Cool Thing: Popy Spider-Man

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I'm currently out of colouring books to review (although expect some great stuff in January) so I thought it was high time to take a look at some of the more interesting toys to cross my path.
Our initial entry comes from Japan, land of wonderful playthings and pornography that gives me nightmares.

This doll is not based on the comic book Spider-Man, no sir, it's based on a goofily brilliant live action TV series that ran in Japan in the late seventies. The costume is the same but that's not Peter Parker under there. If you haven't already be sure to watch episodes at the Marvel comics site it saves me explaining it.

While a lot of people might use "Mego-Like" to describe this guy, he is about a head taller than the average Mego Superhero and his build is bulky like Big Jim but the body style is unique to Popy.

His right arm is straight and features a winch, you pull out that webline and hook and he'll climb just like a Remco Spider-Man. His left arm is for firing things, the Japanese love this feature and I love them for it.




And look what you can shoot out of Spidey's left arm, missiles (of course), a net and rubber Spiders that fit on top of the missiles. They thought of everything! Spidey also comes with working suction cups to simulate wall crawling, this is a serious toy.


The back of the packaging is no slouch either, the one nice thing about this piece is it seems relatively obtainable. It popped up regularly and doesn't destroy your wallet when it does.

Thanks for reading my "Cool Thing" Spotlight, I'll hopefully do more in the future when and if I get something interesting to talk about.
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[Meule]

That one is a lot more fun of course, but I prefer this one

One day I hope to add a Popy Batman to my collection

[clemso]

yeah it looks cool and fun, love the box too

[SlipperyLilSuckers]

That set is ultracool.

[sauce]

Man, do I love this SpiderSet!!!

[cjefferys]

That Popy Spidey is an awesome toy, one of my favourite Spider-man items. I love the head sculpt, the shiny oufit, all the accessories and of course the missile launcher. And I recently realized that there are variations with this toy too. If I recall, when Brian posted a bunch of pictures of his, the rear view showed that the suit uses snaps to hold the costume together. When I opened mine up, I was surprised to find velcro strips instead of snaps. I don't know if one version is earlier and one is later, or they were made at different factories or what? Also, comparing these on various ebay auctions, I've seen slight variations in the lettering on the boxes too.

[jwyblejr]

Wish they had released that here.

[rche]

I love this popy set.

[clemso]

Would love to watch this series, is it on dvd?

[toys2cool]

I love that fig

[Earth 2 Chris]

I've never seen this set in person, but I've always liked it. It seems to be favored amongst Spidey collectors, probably due to it's unique charm, and the fact that it is also canon, just not our canon!

Chris

[cjefferys]

Would love to watch this series, is it on dvd?

Legally, only in Japan as an expensive box set, region 2 and no English subs. But I've seen cheaper, fan-subbed grey market versions floating around out there.