Carnage

Ah, ToyBiz. The Spider-Man line has come a long way from the first revolutionary "Classics" footsteps; who remembers those first two series? Not just paving the way for the mass amounts of articulation that would become common place, or the big fun detailed bases, but with the several different characters, not just three ridiculous interpretations of Spider-Man with a shortpacked and much-chased single enemy character. Do you remember? Me neither. Carnage is the particular short-packed enemy figure from Series 8, and carries on the uber-articulation status while being ridiculously hard to find due in part to the popularity of the character. Now, this would be the part of the review where normally I'd have a short bio of Carnage in italics, but to be quite frank, I'm a rebel. If you want to read about Carnage, click here. I'm going to tell you a bit about Lobo, because Lobo kicks ass. Lobo is a six foot alien humannoid making appearances all over the DC Universe, before getting his own comic, mostly about drinking and killing people. He killed everyone on his home planet on a whim. Lobo LOATHES Captain Comet and everything he stands for, including (but not limited to): square jaws, goody-goodies, democracy, flags, the philosophy that ultimately Good can overcome Evil, short hair, brown shoes, Equality For Women, Equality For Men, basic rights, and most everything else decent. Lobo is one of the toughest creeps in the universe. He can rip through solid rock, kick his way out of a steel safe, and lift a two-ton semi and use it as a club. In fact, he's done all that stuff. This week. Hell yeah. Tell me that Lobo doesn't kick ass. [yes, gentle readers; Shocka is off his nut --ed.] Anyway, back to Carnage. The figure is 6¼" tall, mostly in scale with your Spidey figures and very nicely sculpted. While I didn't know much about the character, the figure looks very cool, like a Venom-type monster splattered with gore. The face looks positively evil, and the body is all veiny and nasty. Less impressive is the paint job, which some folks will really complain about. The only part of the figure detailed at all is the head, and that's splotchy - the rest of the body is all red plastic that's been firmly drybrushed with black paint, and it chips very easily. This is pretty lame on behalf of ToyBiz, especially on a figure so popular and hard to come by. On the better side, Carnage is completely loaded with all the lovely articulation you come to expect with Classics/Legends figures. This guy can get into positions my imaginary girlfriend can't even get into! I don't care to count how many points, but he's got the whole body plus midsection articulation I've never seen before (first figure who can bend over somewhat realistically - perfect for all the time he's spent in prison) and an interesting combination of three joints for finger articulation: his thumb, index finger and other three fingers each have articulation, which works quite well. While I often have a gripe with this uber-articulation, as it can seriously detract from a good sculpt, I find really suitable for Carnage, whose simple (though effective) sculpt and detail work together so that the articulation doesn't need to be hidden. He's also full of poses and attack for other figures - very playable and fun indeed. His halfassed reused "Spider-Trap" is the only accessory, and what a waste of time it is. It's basically a piece of street or something with crazy red streaky walls designed to pop up and trap whoever is dumb enough to walk into it. Lame, yes, but this is the kind of crazy crap I normally like - it reminds me of those playsets and traps from back in the day, like with the MotU, TMNT, and other '80s abbreviations. Sadly, the stupid thing doesn't even work; you're supposed to pull on the Symbiote head thing, which is attached via a piece of string, to make it "trap" the victim, but all it does is make a loud screeching sound. Yeesh. I'm just using it as a display base for Carnage - pretty much everyone else will throw it away. Overall, Carnage = good. However, Lobo would kick Carnage's ass. END REVIEW. -- 06/29/04

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