Scorpion

Look, it's Venorpion, but someone's scraped off all the "Ven." In order to track down Spider-Man, Mac Gargan undergoes an experimental procedure to fuse his body with an animal, becoming the super-powered criminal, Scorpion. It's worth noting that said experimental procedure was funded entirely by J. Jonah Jameson. For the princely sum of $10,000, JJJ convinced animal mutation researcher Dr. Farley Stillwell to perform unlicensed human testing on a guy he brought in off the street. Now those are some strong medical ethics! Imagine what medical GoFundMes must be like in the Marvel universe. "I need to raise money to have an extra arm grafted onto my side so I can avenge my brother's death at the hands of Hammerhead ($28 of $600 raised)." Anyway, Dr. Stillwell had a cure for Scorpion's condition, but died before he could adminster it, and later Gargan broke into the lab where he'd been created to double-dose himself and become even stronger. The first thing you may notice is that Scorpion's mouth is green rather than pink. It looks like a Hasbro bean counter decided doing it that way would save half a penny per every thousand figures, but surprisingly, that's not the case: the inexplicable covered mouth was a feature of Steve Ditko's original design, and has hung around quite a bit over the years. Mac Gargan is, in theory, a smart guy. He was a private detective before getting en-Scoprioned, and that requires some brain power, right? Well, several years after getting his costume, he was bemoaning the fact that he was stuck in it (like the Rhino is); in the midst of this pity party, he got in a fight with Spider-Man, who beat him and then simply pulled his mask off. Yes, the costume was never bonded to Scorpion, he just assumed it was and didn't try to take it off. What a goon! This figure gets a completely new sculpt, with the horizontal lines of the costume sculpted in on the lighter green sections. Any guesses who these molds will be reused to make? Whoever gets this body in the future, it will probably involve some remolding. Unless they, too, have a large backpack that needs to be held in place by a thick, glued-in peg. That's how Scorpion's tail is attached to his back. The tail itself is bendy, which I don't like, but that doesn't mean you won't. Is there any other way to adequately create his tail? None that we know! In Ditko's original design, the tail was only 4' long, but that's been upped and exaggerated over the years, sometimes to as much as 20'! The "stinger" on the end was a later addition too: at first, it was basically just a big club. Other than that, the articulation is the usual stuff, though the chest is a balljoint instead of a hinge. Is that going to stand up to the weight of the tail for long periods of time? I guess we'll all find out together in a few years' time. Scorpion doesn't have any accessories (imagine if they'd given him an alternate head with the face painted properly), but he does have a piece of the Molten Man Build-A-Figure: the skinny right leg. Scorpion is a pretty good figure: nice new sculpt, plenty of joints, a tail that can move, etc. And fans who have only been collecting a few years will definitely need this classic Spidey foe. But if you've already got the ToyBiz Sam Greenwell one, this isn't really an upgrade. -- 08/07/19

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