Back before I got sidetracked with a tidal wave of Marvel toy news from New York Toy Fair 2016, I was reviewing the first waves of Marvel Legends 2016 figures. But now that the news has subsided a bit, let’s get back to talking about this year’s first series of Spider-Man characters with a review of the Marvel Legends Venom! Venom is tough to find and selling for a couple bucks over MSRP on the aftermarket right now–is he worth the hunt?
The Right:
But after a parade of copycat symbiotes from Anti-Venom to Toxin to Carnage to Agent Venom (okay, I admit it–Agent Venom is the same symbiote and not a copycat, but I digress), it’s classic Venom’s turn to shine once again as part of the Spider-Man Legends Absorbing Man Series!
Hasbro chose the “heavyweight” mold for Venom’s body which was definitely the right choice for the symbiote. Venom feels bulky and powerful, and looks intimidating when posed off against the much thinner Spider-Man action figures.
From an articulation standpoint, this is a model six inch action figure. Almost every possible point of articulation has been incorporated into this $20 toy, including the ever-popular ankle rockers, swivel calves, thighs and biceps, double-jointed knees and elbows, ball-hinge shoulders and wrists, an upper torso ab crunch, swivel waist and ball-hinge head.
I think I would have preferred ball-hinge hips to the simple ball-jointed hips that we got here, but that’s really my only complaint with the articulation scheme.
My favorite thing about this Hasbro 6″ Venom figure is the inclusion of two different heads for him (plus the two included Absorbing Man Build-A-Figure heads). While neither is quite at the level of detail of the Marvel Select Venom released several years back (which is still my favorite Venom action figure ever made), Hasbro hits the two best looks for classic Venom here: one version with tongue out, and one version sans tongue.
I thought that I was going to prefer the sans-tongue look for Venom, but once I popped on the tongue-twirling Venom head with green saliva oozing out of his mouth, I knew that this was going to be my head of choice forevermore. We don’t get enough Venom action figures without the iconic tongue-out, but that may be for good reason: the tongue really adds something to the dynamic aesthetic of the character.
Also, props to Hasbro for being proactive with the case ratios on this figure. Realizing early that the Venom Marvel Legends figure was going to be hot, a revision case where Eddie Brock will be packed at two-per-case instead of one-per-case. Good call, Hasbro!
The Wrong:
So with that in mind, it’s a tad disappointing that this Marvel Legends 2016 Venom figure includes only grasping hands and gifts, with nothing more deadly to be found as far as accessories go. Venom’s not exactly known for his boxing skills, so having fists as his primary mode of offense just seems weird.
Other that that, my only gripes with this figure have to do with quality control. The black plastic used in this wave–and which is used for basically all of this action figure–is rubbery-feeling and makes Venom feel much less sturdy and stable than the other figures in the Absorbing Man Build-A-Figure Series.
In addition, the paint deco on this figure is good for the most part, but with enough stray marks on the white portions to make the overall appearance of Venom’s deco slightly off the mark.
Overall: I teetered on the edge of giving this Spider-Man Legends Venom figure a low ‘A’, but I’ve got enough nitpicks with the figure to knock him down to a ‘B+’. I really love both Venom heads included here and the usual level of Legends super-articulation, but the lack of claw hands, rubbery plastic and imperfect paint deco hold this back from being the definite classic Venom figure that the Marvel Select version is.
GRADE: B+
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I feel this figure should of got an A-. I didn’t think I would like this version of Venom when I first saw the pics, but when I had Venom in hand I really liked him. Don’t get me wrong, the select Venom is superior to most of all the Venoms out there but I feel like the ML version is really awesome. I especially love how you can pose him in a lot of cool positions that the select Venom cant do. Plus the head with the tongue out is way too cool looking. Either way you did a good job reviewing this figure, but I just think you should of gave the ML Venom a low A.
For our first classic Marvel Legends Venom….I’m a little underwhelmed.
PROS:
The heads are great. Especially the head with the open mouth and tongue.
He comes with interchangable hands. Claws and fists.
The paint is fine. Really basic, but clean.
