On Thursday, Hasbro revealed the latest Marvel Legends figure in their Retro Collection toy line: Web-Man.
Since the figure was announced on April 1 (the only day that false claims can be published on the internet), I was skeptical it was even real. Turns out that it is — and that there’s a bizarre corner for Spidey lore I still wasn’t familiar with.
Web-Man’s first and only appearance was back in 1977’s Spidey Super Stories #25. The comic series officially took place in Earth-57780, which is adjacent to the old children’s television show, The Electric Company*.
*Fun Side Note: One of my parents’ first challenges with me as toddler was that I loved watching the Electric Company, but the opening “HEY YOU GUYS!!!” shout would cause me to start crying my fool head off. Once my mom figured out why I was sobbing at the start of my favorite show, she took me out of the room, allowed the opening credits to play out of earshot, and set me back down in front of the TV…only for one of the sketches to feature a character yelling the same thing, which caused me to start crying all over again due to fear and unfairly perceived betrayal.
In this issue, Dr. Doom uses a Twin Machine (don’t ask) to create a complete opposite of Spider-Man. While this imbued Doom’s Spidey doppelgänger with a sweet new color scheme, it also meant that poor Web-Man had the opposite intelligence level of Peter Parker’s genius intellect.
This raises all types of issues (including why the opposite of a spider wouldn’t be a fly or something similar), but enough about that — let’s talk about this extremely deep cut and incredibly cool looking Spider-Man variant. While I’m sure Web-Man wasn’t on anyone’s list of “must-haves,” folks like David Brooke and I who loved oddball Spidey figures are going to have a hard time passing Web-Man up.
If this figure is Hasbro’s idea of an April Fool’s joke, then consider me humored.
*No-So-Fun Side Note: The real joke is that I still can’t find the standard Retro Collection Spider-Man release that uses this same incredible new sculpt/articulation system anywhere except from third party scalpers.
Web-Man will retail for $22.99 and is available now for preorder from your preferred online toy retailers with an expected arrival in October. Check out more pictures below!
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