Happy Saturday and welcome to another Dan's ToyBox review. Right off the bat, I'll admit this is going to be a fairly short review, especially for a 2 in 1. I'm very disappointed with this two-pack and I'll be happy to share my thoughts on it.
I'm actually so disgusted with this that I'm not even wasting time writing my usual character history blurb. Instead we're going to jump right into our review categories of Accessories, Appearance, Articulation and Affordability. After which, the figure(s) will receive an overall grade of zero to 10 ToyBoxes.
ACCESSORIES
May comes with a pair of open hands and a pair of fists. Fists? Really? What the heck does Aunt May need fists for? This is likely the least appropriate accessory I've ever seen. Give her a book or a frying pan or something... not a pair of repainted fists for crying out loud. Doc Ock comes with his bendy tentacles, an item holding hand, an open/grasping hand, and a pair of fists. More fists... how nice. 2 out of 10 for Accessories.
APPEARANCE
I've seen promo shots for other animated Spider-Man series figures and their likenesses to both the box art and the actual cartoon characters is much better than what we get here. Aunt May has the most horrific expression on her face, the hair style isn't really even close to the box art and quite frankly neither are her features. I get the worst Jim Carrey vibe when I look at her face. I hate to say it but the way the applied her eyebrows and the design of her expression makes her look as if the prune juice and laxatives just kicked in. She has a very manly look to her. At least the paint apps themselves are cleanly applied, but ugh... this is terrible. The rest of the figure is boring and very bland. I'm trying to find something nice to say and about the best I can come up with is that at least the colors pop a bit, but ugh. Her stork neck is angled forward, which really looks awkward as her head is perpetually tilted downward. The prize piece in this set (and honestly, the only reason people bought it) isn't much better though. Doctor Octopus starts out with a decent head sculpt and some great paint applications, but his mouth has this odd shape to it. It looks like he's making "duck lips" for a TikTok video. The sculpt work for the tentacles and the base on his back that they plug in to is actually nice. Two of the tentacles have open pinchers, while the other pair are somewhat closed. This is about the best, nicest I can say because it gets worse from here. The yellow chest/shoulder plate is terrible. The sculpting in it is lacking detail and there should be some wash to give it depth. It's just a big chunk of yellow plastic that restricts movement quite a bit. Also, the fact that it's so bright is very distracting and when you include the nearly neon orange highlights on his collar, gauntlets, belt, and boots... Ock looks like some neon 80's nightmare. Normally I applaud vibrancy in color, but this is hard to look at because of how bright and distracting it is. The orange highlights are muted in the cartoon and even on the box art, but not on this figure. Without any wash or shading... I don't know... it just looks like cheap plastic. It does look like Hasbro tried to add some shade to the green areas of the rest of his costume, but their efforts fall short when you look at the sculpted detail. There are very shallow sculpted lines at the abdomen which are nearly impossible to see. Adding some shading or even panel line paint and highlight those lines would make a difference (much like on the chest plates). My biggest complaint is the incredibly lazy work done on the legs. There is a sculpted pattern on the legs. Hasbro had the perfect opportunity to camouflage the upper thigh cut here and completely blew it. Rather than having the thigh cut actually run parallel to the linework, the sculpted lines are at a slight angle, and this looks terrible. Do you mean to tell me that the sculpt work couldn't have been adjusted slightly so that we don't get this horrible triangle slice?
I'm sorry... but this is just lazy. Line this up, hide the thigh cut and bam, the legs look better. The worst part in all of this is that this looks to be an entirely new body mold! It's lazy. It's like there was no effort at all put into making this look good. 4 out of 10 for Appearance.
ARTICULATION
Aunt May is garbage. I don't even want to waste my time on her, but I'll discuss what does work. Her head turns side to side and tilts down. Her shoulders do raise the arms out to a T pose and can rotate 360 degrees. She has a single jointed elbow, with built in swivel and her hands hinge and rotate. Her waist will turn. Her legs are, actually, articulated. However, the skirt is a massive hindrance. There is no slit in the skirt, which would allow for ANY forward movement or splits. Instead, we get the upper thigh cut which works. There ARE knee joints, but again, the skirt prevents usage. Her ankles hinge and pivot, which is good because her legs are pushed so close together that getting her to even stand on her own is difficult at best. Unfortunately, Doctor Octopus isn't a whole lot better. His head does turn well, and he will look up, but that's the extent. Thanks to the clunky yellow chest/shoulder piece, his arms will just raise to below a T pose and though the shoulders are designed to rotate 360 degrees, they are blocked from doing so. His bicep swivel works fine and the double-jointed elbows are limited from bending in too deeply because of the shape of his gauntlets. The wrists will rotate and hinge without trouble. The torso seems to have a ball joint at the waist, which allows for rotation and side to side tilting. There is some back bend, but very little forward crunch. His legs can do very nice splits, will kick forward quite nicely and have functional thigh rotation. The knees are double jointed, but are limited by the boot design. I initially thought there was a boot cut, but it doesn't appear to be the case. The ankles have solid hinge and pivot motion. His tentacles are both fantastic and frustrating at the same time. Though they are bendy, the plastic is a bit harder, making getting different tentacle poses difficult. Additionally, and most maddeningly, the plugs are cylindrical. When you port the tentacles into his back, they have a tendency to rotate downward, caused by their own weight. Why wouldn't the plugs and ports be square? If the tentacles are posable, the plugs should be immovable. This design flaw is incredibly stupid and head shaking. Who thought it would be good to basically give the tentacles a rotational axis? Because of this it's very difficult to get Ock into a pose in which the tentacles are holding him aloft. 1) They aren't sturdy enough to hold him up and will flex under his weight and 2) the cylinder plugs will rotate, causing the tentacles swivel and collapse. The only way I got them to stay upright in the pictures was to brace them against the top of my lightbox. Articulation gets a VERY generous 3 out of 10 and I'm kind of loathe to even give it that much.
AFFORDABILITY
I paid $52.99 for this set on Hasbro Pulse. I basically paid $53 for an action figure with a throwaway figure accessory and an extra set of hands. Definitely NOT worth it.
0 out of 10 for Affordability.
Overall, for the first time that I can remember, I actually find myself regretting spending the money on action figures. This is, in my opinion, a terrible set. Ock can probably be modified to at least improve the base figure, but if you aren't of that skill set you're going to be stuck with shelf fodder. The Hasbro Marvel Legends Animated Series Doctor Octopus and Aunt May Two-Pack earns a very paltry:
2.5 ToyBoxes out of 10
If you can find Ock online (at a reasonable price) by himself and are comfortable making your own modifications, that's how I'd recommend adding this figure. Otherwise, this two-pack is just a blatant money grab from Hasbro and not worth the effort. Until next time... GEEK OUT!!!