TRU Minimates Wave 17: Superior Spiderman and Electro

Welcome to my first Minimate review!

Before I get started, I want to apologise because I got this two pack a few weeks back, so I don’t have an in-hand look at the packaging. However, I’ve scoured Google images and came across some decent pictures of it.

I really like the star-burst effect and the shade of purple used on the recent Marvel Now! themed waves. It really grabs your attention and is a nice colour contrast to the actual figures. There is of course the really nice artist rendering of the two characters on the left and right respectively.

This picture doesn’t have the correct bios, but it’s the only royalty free, good picture I could find. However, all eight characters from this wave are showed nicely and there’s the continuation of the nice purple explosion effect. I think this is one of the cooler waves, with some really good characters like Rescue, Robot Hulk and Black Widow. I do have the bios for the two characters I’m reviewing, but I’ll put them in later.

Superior Spider-Man

Now, I’m not the biggest fan of Spidey. However, the Superior Spider-Man story really pulled me in. It was a very unique story and one that I enjoyed very much, especially the Doc Ock aspect. I was also really fond of the costume. Among Big Time and Scarlet Spider suits I’d say it might even be my favourite, so I was really glad to find out we were getting both incarnations of it in Minimate form. (I’ll be doing a comparison later on.)

Lets first start off with the head. The first thing I noticed was how inconsistent it was. On the front side of his face, the eyes are slightly misprinted, being to far left. On the back of his mask there is also one to many web lines printed on him. However, in person it doesn’t look as bad as it does on camera, and given the scale of these guys it’s pretty hard to notice. I really like the way the eyes came out. They look goggle-ish, and defiantly something Doc Ock would wear. Overall, I’m impressed with the design but it’s let down a little with the bad paint work.

Thankfully the body has much better paint apps. All the web lines came out great and the muscle detail looks fantastic. Simple, but fantastic. The back of him is actually the same as the front, minus the muscles. However, it works perfectly. The top of the shoulders also have a good paint job and they do a believable job of looking like it’s connected to the main body if the suit. The legs are fairly simple and only have muscle detailing on them, but that’s how the design is.

A really nice attention to detail are the hands and feet. There’s a little bit of red paint applied to the tips of his hands and feet. This is very accurate and certainly something I appreciate.

For accessories, Superior Spidey comes with the normal Spider-Man things. The coiled up webline, which I’m not a huge fan of. I wish we’d get an alternative hand that has a bit of web attached to it, like the one we got in the Friends and Foes boxset. He also comes with the much loved clear display stands, but they’re to be expected. And finally he comes with a nice Peter Parker head piece.

It it has a nice determined look. It looks pretty accurate to the comics. I really like the hair piece as well, it’s a reuse if Chris Redfield’s and although not 100% accurate it still fits the character.

Overall Superior Spider-Man has earned himself a pretty strong 8.5 out of 10. If the mask was painted a little better, it might’ve been a 9.

Ultimate Electro

I prefer the design of Ultimate Electro much better than the star-fish-head classic one and it made a lot of sense to include that design in the new movie. Speaking of the movie, this Minimate was released just in time, although we are getting two (three, if you count Max Dillon) movie version in a few weeks.

The head came out fantastically. It’s made out of a translucent blue plastic and has white and dark blue paint apps on top of it which capture Electro’s face magnificently.

The body, much like the head, is relatively simple. There are various blue and white details all over him to pronounce his muscles, whats really cool is that there’s no curved or straight lines- they’re all zig-zags, made to look like lightning.

These details are also carried onto the legs, but unfortunately there’s nothing on his hip piece.

He comes with a total of six accessories. He has the usual display stand as well a a translucent blue base that imitates electricity. Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to get him on it. I find it easiest to remove the foot, place it on the base then attach the rest of Electro. I think the base was first used on a Human Torch figure, but it’s a perfect piece for Electro as well. He also has two charged up pieces of electricity that clip onto his arm, as well as two of Whiplash’s whips but in blue. All of these parts transform him into a nice charged up Electro.

For a final score, Electro is going to get himself a 9 out of 10. He’s near perfect!

Bios

Superior Spider-Man’s bio says: “Spiderman is not the man he once was. His ego is bigger. His technology is stronger. He’s better than he was before… Or is he? When his mind is not his own, Peter Parker needs to find a way to regain control.”

I think that’s a really neat bio, and sums up the storyline without giving away any spoilers.

Ultimate Electro’s bio reads: “Given electrical powers in an attempt to replicate Captain America ‘s Super-Soldier Serum, Max Dillon becomes an enforcer for Kingpin, where he frequently faced off Spiderman and the Ultimates.”

Again; a brilliant bio. I never understood how trying to make someone stronger gave them electrical abilities…. Then again, I never really read the Ultimates storyline.

Articulation

Both figures have the standard 14 points of articulation. Ball jointed heads, ball jointed shoulders, 90 degrees bend at the elbow, swivel at the wrists, swivel at the waist, ball jointed legs, 90 degrees bend in the knee and a swivel in the ankle. None of it is hindered since they have no extra parts on top of them so you’re able to get them into some great poses.

Comparisons

As I said earlier, I would compare the two Superior Spider-Man costumes. The TRU version is defiantly the superior, but I think it’s down to personal preference and which costume you prefer.

I wasn’t sure who to compare Electro with at first, but in the end I decided to compare him another translucent blue buddy- Cortana. As you can see, Cortana is more of a purpley-blue, where as Electro is a flat out blue. I think I prefer the shade of blue used on Electro, but the one on Cortana defiantly fits the character.

Photo Gallery

I had a lot of fun posing these two around. Enjoy!