I picked up Stealth Ninja Spider-Man because I had a chance to buy it for about fifty cents through a perfect storm of coupons and sales. I mean, how can you not buy something called "Stealth Ninja Spider-Man" if you write a toy column that appeals to hardcore, adult toy collectors?
This may be the surprisingly best, highest-quality piece of junk I've had the dubious fortune of picking up as of late. It's clearly not made for any action figure buyer who might read a toy review on a site like this one, because a giant white spider target isn't something anybody with any adult sense can get past in terms of logic. The black spider is a little more subtle, but that thing is a giant target for Norman Osborne to blast him with a pumpkin bomb or a gun or something. It's tearing me apart to have a figure this awful be well constructed enough to stand up on its own without a display stand-- why is this the figure that gets constructed well and able to be posed nicely? It doesn't make any sense, but there are so few kid-only action figure lines coming out of Hasbro now. It's nice to see that Hasbro can still make a 3 3/4-inch action figure for kids that won't fall apart because of the articulation, but couldn't "stealth ninja" Spider-Man at least be black, or clear, or some unified dark color? Or was "stealth ninja" used because "Asian Japan Battle Super Fighter" was too ridiculous?
The Hasbro Spider-Man kid line is packed with bizarre variations on the webslinger, much like what Kenner did with Batman starting in 1990. While this figure is not a ninja nor is it stealthy, it is unquestionably Spider-Man with a big spider on his chest and a lot of red and blue. There are some nice ideas in the assortment, but man, this thing is goofy. The sword is actually painted silver with a black handle, which is more detail than I would expect. The rest of the figure is pretty simple, there's a little bit of paint on it but there's no getting past the fact that what you have is an armored, loincloth-wearing super hero carrying a giant sword and some sort of bola weapon. Odds are you weren't a fan of the 1990s jumbo Spider-Man figures from Toy Biz, but this seems like it was spawned from that.
Stealth Ninja Spider-Man doesn't have a lot of paint on him, his face has some on the mask but the back of his head is unpainted. It's almost like someone wanted to combine Snake Eyes with Peter Parker, and in the end got this beautiful mess. The figure is jointed in a fairly unusual way, with ball joints at the hips and shoulders but another swivel joint at the arms and legs. The head is a ball joint, and that's your entire suite of articulation-- he's pretty stiff, but he can stand just fine and hold his weapons. If you have a toy collector in your life, you should give this to them just to make them angry. It's by no means a bad toy, because it can actually do things other figures can't-- like sit down easily, or carry his sword on his back, or be posed in sensible, attractive ways. This is the best-polished turd I've seen in recent memory.
Oh, and for you trivia buffs, this figure shares the body with Shockproof Spider-Man, which is also a goofy figure.
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