Molten Man

It's getting hot in here, so melt off all your clothes! click to embiggen So, spoilers ahead for Far From Home, if you haven't seen it. This Molten Man is definitely not the Molten Man of the comics. There, he's Mark Raxton, a scientist with a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering; when a liquid alloy based on a radioactive meteor spilled on his skin, he found he was now super strong, functionally invulnerable, and could vastly increase his body temperature insane degrees. In the movie, he's a superheated pile of goop, a fire elemental from another world. Molten Man is built from eight pieces, though you only need to buy six figures to build him - Spider-Woman and Night Monkey each come with two pieces, and the plain Spider-Man doesn't come with any at all. Since the design isn't typically anatomical, be sure you're assembling things properly: I put the arms on the wrong sides at first, and had to pop them back out when I realized my mistake. Although Molten Man has two arms, two legs, and a head, he lacks most typically identifiable musculature. Instead, he looks like flowing mounds of viscous liquid - kind of like Clayface, in fact. (Except that, unlike Mattel's Clayface Build-A-Figure, this one is actually available in stores, and you'll be able to complete it!) The thick, roiling material of the body folds and puddles over itself, creating an asymmetrical sculpt that looks like it's in flowing, dripping motion even though it's solid. There's clearly influence from cooling lava flows here, which makes sense for a fire demon who melts anything in his clutch. Since the Molten Man increases in mass as he absorbs more meltable materials, it's not just the surface details that are not mirrored here. A removable I-beam fits into a notch in the left shoulder, suggesting he's currently absorbing it; consequently, the left side of the body is larger than the right, with a fat stump of a leg, deeper folds of metal on the chest, and an arm that is so humongous the knuckles drag on the ground and act as a third support for the figure. Another I-beam pokes out of the right forearm, but it's smaller and not removable, and the foot on that side has actual toes, not just a big elephantine pad. 616 Molten Man is a golden human with a flat top haircut and little trunks. There's no reason for the movie monster to share that color, but there are hints of it in his magma form. The toy goes all the way, though, making him all over a metallic gold with some bright orange "fire" visible within. Some of the parts are cast from translucent orange plastic and then given gold apps over top, so light can shine through and make him look even hotter. The Molten Man BAF moves at the ankles, knees, thighs, hips, waist, chest, wrists, elbows, biceps, shoulders, neck, and head. All the extra weight on the left side of the figure makes balancing him a bit tough, especially if you don't want to use the left hand to stabilize him. The waist is a balljoint, which is how the torso got turned around and I got confused about which arm went on which side, but it also provides a terrific range of motion. The toy looks best posed with a slouching hunch, to suggest his immense weight, leaving him standing about 8" tall. There is an ancient foursome in the Marvel Universe called "the Elementals," who came to Earth from another dimension, but despite the insistance of some fans, they 100% weren't the inspiration for Far From Home's threats - visual effects supervisor Janek Sirrs said he can't recall whether the idea came first to use Spidey villains and bump up their powers, or to have elemental creatures that were later assigned existing names, but either way, those Elementals had nothing to do with it. And that's why this figure is called "Molten Man" and not "Hellfire." The only downside is that we'll likely never see BAFs of MCU Hydro-Man, Cyclone, or Sandman to go with him. Mysterio | Spider-Man (Stealth) | Hydro-Man | Doppelganger | Spider-Woman | Scorpion -- 08/08/19

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