Much to the dismay of a vocal contingent of fans and collectors, the plastic-free packaging era of Hasbro Marvel Legends action figures has arrived. All of my toy packaging goes straight to the recycling bin, so I didn’t really expect the switch to bother me much. But now that I have the new Spider-Man Homecoming Marvel Legends Peter Parker and Ned Leeds 2-Pack in-hand, I recognize the shortcomings of these environmentally friendly boxes. Here’s my review of Peter & Ned…

While there has been plenty of kvetching about Hasbro’s controversial new plastic-free packaging, purchasing online and being an opener myself, I haven’t been getting in on the doomsaying (as boxes aren’t particularly important to me). This week, though, I opened my first Marvel Legends figures in the new packaging, and the experience was definitely not a wholly pleasant one.

I don’t buy into all of the stories of swapped and terribly painted figures that began circulating within days of this new packaging hitting retail, but I do have to admit to doing a bit of a double-take at the box for this two-pack the first time I saw it.

The images of the toys on the box with 0% of them showing genuinely made this feel to me like a bootleg “dollar store” product—not at all what I’d expect from premium action figures primarily purchased by adult collectors.

Removing the brown cardboard insert holding the tissue-wrapped figures and accessories from the box was straight-up surreal, with unwrapping the accessories like a crinkled baggie of Panera croutons feeling exceptionally awkward.

I was a mite surprised that Ned was packaged with his Spider-Man masked head as the default, but the real unwelcome discovery was the badly-painted striped design on Ned’s shirt. Ordinarily I would have seen this through the window on the packaging and rejected this figure, but that wasn’t an option in this post-plastic world. Consequently, I’ll be a bit more selective about the 6” Marvel Legends figures I buy in the future.

Outside of the annoying paint flaws, Ned is a decent figure. The Jacob Batalon likeness is passable, albeit with color tones that feel slightly off to me. The masked head felt like the crucial accessory to include, and it looks terrific on Ned’s bulky body.

I don’t like the ball-hinge elbows or lack of any upper torso articulation (such as an ab crunch) at all, but I suppose Hasbro thought this was a rare civilian figure they could get away with that on.

The only other accessory for Spider-Man Legends Ned Leeds is a camouflage backpack, which both looks and fits great. Magical effects would have been sweet if this was a No Way Home Ned, but alas, it is not.

Although I was really anticipating the plain-clothed Tom Holland Peter Parker Legends figure, I actually ended up liking the Ned figure more than Peter.

The green sweater and khaki pants aren’t the outfit from Spider-Man Homecoming I would have preferred for Peter, and the sweatshirt looks under-detailed and odd to me without “X” stitching up near the collar or more of a sculpted texture.

The open-mouthed Tom Holland head with top row of teeth showing looks hella creepy to me, and I don’t overly love the neutral face either (where I think the paint apps let down what could be a decent underlying head sculpt). Even to my half-blind eyes, this figure simply does not look like Tom Holland Peter Parker to me, which is a critical failing.

The tan backpack (with nice little painted details) and flat-soled sneakers are highlights of the Peter Parker figure for me, and I appreciate that we get fists as well as open hands.

Peter also has an embarrassingly bad “book” accessory, which is just an unpainted brown plastic piece that doesn’t grip especially well into either open hand. Printing -anything- on the cover of the book would have gone a long way to making it feel like more of a legitimate inclusion.

Peter has much better and more standard articulation than Ned, including pin-less double-jointed knees and elbows and adding back the ball-jointed upper torso articulation that Ned’s clothes don’t allow.

Overall: While I genuinely was psyched about getting MCU movie action figures of Ned Leeds and Peter Parker in civilian clothes, in actuality these feel like the kind of figures I would have passed on if I could see them through the packaging. The paint errors on Ned’s shirt really bug me, and I don’t like either Tom Holland portrait (especially the open-mouthed one). The accessories and articulation schemes also fail to impress, and the new box just looks ridiculous. This simply doesn’t feel like a $50+ two-pack, which is a real shame since I was looking forward to both included characters.

GRADE: C-