Hasbro Marvel Legends: "Renew Your Vows" Two Pack Spider-Man/Spinneret Action Figure Review

Image © Dan's ToyBox 2022

Welcome back to another Dan's ToyBox review of the Hasbro Marvel Legends "Renew Your Vows" Spider-Man/Spinneret Two Pack. I had this on pre-order but was fortunate enough to find one while we were on vacation. Plus, I saved $5, not a bad deal! This was high on my list of figures celebrating Spider-Man's 60th Birthday this year and I'm very pumped to have it in my collection. I will admit there are a lot of good things going on with these figures, but they also have their share of problems.

Bitten by a radioactive spider, Peter Parker gains the proportionate strength, speed, and agility of the arachnid. He also develops an early warning "spider-sense" which allows him to sense danger via a tingling in the back of his head. Peter's sense doesn't necessarily tell him where the danger is coming from but increases in intensity as the danger gets closer. Armed with web shooters of his own design, and webbing he created in his home lab, Peter first tried to cash in on his newfound abilities, but when a burglar breaks into the Parker home and guns down his uncle in cold blood, Peter realizes this was the same burglar he could have stopped earlier that night. Taking this painful lesson that with Great Power comes Great Responsibility, Peter puts his abilities to use, fighting crime as The Amazing Spider-Man! Spider-Man first appeared in Amazing Fantasy #15, published August 01, 1962, and was created by writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko.

Mary Jane Watson-Parker became Peter Parker's wife and on Earth-18119 had a very similar existence as her 616 Universe counterpart, with the exception that she and Peter had a daughter named Annie and after donning the Empire Unlimited Test suit initially created by Dr. Sharron Stillwell and later reverse engineered by Peter to mimic his own spider-powers, fought crime alongside her husband as the heroine, Spinneret. This character first appeared in Amazing Spider-Man Renew Your Vows #1 on June 3, 2015, created by writer Dan Slott and artist Adam Kubert.

As regular readers know, Dan's ToyBox grades figures based on Accessories, Appearance, Articulation, and Affordability and then combines those categories for an overall figure rating of zero to five toyboxes, with five being the top score.

Image © Dan's ToyBox 2022

As we lead off with the discussion of accessories, both figures come with masked and unmasked head sculpts, fisted hands, thwipping hands, and wall crawling hands. Mary Jane's unmasked head sculpt has been done before with my first exposure to it being included with the Retro Gwen Stacy figure. To be honest, I liked the darker red on that earlier version as this is very "orangey" for me and has no wash to give it depth. We've also seen the unmasked Peter Parker head before, albeit with bruises as it looks to be the same head from the Kraven/Black Suit Spidey two pack. I'm actually grateful that there was no webbing included as I can use my own and I'm really, not an overly big fan of the webbing accessories typically packed with Spider-Man figures. The fact that both figures have three sets of hands in the spider-poses we need, wall crawling, thwips, and fists is enough to give them a good grade, throw in the unmasked heads and that solidifies the A for Accessories.

Images copyright Dan'sToybox2022

Moving on to the appearance, let's talk about Spinneret first. The facial paint applications on her unmasked head are very nice and the paint apps for her mouth, eyes, and eyebrows are very cleanly applied. MJ's green eyes are really very well done. The masked head, while also lacking any wash or depth to the hair, is actually my favorite of the two. The sculpted bun and ringlets of hair hanging on either side of her face look really good, but definitely need a darker wash. Her lips and teeth are very cleanly painted, and I had no issues with the application. Even the black around her eyepieces is clean and the white lenses have no overspray or sloppiness to them. My biggest complaint is the difference in red from her upper torso to her abdomen, and back to her upper thighs. The abdomen is a darker red than the rest of her body, which stands out and is surprising to me. As I more closely examined it, I realized that the abdomen was molded in red, with white paint apps applied over top, whereas the upper torso, arms, and legs appear to be molded in white. I'm not sure why this was done, but it makes for a very noticeable difference at her midsection. On the plus side though, the webbing lines match up from upper to lower torso, which shows attention to detail in the paint apps. Also, the red spider emblem on her back is very cleanly applied and looks really nice on my figure. I am pleased with the attention to detail on the webbing patterns on the suit and was happy to not find any issues with the application of them. Granted, Spinneret's suit is rather simple, but it's elegant in its own way and Hasbro has done a nice job of capturing the look.

Spider-Man himself is really, really well done. My only real complaint is the blue fails to match up on his shoulders and arms/torso. The shoulders were clearly molded in red, with blue paint apps applied over top and unfortunately, this makes the blue much darker than the rest of the costume. That being said, I am very impressed with the cleanliness of the weblines and the very nice-looking spider emblem on his chest. I feel it's safe to say that collectors have waited a long time to get this larger logo on his chest in figure form and I, for one, am very happy with how it turned out. I was also pleasantly surprised to see that the red emblem on his back was painted and extends onto the butterfly joints at his shoulders. AT least, I liked it at first... until I began moving the joints and watched the legs grow longer. I get that they had to be painted in such a fashion so as not to break up the look when the butterfly joints are moved, however, when fully extending the joints forward, the result looks terrible. Granted, if you squint, it kinda looks like Spidey-2099's logo, but you can see some splotching in the application and the horrible break on the right shoulder where the legs don't even extend to the red on the interior of the joint. This is the most disappointing feature for me in terms of appearance on this figure. Granted, I know that I won't always be posing him with the arms that far forward all the time and when I do, most all pictures will likely be from the front, but geez, for a figure with some really good things going on, that is the biggest detraction for me. Looking at both Peter and MJ, I will give them an A overall for Appearance because the general aesthetic of both figures comes off nicely and when posed together, they do look good, in spite of the few issues I have.

