Spider-Man (Symbiote Costume)

It's the Not-So-Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man! His mind infected by the thoughts of an alien symbiote and his strength enhanced by the creature that clings to him, Spider-Man feels an uncharacteristic rage taking him over. If the Black Costume Saga is an iterable chunk of Spider-Man story, then that's a great summation of the first half of it: the suit makes Peter a better Spider-Man, but also makes him rage out at times, which is how he realizes it's bad; cue Act 2 and him trying to get rid of it. In fact, that's become so codifed as "the" story, you may not even remember it didn't come from the comics at all. Honest! In the books, the suit just makes him tired because it's taking his body out to Spider-Man around the city while his brain is asleep, but that's all: the absolute very notion that the suit makes Peter more aggressive or anything was invented from nothing by the 1990s animated series! Wild! Surprisingly, this figure does not just reuse the same Dennis Chan sculpt as No Way Home Tobey-Man: the Raimi movies didn't redesign Spider-Man when he got the symbiote the way every other medium does, it just took the normal design and turned the saturation all the way down. It was the right choice, honestly - being colorful and true to the comics was already a departure from what was proven successful in superhero movies at the time, so inventing a new design from scratch would probably not have worked as well as "the same thing, but black now." Besides, making all the raised details silver is better for the screen than a smooth black morph suit with a bright white graphic design spider on the chest. The Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon did the same thing, but since he kept the suit longer there, the design evolved to be more "Venomy" over time - who's to say the same thing wouldn't have happened on Earth-96283? Anyway, while the suit was mostly the same pre- and post-symbiote, the spider symbols on the chest and back changed slightly, looking more sinister and unsettling. In order to show that, Hasbro had to remold both the upper and lower chest, leaving just the arms and legs (and head, and all the alternate hands) the same as the other toy. Personally, I'd have been fine without the remolding, I wouldn't have noticed it was wrong, but I know there are people who care enough to be annoyed if Hasbro got it wrong. Something else that's new is the uunmasked head. One of the things everybody makes fun of Spider-Man 3 for is the part where the symbiote makes Peter turn emo, turning his hair both 1) dark and B) stupid. So if you're going to do a movie Symbiote-Spidey figure, it only makes sense to give him that same stupid look. His hair falls over his forehead accurately, and he seems to have the hint of a smirk on his lips. It's a perfect representation of what a nerd like Peter Parker would think "cool" is. We also get one accessory, and it's actually cool. Exceedingly so! It's not something that literally happened in the movie - more an allegorical representation - but we get a blop of goo that fits around the toy's neck, and shows the symbiote peeling off of (or perhaps wrapping onto) Peter. It has dark tendrils, with lighter spikes for fangs growing all over the place, and it forms the upper half of a Venom face that's rising like it wants to bite his head. It's a truly awesome little thing to include, and ups the fun value of the set measurably. Love it, love it, love it! Unfortunately, this toy costs more than average - presumably some of that is "we had to re-get the Spider-Man 3 and Maguire likeness rights," and some of that is "this is a one-time-use accessory," but also some of it is "fans definitely want this and thus we can squeeze them some more." That last one ain't cool, especially since the only place that seems to be carrying this is GameStop, and they bump their prices up to begin with. If Hasbro had really wanted to do something special with this release, they could have also included a Topher Grace head, so this could either be Peter Parker losing the suit, or Eddie Brock gaining it - after all, he wasn't fully Venom-sized right away. Still, if you can get this without paying secondary market prices, it is a great offering and updates one more old Hasbro figure that needed it. -- 12/31/25 You're a nerd: what would YOU think a cool guy is like? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.