Earlier this week I reviewed the first of the Wave 2 Secret Wars comic packs, Hulk & Cyclops and tonight I'm taking a look at the other Wave 2 Comic Pack that I picked up, Magneto and Black Suit Spider-man. The black Symbiote suit was discovered during the Secret Wars comic run and perhaps is the longest living tribute to the modern Marvel Universe that Secret Wars gave us. Without Secret Wars, we'd have no Venom, Carnage or Tobey McGuire doing an Emo dance scene... So really, Secret Wars was very important for that alone.



Magneto of course is the most famous villain of the X-Men. He's their arch rival and although Magneto is often looked at as a sympathetic figure, he's more often considered a villain. For much of Secret Wars though, he's a hero. So how does the Hasbro miniature versions of these characters stack up?

Packaging:
These Marvel Universe Comic Packs have the nearly resealable packages that all the formula Hasbro comic packs of other properties such as GI Joe, Star Wars, etc have. If you've bought any of these comic packs before then you'll know what you're in for.



The back of the package shows the characters again as well as the other ones featured in the wave. The prototypes on the back don't look as drastically different as the Hulk pack's did, so that's a plus. You can see the first issue where black suit Spider-man appeared in the background, as it's included with this comic.



Articulation:
Marvel Universe figures have a fair amount of articulation. There is some debate if they should have more, different kinds, etc, but I'm pretty content with what we have here. Spider-man is quite poseable, but not near as posable as some of his previous versions. I do like the poseablility but your mileage may vary.



The complete run down of articulation includes a ball joint head, pin/post ball joint shoulders, swivel arm, elbow hinges, mid torso ball joint, t-bar crotch ball joint legs, double hinge knees and hinge ankles. Give or take depending on the figures sometimes.



It's not as articulated as the Marvel Showdown figures were, but for most figures that's an improvement. Spider-Man you could make the case that he needs more articulation, but at this scale adding too much more articulation really makes the figures fragile.

Sculpt:
Finally a black suit Spider-man without highlights! I absolutely hate the silly blue highlights that are all over the last series of Marvel Legends Spider-mans as well as the first Marvel Universe version of this sculpt. I just didn't care for it at all, so the flat black that's at work here just looks great to me.


Click me to see the full size.
Other than that, Spider-man is exactly the same as his previous release. He's just painted different. The odd thing about that is, the black suit Spider-man's uses what I thoguht was Silver Surfer's body but it's not. It's a different body although very similar, whereas the regular Spider-man does not use either of those bodies, he uses a completelt different body. This creates a odd height difference between the two Spideys.



Magneto is the first we've seen of this character in this scale and the first new Magneto figure in any scale in some time. The sculpt uses the smaller body, which originated with Daredevil. That's not necessarily a good thing because Magneto does look a bit small.



However I must confess that the rest of the sculpt is very solid. It feels like vintage Magneto and the head sculpt is really impressive. I have heard complaints that his head is too small with the helmet and if you took the helmet off he'd have a tiny head... But I honestly just don't obsess that much about the realism of a toy. His head sculpt looks good and that's all I care about. It's not like you can remove the helmet anyway, so it seems a moot point. This isn't a Wild Bill head.



My big problem with Magneto is his cape. When I first opened this figure I assumed his cape was just accidentally folded in the package. When I pulled him out, I was certain I had a botched Magneto with a bad cape... But upon further investigation the one on the back shows the same thing. Who thought it was a good idea to mold half the cape together? It doesn't even look wind blown, it just looks silly. Furthermore, it makes the back of the figure heavy and Magneto tends to fall over as a result.


Who designed this cape?!
Magneto otherwise is very solid. If you can get past him being a tad short and his cape being stupid, you've got a real winner here. He has a tad bit of slop around the arms, but most of that is an optical illusion. You see he also has drybrush highlights in a dark color in all the muscles on his arms and it tends to look like bleed, when it really isn't.



Accessories:
Nothing. You get a issue of the Secret Wars comic and that's it. It is what it is.



I like the comic included and it does focus in on Spider-man, so at least it's relevant.

Additional Notes:
I am enjoying these figures. I have heard a ton of QC complaints, but I still think these are better than Wave 1. This pack especially seems pretty good. The only thing I would watch out for is Magneto who tends to have a bit of slop. My black suit Spider-man is PERFECT though.



But obviously it's something to watch out for. Reports haven't been as kind as my experiences so far.

Value:
$12.99-$14 is about what you'll pay for these packs. It's a good value when you figure that most MU figures cost close to $8 and this comes with a comic. However it's probably a comic you already have and you know, it's not cheap. Still for nostalgia it's good fun.


Secret Wars Heroes.

Score Recap:
Packaging - 7
Sculpting - 8
Articulation - 7
Accessories - SW Comic
Value - 8
Overall - 7 out of 10

I had less QC issues with this one, but not enough to push it to a full 8. The short Magneto is just a real issue. I'm sure if you already have the black suit Spider-Man, you'll be even less interested. I don't like all the design choices with Magneto, but at least they're design issues and not QC issues. I wish we could get rid of that Daredevil body altogether, but I guess we're stuck with it.


Secret Wars Villains.
I'm probably skipping the third Wave 2 pack, but we'll see in the weeks ahead if I can hold out. I still haven't picked up all of Wave 1 either. Such is life. Marvel Universe can pound your pocketbook, so I advise being successful in choosing of what you really want.