Where Spinneret had fewer appearance issues, she makes up for it with articulation problems. She features the standard female body mold that Hasbro has been using for several years now. Starting at the top, her masked head turns side to side easily and can look down a bit more, than it can upwards. The unmasked head is limited by the hair sculpt. You can turn it side to side and move the hair to accommodate but looking up or down is pretty much nonexistent. Her shoulders raise out to a decent T pose, and slightly beyond, but not by much. They will rotate a full 360 degrees though. Thankfully, she has both bicep swivel and pin less, double-jointed elbows which bend in good enough. Mine were very stiff and needed some heating though to work at first. Each of her hands hinge and pivot, though they are small, and care is needed as I felt some stress and resistance on the thwip hands. A quick dip in hot water cured that problem though. My biggest complaint as usual, lies in the upper diaphragm joint which bends forward just a bit, can tilt backwards decently and can tilt sideways and rotate. I wish that Hasbro would add a waist swivel or even a lower diaphragm hinge to the female bodies though to help increase functionality. Also, disappointingly due to the design of this body mold, Spinneret cannot do decent splits, in fact her legs don't really seem to go much beyond 30 degrees. She will kick forward all right, but not back at all, due to the sculpt of her backside. Her upper thigh cut works fine and the pin less double-jointed knees are decent enough but won't bend in so far as to bring heel to behind. She does have generous ankle pivot and hinge, which I initially thought would be hindered by the ankle "flares" on her costume. To my surprise, they are floating and can move up just enough to permit ankle movement.

I think that Hasbro learned from their mistakes on the original retro style Spider-Man body as the articulation on this figure is an improvement. He still has the cut in the back of his neck to accommodate the upward tilt with the ball peg, but unfortunately this gives us a horrible gap under the chin. Hasbro really ought to take lessons from other companies and give us a double ball peg and movable neck. That would allow for Spider-Man to get into a better upward looking pose and would prevent the hideous chin gap. Otherwise, his head will turn side to side easily enough. The butterfly joints on the shoulders work very well on mine, allowing for a greater range of motion, front to back, for his arms. The shoulders lift higher than T pose and easily rotate the full 360 degrees we've come to expect. His bicep swivel works good enough and as with Spinneret, features pin less elbows (and knees) which increase the range his arms can bend, though his biceps do prevent him from being able to actually reach his face. All three sets of hands hinge and pivot nicely as well. Spider-Man has a very nice upper ball joint at his diaphragm and a lower abdominal crunch which gives him much greater range of crunch than his predecessors. The upper joint can also tilt side to side and twist, allowing us to get some really cool "Spidey style" leaping, dodging poses. My biggest problem with this is that when you have him crouched forward, there is a sizable gap at his back. From the front, the pose looks spectacular, but if you are taking pictures from his back, you'll need to adjust the angle of your camera to hide this glaring opening. His waist, due to the lower abdomen hinge cannot swivel, which is all right. The legs have a drop-down feature, which gives a bit more ability to do splits, but still nowhere near what Spider-Man is capable of. The point of motion is still not positioned correctly to improve the width of his splits. Both legs do kick forward nicely though but will slightly turn outward at the apex. They can't kick back too far, straight, but will splay out to the sides. His upper thigh cut works as it should, and the double-jointed knees will come close to heel to back touching. Spider-Man also has a boot cut, which is hidden nicely and looks reasonably decent when used. We are used to being spoiled with the terrific ankle articulation and Spidey is no exception as his hinge and pivot work beautifully. We are finally given an amazing treat as this Spider-Man has TOE ARTICULATION!!! This feature is so nice, especially for getting those cool wall crawling and web swinging poses! Thank you, Hasbro! Both figures have their share of articulation issues but overall, I'm happy enough with Spider-Man to overlook the limitations on Spinneret. I will give these figures an A- for Articulation.

Images Copyright Dan'sToyBox2022

Hasbro seems to be throwing darts at a board to determine figure pricing lately and it's frustrating as heck. I had originally pre-ordered this set online for $57.99, not expecting to see it until early winter. While we were in Florida, my wife and I happened to visit a Target in Orlando and I was very stunned and happy to find this on the shelves for $52.99! Figured grabbing it now and saving not only $5 but also shipping costs was a deal I couldn't pass up. This price does seem to be the prevailing retail for the two pack and given that Hasbro drops individual figures for $24.99, $27.99, $29.99 and $31.99 without any consistency or reason, I honestly can't say if you're getting a good deal. The fact that I found them for less than what I saw online does make me happy and that reason alone is enough to allow me to give them an A- for Affordability.

I can honestly say that I am very happy to have these in my collection and when considering all of the categories, will give the Hasbro Marvel Legends Renew Your Vows: Spider-Man/Spinneret two pack a solid:

4 out of 5 Toyboxes

Thank you, as always, for visiting Dan's ToyBox! I hope you enjoyed this review and look forward to our next review when we crack open Marvel Legends: The Fantastic Four Retro Series: Firelord Action Figure. Until then... GEEK OUT!!!!