Spiderman! (Toy Biz)

Made by Toy Biz, 1996

Can you answer the following questions:
1. What is the sound a web-shooter makes?
2. What in the world is a "Venom"?
3. What's a "Spidey-sense"?

If you think these are no-brainers you are a Spideyhead. This is a cool model of the webslinger. Come to think of it, also one of the few models to come out. Great pose showing the famous two-fingered Spidey salute, and the sculpter got the body right...Parker is not a huge muscle-bound guy.

Criticisms: This piece takes a lot of putty and sanding on the body. The older models were made of a harder plastic and more carefully molded. While the overall design is good, the gloop on the wall (painted green on the box illustration) forces you to paint the web a light color for it to be seen. Trouble is, everyone knows Spidey's web is black so I guess that day he used special web. I painted the gloop black, and again used putty to run the stuff off the wall and over the box. This turned an unexplained detail into our favorite heel Venom in gloop form. One last problem, and one that really bugged me: The model has the molded web lines "wrong" on the chest area and completely forgot to put them on one of the boot pieces. I filled in with putty again where necessary and made my own correct lines.

Suggestions on building: Paint the underside of the left arm before you glue on the left leg, it'll be a lot easier to paint the detail. The blue is medium flat with enough gloss black mixed in to darken it a little and give it a satin finish. I put in several base coats of red, again darkened a little to give Spidey a sinister look. Then I drew the lines and went back in and spent a lot of time going over the red and "trimming" the web lines. I hope you can see it was worth the effort. The red is glossier, making it stand out.

As for the base, the crate was a smooth square of plastic so I carved wood grain on it and gave it the old wash-and-dry brush treatment.

By the way, the answers to the above quiz are:
1. "Thwipp"
2. Venom used to be Spiderman's costume from the Secret Wars mini-series. Now it's an enemy. Only in comic books could this make sense.
3. The "Spidey-sense" warns of danger.

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