Toxin

If at first you do succeed... keep trying anyway? The 1000th symbiote in a lineage that includes Carnage and Venom, Toxin is feared by many to be the strongest and most dangerous. Hasbro has made a figure of Toxin before, but it wasn't very good. ToyBiz made a really nice one, ages ago, but I didn't know who the character was and thought it was just a Venom repaint, so I passed and now I'm constantly playing catch-up trying to get a decent version of the character. This one is based on the Monster Venom BAF body, which does make him slightly too large. Like, yeah, the character is big and monstrous, but this is closer to Marvel Select scale than Marvel Legends. In the toy's defense, the art has definitely shown him to be this ridiculously huge (for example, when Eddie Brock was wearing the suit as a member of the Savage Six alongside Jack O'Lantern and four people you've never heard of). And this is definitely the Eddie version, judging by the large black spots around the eyes and the lolling green tongue - those were his unique features. Another defining trait of Toxin is one Hasbro really leaned into on this toy, creepy waving tendril things flailing wildly off of his back. Monster Venom had a few of these, but Toxin turns it up to 11. Forget that, to 111. The spiralling lines of symbiote goo twist themselves all over the place, and many of them end in little Audrey II-style mouth buds. There are four pieces included in the package, and a little assembly is required; there are no instructions or guides, but it's not that difficult to figure out what goes where. [That's what she said. --ed.] The bits on his arms are permanently attached, but the ones for his back fit into two holes, meaning they're removable if you don't like them. Or, since two of them plug together for each side, you could have them be half as tall. There's some variety to be had. Compared to the last Toxin, this one at least gets the right colors. Considering that he's in the lineage of Venom (black) and Carnage (red), it shouldn't be surprising that Toxin is black and red. There's a nice fade between the colors on the abdomen and upper arms, and the bright white of the teeth is applied cleanly. Unfortunately, the mouths on his tendrils don't get any paint at all - the packaging art shows that they're meant to have green interiors and white teeth just like the main head, so leaving them red (while a frugal choice) is incorrect. It's hard to determine a height for Toxin. We know he's more than 7" tall, but do you count him standing straight up? Squatting slightly? Do you count the tendrils, or just measure to his head? However you want to count, he's a biggun! And he has all the articulation you'd expect a Marvel toy to: a balljointed head, hinged neck, swivel/hinge shoulders, swivel biceps, hinged elbows, swivel/​hinge wrists, hinged torso, swivel waist, balljointed hips, swivel thighs, double-hinged knees, swivel shins, and swivel/hinge ankles. tl;dr version: Monster Venom body, pretty cool new head, the creepy tendril things are removable if you don't like them, and they should have been painted better. This is a major improvement over Hasbro's last attempt at the character, and it allows them to use these BAF molds for the third time, which is more a bonus for them than for us, but you take what you can get. -- 03/01/21

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