The Absobing Man’s screaming/transforming head BAF part that comes with Venom is actually awesome, and one of the coolest sculpts and paintjobs I’ve seen from Marvel Legends maybe ever.
CONS:
The Hyperion body mold isn’t a great body. The size is good, but the anatomy is a ltitle odd, and the articulation is less than ideal.
He’s SUPER plain and basic. The Hyperion body mold is obviously just a basic mold with no special texture to it to make the vast black surfaces more interesting.
He’s VASTLY inferior to the Carnage figure that came out in 2014. The Carnage figure benefitted from being based on the standard BuckyCap mold (one of the best molds), but Venom is too big to use that mold, so that’s would be okay, except that Carnage’s basic BuckyCap mold was embellished with loads of little symbiote tendrils coming off of his body, making the standard BuckCap mold look really unique and fitting to Carnage.
Moreover, Carnage’s whole body is covered in a chaotic web of paint detail that breaks up the red of his body.
Obviously, Venom IS solid black, so he’d have to have either molded textures or something more like subtle highlights to improve on his mostly featureless blackness, BUT there’s absolutely NO reason they couldn’t have given Venom’s body additional little tendrils all over the same way Carnage had them.
Hell, Carnage even had an extra big crazy mess of symbiote tendrils that could be optionally plugged into the hole in his back and posed.
Meanwhile, the Hyperion mold that Venom uses has a hole in the back to plug stuff in too…..but he comes with NOTHING to plug into it. The Agent Venom figure that came out last year actually DID come with Venom Symbiote tendrils to plug into Agent Venom’s back. They’re so big that they’re more like outright tentacles, and they can hold things, including guns. As it turns out, Agent Venom’s back tentacles plug PERFECTLY into the hole on the back of this new classic Venom figure, yet for SOME REASON they didn’t even bother to give him those as an accessory…..
I mean, it’s a competent figure, and it gets the job done, but there are just LOADS of ways that it could’ve been EASILY improved by simply repeating and reusing stuff we’ve already seen.
And since this is (for some reason) our first (and for at least a while our only) Marvel Legends classic Venom figure, that’s actually pretty frustrating.
7/10
I actually prefer this figure to, say, the Select version- I owned that figure, it was top-heavy, had some loose leg joints, and had trouble standing up. Say what you will about rubbery plastic or what have you, Marvel Legends are built to last.
Venom isn’t known as much for the whole whipping-tendrils-and-big-claws thing as Carnage is, really. That’s more of a Carnage thing, so I’m okay with them leaving out tendrils for this particular Venom. Also, a lot of Marvel Legends figures are based on a particular version of the character- with the non-oversized hands, extra fists, and primary headsculpt, this looks to me like they referenced McFarlane’s Venom in particular to create this figure, which didn’t do the tendrils at all to my knowledge.
Also, making him the Lethal Protector was a terrible idea. I’m glad Ben kicked his ass. SCARLET SPIDER ALL THE WAY.
I agree he’s not known for tendrils and whatnot most of the time.
My point is that he is completely featureless flat boring black, and they could’ve done numerous different easy things to make all that blackness less boring.
I am probably in the minority, but I find the Venom heads way oversized for the body. From a proportional perspective, the whole figure is off. It’s the first thing I see when I took him out of the package, and since then I cannot unsee it. I actually ended up putting him back into the box and selling him off. :p
I feel the same way, that’s why I skipped him. IDK how they could mess up something so simple. Ugh.
I will counter that the Venom head should be bigger. That jaw and tongue are the symbiote’s and not Eddie’s real anatomy. His real anatomy has to fit inside the symbiote at all times, it affords him no unique anatomy of his own.
Google Image search “Bagely Venom transformation” the first image in the results should demonstrate what I mean.
Just got him from Walmart a few days ago. RE stock, cause first time I went I only got Gwen. Honestly I do understand everyone’s problems, but if you look at it, then look at Todd McFarlane Spiderman comic that introduce Venom, they look pretty exact. I do have problems not having more things to go with it(some toys get so much n others get nothing), but I don’t take them out of the case so it doesn’t really matter
I’m going to be “that guy” here, and whine. I wish I could actually SEE ONE OF THESE IN A STORE. I knew I should have pre-ordered.