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Wait, does England even have spiders? I thought that was just Australia.
Across time and space, these web-slinging wall
crawlers take on the bad guys and fight for universal justice.
Ugh, when will the liberal media stop shoving its Universal Justice Warriors down our throats? Spider-UK is Billy Braddock of Earth-833. Not only is he his Earth's Spider-Man, he's also its Captain Britain. You know that in the normal universe, Peter Parker and Brian Braddock were college roommates, but giving Billy, here, both powers still seems greedy. Like giving Superman a Green Lantern ring. On the other hand, he's the only one who noticed/cared that the Spider-Men from every reality were being hunted, so the fact that they all got together to save their skins is entirely thanks to him. Cheers, mate! Sadly, while he was busy saving Spideys, his native reality was destroyed leading up to Secret Wars, leaving him nowhere to go home to. Talk about making sacrifices for the greater good!
Spider-UK is a bigger, bulkier guy than the average Spider-Man, so it's no surprise he doesn't use the skinny Spider-body. What is surprising, however, is that he also doesn't use the medium body, like you might assume he does - this is a completely new mold! While it's about the same size as the medium body, the chest is broader across, and the muscles aren't quite as defined: they're meant to look like they're covered by cloth, rather than just being painted skin. There are wrinkles sculpted near the joints and stretching over the gaps.
There are a few minor issues with this new body, however.
For one thing, when the legs are in their "natural" position (ie, straight up and down), the hips stick out a little too far from the pelvis. It's not quite as bad as it is on the Spider-body, and pretty much goes away entirely if you just spread the legs a little. You know, for a more stable stance. Additionally, the clearance around the shoulder joint is a bit tight, so if you raise the arms to the outside, it might end up gouging the plastic, as I learned the hard way. Other than that, it's good - Billy has a balljointed head, hinged neck, swivel/hinge shoulders, swivel biceps, double-hinged elbows, swivel/hinge wrists, a hinged torso, swivel waist, balljointed hips, swivel thighs, double-hinged knees, swivel shins and swivel/hinge ankles.
The original design for "Spider-UK" wasn't really appropriate for a member of the Captain Britain Corps, but it was too good to lose, so it was
turned into a character named "Spider-Punk," and Cap was redesigned. His suit is red and blue, with the spider-webbing taking the place of the plain red in the Union Jack that is draped over his shoulders and chest. Because the body is bigger than average, he needed a new head in order to look proportional; it has the usual design, though the eyes are slightly squinty. If they hadn't spent money on a brand-new body for him, maybe we could have gotten a second head, showing him wearing his Captain Britain helmet.
Both Multiverse Spider-Men come with a piece of the Series 5 Build-A-Figure, Sandman. Billy gets the left arm and hand. A truly giant hand.
"Spider-Verse" was not only a good story, it was a good excuse to create lots of new, toyetic Spider-Man designs. And kudos to Hasbro for not wasting the opportunity! Imagine how much ToyBiz would have loved this back when they were doing their Spider-Man line, having to release scores of nearly identical Spideys when they could have been milking these crazy designs for their action-feature-happy figures.
-- 03/20/17
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