Now that all the excitement and hysteria brought about by the mixture of the Marvel Legends Guardians of the Galaxy figures hitting Amazon and the first wave of 2017 Marvel Legends exclusives being leaked is over, I can get back to catching up on reviews. And today’s spotlight falls on a figure that’s still quite difficult to find in stores despite being double-packed in cases: the 2017 Marvel Legends Symbiote Spider-Man (Black Costume) 6″ figure!

The Right:

Ah, Marvel Legends Pizza Spider-Man mold, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. Ever since Hasbro created the Pizza Spidey mold in 2015, I haven’t felt much need for future Spidey’s to be anything but repaints of this amazing mold.

The SDCC 2016 Marvel Legends Spider-Man has replaced the original Pizza Spider-Man as my default Spidey since last summer, but now The Raft Spider-Man may have met his match with the new Black Costume Spider-Man Marvel Legends figure!

Rarely will I mention case ratios in “The Right”, but it’s worth making a special note here to commend Hasbro on absolutely picking the right figure to pack two-per-case in this series. Symbiote Spider-Man has legions of fans, and when all is said and done, this will be one of the best-selling Marvel Legends 2017 figures without a doubt.

The Symbiote Spidey figure itself is a complete repaint of Pizza/The Raft Spider-Man, but that’s A-OK: the superb sculpting, articulation and proportions on that body make it my favorite six inch figure of Spidey ever, and there’s no logical reason for Hasbro to not reuse that exceptional tooling.

I was amazed by how accurate the white eyes on the mask look without requiring a new head sculpt–just painting the Raft Spidey head eyes fully white (including the black outlines) makes them the ideal size. It looks so good, I thought it was a new head for a second!

For those who haven’t owned this mold before, the articulation scheme is spectacular: ball-hinge head/wrists; upper torso an crunch; ball-jointed hips; ball-hinge shoulders with butterfly swivel; double-hinge joint knees and elbows; swivel waist/biceps/thighs; and hinged ankles with ankle rockers.

I suppose you could add on swivel calves and add a hinge to the ball hips, but the flexibility on this figure is already off the charts regardless.

Also, while it feels a bit weird to praise a figure for not breaking in “The Right”, I did want to mention that while my Kamala Khan and All-New Spider-Man 2099 figures both broke already, Black Costume Spider-Man feels extremely solid and well-constructed. Hasbro’s bad some iffy black plastic in the past, but this Spidey’s construction is excellent.

The Wrong:

Considering that the existing tooling for this Spider-Man figure is already perfect and I actually prefer the black costume personally, I had hoped not to have anything to complain about in this space (okay, maybe I do enjoy complaining just a little). But as usual, I do have a couple legitimate nits to pick.

While I didn’t have any breakage issues with this Marvel Legends Symbiote Spider-Man figure (and don’t expect to it, as it feels pretty robust), the quality control on the paint deco didn’t fare as well.

There’s some obvious spatters of white on the front of Symbiote Spidey’s black torso, black speckles on the front on his symbol, and also a horrible blur on the left side of the symbol on Spidey’s back. I’m going to hunt for a better one once these are more readily available in stores, but knowing that the (unseen in the package) back can be botched makes things more difficult.

The other thing I’m really unhappy about with this figure is his accessories: two wall-crawling hands (plus Sandman Build-A-Figure weapons). This figure is a 100% repaint with no new tooling, no Pizza Slice, no interchangeable Peter Parker head and no web-shooting hands. For $20, this particular figure just doesn’t feel like a good value.

While Spidey doesn’t need web-shooting hands while wearing the Symbiote costume, sometimes the Spider-Man Black Costume isn’t the Venom symbiote. Not giving us the proper web-shooting hands for this figure when he comes with so very little as it is is a strange choice, especially since it’ll likely be years before the next Marvel Legends Black Costume Spider-Man.

Overall: I actually thought this review was going to be about a paragraph long because, to me, buying this Marvel Legends 2017 Black Costume Spider-Man figure is a no-brained. I’m disappointed in the lack of accessories for the price and the imperfect paint job on mine, but make no mistake: this is the best 6″ Symbiote Spider-Man action figure ever in the sculpt, paint and articulation departments. Highly recommended.

GRADE: B+