You are here: Home » Featured » Iron Spider

Iron Spider

July 14, 2014 | By Errex More

I would not call myself a big Spider-Man fan. Sure, I did read my fair share of his titles back in the 90’s and I still buy the occasional action figures every once in a while, but my disconnect is such that I has no clue as to the inspiration behind this particular version of the wall-crawler.

Hasbro released this Iron Spider mold a few years ago in Marvel Universe Series 2, but re-released it in 2013 as part of Series 5, which is the one I got.

Generally speaking, I don’t care particularly for the standard body type Hasbro uses on most of their MU Spider-Man figures, but this time around I considered that the attachment on his back was cause enough to add him to my collection.

Once I got the figure out of the package, I noticed that the head sculpt was also different from the other Spider-Man figures I have, with the more bulbous eye pieces, although the more striking feature of the Iron Spider suit is that it incorporates a module at the back, which sprouts four robotic appendages.

These extra limbs are separate pieces nicely detailed and sculpted in two slightly different shapes. Even though the arms themselves are not articulated in any way, the have ball-joints that connect each limb to the hub on the Iron Spider’s back. The overall articulation spread for this figure is:

• Ball jointed neck.

• Pegged hinge shoulders.

• Upper biceps swivel.

• Hinged elbows.

• Swivel wrists.

• Ball jointed “spider legs”.

• Floating torso

• Ball jointed hips.

• Double hinged knees.

• Pegged hinge ankles.

Although the extra robot limbs add to the overall joint count, truth is functionality is pretty standard for this kind of buck. To Hasbro’s credit, the extra pieces don’t seem to mess up the balance of Iron Spider.

One common thread on the carry-forward action figures selected to round up the case assortments in Series 5 is that most seem to sport a spiffy new paintjob, which in the case of Iron Spider it seems to consist on a subtle pearlescent coat applied to head, upper torso and thighs.

The figure was molded in a bright cherry red plastic, but it also has rich golden paint applications for the spider symbol and a few costume accents. The robot limbs seem to be painted in gold too, despite the pieces being molded in golden plastic.

Iron Spider comes with no other accessories besides the artificial limbs, which is fine and good considering his hands were not really sculpted to hold anything. My only complaint about this figure is that because of the way it comes packaged, the robotic limbs tend to be a little warped, not quite enough to be a functional issue but just enough to cause my symmetry-focused OCD to kick in.

Barring that, I still think this is a genuinely interesting version of Spider-Man.