the wave! What astonished me more was the price point of these MLs. I won’t divulge much but suffice to say that if you squint hard enough you can see that Hasbro literally slapped a ridiculously low price onto these figures. I won’t even try to rub it in by converting it into US dollars. And to think that this wave was just two waves ago from the latest ‘Buster wave. Inconceivable, but I’m not complaining!

So here I am today with the Pizza Spidey wave in hand. I guess the Open-Jawed Ghost Rider/Rhino BAF wave would have to wait for now....*shucks* 

Let’s look into the six (6) figures:

MOC collectors will love the packaging style. You can take the figures out from the packaging without spoiling the box and put them back inside if you wish to. But why would you wanna do that when you know they’re gonna look awesome displayed out in the open? I like the new ML window packaging but I do miss the ‘blister backing card/bubble plastic style’ we last saw during the early stages of the Hasbro ML re-launch

1)        Classic Spider-Man

No doubt that this is the most sought after figure in the wave aside from Daredevil and Spider-Man 2099 for me. We’ve already gotten countless Spidey figures over the years and one must be asking thyself...”Do we actually need yet ANOTHER Spider-Man figure?”...well, at least this time around the answer is an astounding YES! The designers at Hasbro managed to give this Spidey figure helluva articulation points without compromising the aesthetics & looks of the figure itself. And who wouldn’t want that ‘half-open mask’ headsculpt with a grinning Peter Parker and the pizza accessory! To top it all off, this action figure comes with 3-pairs of hands. How does that sound for your money’s worth? This is gonna be the default Spider-Man figure for many ML collectors for many years to come.

2)        Ultimate Spider-Woman

While I’m rather familiar with the Ultimates (alternate version of The Avengers) and a couple of other teams from the same universe, I have to confess that I am not familiar at all with the Ultimate Spider-Woman character. I think this figure will go well with the Miles Morales Spider-Man figure on your display shelf.  This action figure is a nice addition nonetheless to my group of ‘Spider-Gals’ but Ms Jessica Drew here (that’s her real name by the way) is kinda hard to balance and to be left standing on her own mainly due to her sculpted flowing hair. Nothing that a figure stand can’t fix but it would have been nicer if she can stand on her own two feet.

3)        Spider-Man 2099

I love Spider-Man 2099 since its inception in 1992. I still read that first issue whenever possible. At the time, it was pretty cool knowing that in some distant future, somebody would eventually pick up the Spider mantel and continue Peter Parker’s legacy. There is also a new series started in 2014 but I haven’t read any of those yet. My memory of this character hangs heavily on my reading of the original series which came out in the early 90s. I got to know that there were at least 3 action figures made for Spidey 2099 but this one takes the cake for being the best one thus far. I love this figure from the moment I laid my eyes on him and I can’t wait even then to put him on my display shelf. This figure looks great and is a fine addition to your diverse selection of Spider-Men.

4)        Spider-Girl

This particular character is taken of the Spider-Verse storyline in 2014. I haven’t read the TPB yet but in a nutshell, that storyline featured every single Spider-Man that has ever graced the pages of Marvel comics being attacked by a vampiric being called Morlun and some group called the Inheritors. In this future timeline, Spider-Girl (May "Mayday" Parker) is the teenage daughter of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson. They named their daughter after Pete’s Aunt May (Awww!). It was said that May took Ben Reilly's (Pete’s clone) Spider-Man II costume and soon took to crime-fighting herself. Pretty interesting character. I love how this action figure is well made although I have limited knowledge on how she’s really supposed to look like. Although it makes me wonder how Ms Parker manages to slip into the late Ben Reilly’s uniform without the suit looking absolutely oversized with her in it....or does Ms Parker has some sewing skills that we don’t know of?  

5)        Anti-Venom

This is purportedly one of the fan-favourite character from the endless symbiote-based Spidey’s list of allies/adversaries. Anti-Venom has made an appearance through Marvel Select although this ML version is way more articulated that the MS version. This is clearly a repaint of Toxin from the Ultimate Green Goblin wave with tweaks here and there to make it distinctively different than the red symbiote dude. The only accessory that Anti-Venom came with is its spike thingy that you can mount on his back but it can be rather loose at times and falls off quite easily. Nice addition to my display shelf. The black/white colour scheme gives a nice contrast to an otherwise monotonous red/blue/black we’ve seen on most of the Spideys & symbiotes.

6)        Daredevil

I initially wanted that yellow Walmart/Walgreen Daredevil as my new default horned-vigilante for my display shelf. In fact I was just mulling over the idea of getting one through a friend in the States when opportunity presented itself the other day for me to bring back the traditional red-costumed Matt Murdock back into my collection. Daredevil here has the one of if not THE best head sculpt of all 6 figures. I have 2 (or 3....can’t recall) other Daredevil figures from the Toybiz era but those are easily trounced by the awesomeness of this latest permutation of the character. My only grouse is that his billy club looks a wee bit oversized compared to his body but others than that I’m really happy I have him in my collection.

The BAF Hobgoblin

Once you’ve assembled all BAF pieces that came with each of the figures mentioned before, you’d be able to feast your eyes on one of the coolest BAF produced by Hasbro in recent times. This Hobgoblin is more or less based on the comic book drawn by artist Humberto Ramos. Too many baddies have donned the Hobgoblin mantel and some are saying that this is the Phil Urich version while some insisted that this is the Roderick Kingsley version. Whatever. I’m just stoked to have A Hobgoblin on my villain shelf next to my classic Green Goblin. After all, one inspired the other!

This BAF comes with his flaming sword and pumpkin bomb. You can also count his wings as an accessory if you wish to but to me it’s just an extension of his suit really. His wings might take up a considerable amount of space in your display shelf as it does not fold nor adjustable so you might want to allocate proper space so that his wings won’t topple any of your existing MLs while you put him to join the rest of his ML buddies in your display area.

He stands a bit taller than the rest of the standard ML figures that came in the wave and I think that’s a good thing as I almost always want my BAF to stand prominently bigger than your average sized ML figure. Hobgoblin is a much needed character in the ML universe (I don’t think he’s ever been produced before in the ML line but I might be wrong here) so you might wanna grab this wave if you see it. All the figures plus the BAF are well worth your money.