Marvelous Monday! Friendly Neighborhood Edition

I'm really liking this Marvel monday thing, I usually feel like I do not have enough of a certain subject on the blog and with scheduling Marvel stuff on Mondays it really takes some of the pressure off of making sure I have enough stuff of any one subject posted.

This Marvelous Monday is some left over shots from Toy Biz's first Spider-Man figure, ala 1990. I originally shot these for Reis at Geek Orthodox to use at his About.com gig and thought eventually I would find a home for them here on Eclectorama.

I have heard numerous times how people loath these Toy Biz figures. I agree they are not the best of figures, but at the time these things were a sight for sore eyes in my book. I remember seeing these in store for the first time and made away with the Silver Surfer, Captain America and this Spider-Man. These figures along with the first series of X-Men figures were probably my gateway into collecting action figures outright. I really started with Ninja Turtles, but these opened up whole new doors for me in the Marvel Universe.

I also want to address the issue of playability while talking about this line. See while I was buying these to collect, I was also picking these up for my son to play with. I had already bought a ton of Batman and DC related Heroes for him to throw around, so seeing these Marvels in stores I new it was time to have a Batman / Captain America team up against the Green Goblin and the Joker. See kids do not care about how well these were sculpted as long as they didn't break and we went through very few of these. I think we ended up breaking a Iron Man and a Spider-Man, that was it. Also this felt so much like the old days of Mego to me with DC and Marvels mixing it up. Also what a great way to explain the different Universes to a young one. So, I have a soft spot for these figures and as fugly as they may be will always love them.

Spider-Man at first wasn't all that much my favorite because of the suction cup gimmick, but it did grow on me. Spidey was great for taking along for rides in the car as he would cling onto the windshield. He could be found climbing up the bathroom mirror or raiding the ice box. I am sort of glad now that Toy Biz lead with this feature, I think if they had started with just a normal figure we would have never seen this done. Plus it did in a way make you wish for more Spider-Man without the suction cups. Again, kids didn't care one way or the other.

I also was digging the subscription coupon on the back of the card. I actually filled a couple of these out. My son and I loved getting the latest Captain America in the mail, it was always a fun time reading the latest issue and having battles with the figures. I think I like this mail away better than just a comic pack in.