Mary Jane Watson (Iron Spider)

The Wolverine Corollary remains undefeated! To help Iron Man and Spider-Man defeat Augustus Roman, a tech mogul who has been siphoning the abilities of super criminals in his alter ego Regent, Mary Jane Watson dons the Iron Spider armor bringing the battle to him. Hey, she did! I thought this was an alternate reality figure, but that's a 616 story! Regent was the villain introduced in Renew Your Vows, but his mainline universe counterpart eventually showed up during that time when Spider-Man was wearing his stupid All-New All-Different costume (and Iron Man was invincible). He started using villain powers, but eventually defeated all the Avengers, which is why there was no one left to provide backup to Peter and Tony, leaving MJ to do "something unbelievably stupid" (her words). As she pointed out, by this time she'd both piloted an Iron Man armor, and she'd briefly had spider-powers, so she should technically be qualified to use the Iron Spider armor. It's kind of weird that this is canonically the same suit Pete wore when he was Iron Spider, right? Not a new, female-specific version that was made for her or anything, the literal same physical item. It was stored in a box of stuff that had been taken from Avengers Tower after he moved out. It certainly fits her a lot better than it did him! Like (most of) the other Magic the Gathering crossover figures, it's honestly deeply surprising that Hasbro went to the trouble of making new molds for things that could have been painted - like, the arms and legs have been used on any number of female figures before, but the torso, while clearly based on an existing mold, has all the Iron Spider design elements raised off its surface, like actual armor plates would be. The shoulders, forearms, and shins don't get that same level of attention, just the jagged symbol on the chest and back, and the eyes on the mask. Now, it's unsurprising that the figure would include a masked head - to do any less would be weird. In traditional style, it's just a flat, full-head mask with angular eyes that are, as we said, raised. But that's her alternate look: right out of the package, MJ is unmasked! The head is the same sculpt the head that came with Retro Gwen had, though this time the hair is blowing dynamically to the side, making it look quite different. Since the masked head is packaged separately in the tray, the socket for the balljoint is extremely tight when you first open the figure: you might have to heat it up and firce it onto the joint, to let it get stretched out, and even then it could be hard to turn. Her articulation is all normal, with a balljointed head, hinged neck, swivel/hinge shoulders, swivel biceps, double-hinged elbows, swivel/hinge wrists, balljointed chest, balljoint hips, sivel thighs, double-hinge knees, and swivel/hinge ankles. There are no shins, but the femal ML bodies have long been like that, it's not a case of Hasbro cheaping out (this time). Given the way the gold is painted on the shoulder balls, if you want to raise her arms to the side, it'll look better if you turn the shoulder upside down first. The figure includes fists and thwipping hands, plus her back is molded with a backpack to accommodate the suit's mechanical arms. Although this is meant to be the same costume Peter wore, when Mary Jane was in it it had four waldoes instead of just three - which suggests Pete was just not smart enough to deploy the final one. These are the same arms that came with the previous Iron Spider, which is disappointing: they were shamefull bad design then, and they haven't gotten any bette in the intervening four years. Their halfassed, amateurly designed articulation was embarassing enough when they were only being used for one figure, but now between Mary Jane and the upcoming Aaron Davis version of Iron Spider, the "extra" cost of making them correctly in the first place would have been amortized by now. Escpecially since Hasbro is already stealing money from you on this release. The Magic the gathering tie-in figures cost $20 more than normal, with the excuse being that they include a Magic card. And yes, including a card is fine, but the absolute most a single Magic card can believably add to the cost of an action figure is $5, not $20, and even that is an inflated joke. Mary Jane being Scarlet Spider was a one-off thing, done in a desperate situation, but it demonstrates that MJ will do anything at all to support her man - even if Marvel editorial still refuses to fix the mistake of "One More Day." And this is a good toy of her, but it's "baseline quality of what a Marvel Legend should be" good, not "worth paying double price for" good. -- 03/11/26 Want to buy a Magic card? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.