Of course, along with all that success came the toys. However, there's never been any shortage of Spider-Man toys, and in just recent years we've had everything from the Spider-Man in a soccer uniform, to Spider-Man dressed as a lifeguard. I kid you not.

This week, comic shops received the latest in the long and varied history of Spider-Man, the Marvel Select Ultimate Spider-Man. Marvel Select is a branch of Diamond Select, which is of course an offshoot of Diamond Distributors. This 7" scale figure is a joint venture between Toy Biz and Diamond, and the first in a series of the Marvel Select action figures. It's important to point out that this is NOT Marvel Legends. That line by Toy Biz is a slightly smaller scale, along with quite a few other distinct differences.

If you have any questions, comments or figures you'd like to suggest for reviews, you can always reach me at mwc@mwctoys.com. If you enjoy this review, take a minute to check out my other site at Michael's Review of the Week, and let me know what you think. Now on to the review!

"Marvel Select Ultimate Spider-Man"

Packaging - ***
Spidey comes in a fairly basic bubble package, similar to the square-cornered, book-style packages Toy Biz has employed occasionally in the past. It's sturdy enough, although the edges of the backer card on the top and right side are likely candidates for damage. The bubble is nice and large, and affords a fine view of the front of the display base and Spider-Man himself.

Sculpting - ***
The sculpting on this set is adequate, but certainly nothing that's going to cause Todd McFarlane to lose sleep. It does capture the “ultimate” look of Spidey, with the thinner body, but overall, it's still quite basic. The majority of detail is in the webbing lines on the red of the uniform, which is nicely done. The figure has limited articulation, so the sculpted pose is critical. Here's it's not too bad, and the figure can stand on his own without too much trouble. The right hand sculpt is a bit over the top, with extremely elongated fingers, but overall he's a decent looking figure.

The sculpting on the base is very basic as well. The brick wall looks nice, but the floor is very simple, and appears to be dirt. There's a wooden post/beam as well, and it looks like a wooden post. The base has been called “massive” by some press releases, but it's not particularly large. It's almost impossible to stand Spidey on it with the bad guy, particularly if you want to use the included webbing shooting out of his wrist. That's of particular note since they give you a little hanger hole on the back of the base if you want to put it on a wall, but then you'll be in a pinch as to where to put Spider-Man and make it look right! The size and style of the base is very similar to those included with the first series of Stan Winston Creature Features monsters. Again, decent, but nothing that's going to rock the industry.

Paint - **
One of the areas that this set falls short on is paint ops. When you over hype and item as the next great collectors dream, you're going to get extra scrutiny, and unfortunately the paint application doesn't live up to the hype. There's sloppy lines, some bleed from one color to another, and in general, the line doesn't show the attention to quality that's fast becoming the standard.

Some areas showed more problems than others. The brown hair of the villain is slopped into the red brick, and his face has a clumpy, rough paint texture. I noticed several small spots in the blue of Spider-Man's uniform that were missing paint, and there was some bleed between the reds and blues of the uniform. Even the choice of the slightly darker blue on the inner thighs - to provide a shadowed appearance I'm assuming - look odd and ineffectual.

Articulation - **
I'm baffled by what appears to be the continuing inability of many toy makers to understand that articulation matters to collectors. It seems that no matter how many times it gets said, or how many times the market shows it through their buying habits, manufacturers still insist that collectors just want little statues. They don't get it, and then don't understand when the product doesn't sell.

Once again, collectors are being told by a manufacturer what they like - and I suspect Marvel Select will pay for it with poor sales. Spidey has a whole six points, and they all are tremendously limited. He has ball jointed shoulders that have a limited range of motion, cut wrists, and cut thighs. There's no neck, and both arms are sculpted in such a way to make the amount of posing you can do close to zero.

The thing that fascinates me the most is that manufacturers will say that they don't want to include articulation because it makes the sculpt less attractive. Then they give us awful looking cut joints, with obvious gaps, poorly manufactured, and sculpted so that even the slightest twist in the appendage leaves jagged lines in the flow of the sculpt. This looks better?

I'll be running a poll again this year for the People's Choice Awards. I'm betting that Toy Biz is going to be one of the very top contenders, if not the winner, of the best company of the year award. Why? Because of the terrific job they've done with the HIGHLY ARTICULATED Marvel Legends and Spider-Man lines. Obviously, collectors are too dense to know what is best for them.

Accessories - ***
I don't consider this an action figure with a base accessory - this is really a playset. As such, I already mentioned the pros and cons of the base as part of the sculpting and paint ops sections, so the accessories here are really the pile of small crates, and the webbing that shoots from Spider-Man's wrist.

The set of crates is nicely done, and fits in with the overall feel of the playset. The webbing fits into a small hole in Spider-Man's wrist, and is stiff and sturdy. Unlike many recent “floppy” accessories, it's made of a very sturdy plastic. People will be complaining about the green color, I'm sure -- the webbing looks far more like snot than a spider's web -- but that's not the fault of the toy. The Ultimate comic story had the webbing this way, so they are just following the source material. While I'm not fond of the look, I don't fault the toy for it.

Value - *1/2

Easily the biggest problem with this toy is the price tag - $18-$20 at most comic shops. I mentioned the Stan Winston line earlier, and this set is VERY similar, both in scale and style. But the sculpting falls short of even those sets, and they are overpriced at $15. I'm not a huge fan of Diamond and some of their business practices to begin with, but with the over-hype, high price, and mediocre quality, this figure reeks of them simply taking advantage of collectors, rather than truly trying to produce a unique product worth the price.

Overall - **1/2
Marvel Select and Diamond have hyped these as the second coming of action figures for collectors. They fall far short of that, and end up as nothing more than Marvel versions of basic playsets. It is possible to do these well, and Hasbro has already pulled it off with the Star Wars Unleashed line. Of course, those are half the cost of these, with superior sculpting.

Don't get me wrong - these aren't terrible piles of plastic unworthy of any attention. They are adequate, and the big Spider-Man fan will want to at least give them a look-see. But this line isn't one that you'll want to buy in it's entirety, simply because the shelf real estate at your house is far too valuable for something this big, this expensive, and this average.

Where to Buy -
I picked mine up at a local comic shop for $19. Twenty is SRP, but most places appear to have them for around $18-$19. On-line:

- Toynk.com has the set for $17.49 plus $5 for shipping. It still says it's a pre-order, but I'm assuming they just haven't updated the web page yet.

- Gamestop's on-line store has them for a pretty decent price at $16.99 plus shipping. That may mean that you'll find them at your local Gamestop for that price, but it might see pretty spotty distribution to the bricks and mortar stores.

I'm always looking for leads on new retailers on-line, so if you have suggestions please let me know!