[Trivial Psychic]

So after getting the Sandman wave out of their boxes and goofing around with them for a bit, my excitement for them has really tempered down a bit. For some reason, the QC on this wave feels ALL OVER THE PLACE...and honestly, this is the first time in a long time where I've handled Marvel Legends with gloves usually reserved for NECA's figures, as I'm genuinely worried about breaking one or more of these guys.

My Sandman BAF is especially bad, as it took A LOT of work to actually put this guy together. His right leg (the one with the larger peg) would not come together without having to use heat to soften the peg, while the left leg, as well as the left arm, required a tremendous amount of pressure for the limbs to properly click and settle into place. The right leg's ball joint is soggy and floppy, while the left leg's is stiff and hard to move, and when you do, it moves the right leg along with it for some inexplicable reason. The right leg also makes that awful squeaking noise when you turn it...you know what it sounds like...the sound of friction that usually comes just seconds before a peg joint tears off as you turn it...only the joint is not ripping (and hopefully never does...*deep breath...)

Then there's the figures in the wave themselves. Green Goblin's right hand fell off immediately upon pulling him out of the package and doesn't sit as snuggly in the joint as it should. Spider UK had a stuck left shoulder (which took some work to free) that doesn't seem to slide up into the torso properly and as a result ended up taking a nice chunk of paint from the ball joint thanks to the rub. And then there was Symbiote Spider-Man, who had an elbow peg that needed to be pushed all the way in, and also had a frozen left shoulder joint that took several hot water treatments and some cutting with an exacto to free, and is still so tight that it's almost impossible to put his arms down at his sides, that I'm having the same sensation of terror trying to pose it that I did when I first started messing with my NECA Keaton Batman.

On the positive side...once I got past my QC issues, I really am digging the two figures that I thought I would enjoy the least in Spider-Man 2099 and Spider UK. I really like the bulk and build of Spider UK, and the look of Spidey 2099 is really slick and clean...very Mirror's Edge meets Spider-Man. I could be wrong, but it looks as if we got a newly sculpted pair of feet for these two figures as well, as they are similar to the symbiote feet that Venom and Anti-Venom had, only the heel cup seems to sit a little bit higher on the ankle, and they have a slightly different shape. Spider-UK's in particular might make a good replacement for Magneto's "slipper flippers" if I can find another one for fodder.

One other thing that impressed me about Spider UK was the abnormally clean design on the web pattern. I say abnormal, because it was so clean, I initially didn't think that Spider UK had an ab-crunch when I first looked at it.

Still...the QC issues of some of the last few waves (Abomination and Sandman) has me a bit concerned. It could be mold degredation, or that Hasbro is simply cranking these out too fast, but hopefully, they pace themselves a bit better in the next year so they don't have as many kinks as they've had as of late.