We got some great looks at what’s coming in the Play Arts Kai Marvel series at Toy Fair earlier this year, but Square-Enix have released a closer look at their take on the webslinger — and while he looks pretty smashing, he also seems to have the most pointless bits of extra armour Spider-Man could ever want.


Overall, I actually think this Spider-Man is a great looking design — the way it sort of re-imagines Spidey’s usual spandex with an armoured suit works pretty well, and the way the red parts of the suit look almost like additional armour plates over the base blue suit works really well. It does a great job of honouring Spidey’s traditional look without just looking a but boring like the Iron Man figure did.


But then again, there’s the four little metallic pieces of armour covering his shoulders ahdn then an extra two pieces... on either side of his pecs? I have no idea why they’re there. I guess the argument against any sort of Spider-Man armour is that his Spider-Senses let him dodge things easily enough so he doesn’t need it, but even if Peter Parker did need armour, I’m sure he’d use a lot more than just six tiny pieces that doe a really bad job of actually protecting anything vital. Giant Spider-shaped bullseye over his vital organs? Fine. But thank god a third of his pecs are armoured! It breaks up the colour scheme of the figure for no real reason, and just doesn’t add anything to the design at all. Needless tinkering on a great looking figure otherwise.

As with other Play Arts Kai releases, Spidey comes with a buttload of accessories — a web-themed stand as well as a normal one for swinging poses, a variety of hands for punching, neutral or web-shooting poses, and some extra plastic webbing pieces as well.


Variant Spider-Man will be out in August, for 12,000 Yen — or around $100. That’s quite the Marvel tax on the usual price of Play Arts Kai!


[via Toyark]

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