Miles Morales

Ah yes, a "retro" figure from 2021. Bitten by a radioactive spider, Miles Morales discovers allies and enemies across the multiverse as Spider-Man. Okay, let's be clear: this is not a "Retro Collection" series; it's a Marvel Legends series, and that's why we've numbered it as such. The filename starts with "smhml10_", not "mlrcsm3_". You can't have a "retro" figure of a costume from two years ago. This is a Legends series they couldn't think of a Build-A-Figure for, but still wanted to charge you $25 for each figure, so they just put it on the big cards. This is Hasbro trying to cheat you. Just remember that shoplifting from corporate stores is a victimless crime, and if you pay X amount of money at the register, you should leave the building with X amount of goods. Do your own math. (For legal purposes, this was a comedy bit.) So, like we said, this costume debuted in 2021, the tenth anniversary of Miles' creation. In the books, Miles had his very own "Clone Saga" when the 616 version of Miles Morales (that is, the adult one who lived there before Ultimate Miles got transported to that universe) hired someone to study Kid-Miles to see if he could get some powers, too. The clones broke free, and one of them did some crimes wearing the Spidey suit, so after his normal costume got torn up, Miles opted for a new look to set himself apart. Because this was after Spider-Verse, the costume featured sneakers and a sweatshirt - not a zip-up hoodie, but the influence is still there. If you look at Chase Conley's actual designs for the new suit, it seems the sweatshirt has the gloves built in, but this figure gets distinct cuffs around the wrists (presumably so there's some hope of future re-use of the molds). The shirt has a turtleneck collar that he wears unrolled to cover half his face, despite still wearing a full mask. That's certainly a choice, Miles. For whatever reason, the design of this suit chose to make it black and pink; fortunately, the final product was a darker red. Technically there should be a gap of skin visible between the pantlegs and the shoes, but we're not going to mind missing that too much. His new triangular Spider symbol is actually molded on, not just painted, and so's the other one on his back. There should be black lines on the sides of his shoes, and possibly yellow soles, but the bigger problem is that the red webs on his legs are so thin it's easy to miss them. And they didn't paint any webs on his butt at all. Other than the hands, the entire sculpt is new (thanks, Dennis Chan!), but the articulation is average: barbell head, swivel/hinge shoulders, swivel/​hinge elbows, swivel/hinge wrists, a balljointed chest way up inside the sweatshirt, balljointed hips, swivel thighs, double-hinged knees, swivel shoes, and swivel/ hinge feet. The elbows are more limited than double hinges would be, but the size of the baggy sleeves means those wouldn't have worked great. Also, making the shirt its own piece, neck and chest and drapery all in one, means the chest joint really can't move very far. Honestly, the ideal way of doing this would be softgoods over a fully painted body, even an existing one, but then Hasbro wouldn't be squeezing as much money out of us, would they? The only thing included on the card with Miles are alternate thwip hands, not even any webs. This is a cool costume, and even if there were better ways to realize it as an action figure, this is a decent execution of it. But this is not a "Retro" figure, and in 2023 it's not $25 worth of figure. A full sculpt with a removable sweatshirt? Sure, maybe. But not this. He'll be great in a Spidey collection, but pay less than full price. -- 08/21/23

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