Cyborg Spider-Woman

...are you sure? Cyborg Spider-Woman is part Spider-Woman, part machine. She doesn't have regular powers like everyone else but with years of experience and a cannon for an arm, she's seen it all and can fight with the best of them! Okay, so, conspiracy theory time: this was intended to be the Build-A-Figure for the Across the Spider-Verse toys, but all the intricate construction meant they couldn't get it to cost out; so they switched to the "retro" cardback style for the normal figures and just put the BAF out by itself. It seems obvious, but I don't know anybody who could confirm, so it'll just have to remain a theory. This Spider-Woman is a creation of the movie, not anyone from the comics yet, so that bio up above is literally all the information we have about her. How can she be a Spider-Woman when she doesn't have "regular" powers? Does she have irregular powers? Why is she built like a linebacker? Why is she size of a Hulk? Is her world post-apocalyptic, or does everyone think she's dumb for dressing this way? Well, you tell us, because this is a character with no origin, just a wild design. Said design is basically "what if Simon Bisley drew Spider-Man," what with the chains, the spikes, and the messed-up proportions. If Spider-Punk was constantly surrounded by screenprint cutouts, Cyborg Spider-Woman looks like she'd be covered in scratchy black lines and ink splatters. The base of the costume is the usual red and blue Spidey suit, but there are bandages wrapped around the right thigh and left arm, various leather straps around the left leg, and a studded bracelet around the left wrist. Judging by the promo images, her left arm should be metal and have pods like actual Cyborg Spider-Man, but this toy doesn't. She wears Spider-costume combat boots over her regular Spider-boots, and has a single kneepad on the right with four metal blades sticking up from it. The combo of mismatched eyepieces and a gas mask make her head seem a bit skeletal, but the coolest feature has to be the way her Spider-symbol is formed by a plate of metail that's held against her chest by four loose chains that serve as its legs. Neat! A close second? All those "spikes" on the left shoulder pad actually being large brass bullets. Her entire right arm is a gigantic weapon, some amalgamation of guns and spikes and wires and whatnot. Like if All-For-One's arm were mechanical instead of flesh. This is definitely part of the design's "Bisley" vibe, and even on the toy it's made from multiple pieces that have been assembled together. Unfortunately, its articulation is lacking. The barrels at the front swivel, the shoulder lifts and rotates, and the upper arm turns, but there's nothing acting as an elbow joint. She did bend her arm in the movie, guys, it wasn't always perfectly straight. Another lacking area is the paint. You'd think, being sold by itself for 59-goddamn-dollars, they'd be able to really kit this one out, make it a true deluxe offering, but no. The barbed-wire webs on the costume are all sculpted on, but only some of them are lucky enough to get paint apps. Just as an example, consider her right boot: some of the webs on the toe and the outside of the leg get the grey paint, but the rest are just left blank, and they didn't even bother with doing the shoelaces. Basically, they did the bare minimum highlights wherever you'd be likely to look first, then left the rest as unpainted as they possibly could. Heck, the solid red spikes on the left hand tell us that if the shoulder spikes hadn't been done by inserting them from underneath, they'd have been left grey. There's no excuse for halfassing this way. And if I were Dan Mitchell, I'd be frustrated that all the work I put into the sculpt was getting lost because Hasbro didn't want to paint it up right. A character this big isn't going to be as flexible as every other Spider-Man, but the articulation remains as good as you expect. Other than in the gun-arm, which isn't good. Which is in fact bad. We get swivel/hinge ankles, double-hinged knees, swivel thighs, balljointed hips, balljoint chest, swivel/hinge wrist, double-hinged elbow, swivel bicep, swivel/​hinge shoulder, and barbell neck. So that the soft PVC spikes on the gun and left knee don't get smashed in the packaging, there are special cardboard frames surrounding them. Couldn't do that if this were a Build-A-Figure! Cyborg Spider-Woman got chosen for a toy for no reason other than being a noteable design, but there's nothing wrong with that. Heck, that's why she's in the movie: cool design that stands out from the crowd. What else were they going to make this series' BAF (even if that eventually ended up not happening), the T rex? The Spider-Mobile? Sp//dr, the one Spider we didn't get as an ML from the first movie? Okay, that last one would have been nice, but big crazy wasteland monster person is a fine choice still. The problem is less the choice of character and more the execution: you can either overcharge us for a toy or you can cut corners on the final product, but with Cyborg Spider-Woman, Hasbro's chosen to do both. She's fine, but she's not going anywhere; if you're interested in a wild-looking Spidey to build out your display, you can wait for a substantial sale. -- 07/17/23

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