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With these being the first new Marvel Minimates to hit the specialty market in over a year, the packaging has undergone a slight tweak. The boxes now feature a similar light blue as first seen with the Magneto/Professor X set. The pictures of the figures are very misleading – check out Spidey and the detailing on his battle damage. More on that later. As per the norm now, we get a generic Marvel Universe logo, and it’s a real shame because the Toys R Us 4-pack featuring the New Avengers did have the proper NA logo and it would make the packs stand out more between the waves.

The back of the packaging is new and shows off all the figures in waves 12 and 13.

The first Minimate in this set is Ronin, the superbly athletic and disciplined fighter who joined New Avengers on a recomendation from Matt Murdock.

The design for Ronin is quite unusual in the Marvel line. Ronin has a mask on but it is directly onto the head block so no chance of taking it off to reveal who is in the outfit, which mirrors the plot from the comic book. The detailing on the mask is pretty good, with the yellow lines showing the eyes and cheeks. It’s certainly different. Ronin does not have the now-usual hole in the head, maybe because it’d be quite visible without the hairpiece.

The costume is mainly black with the bright yellow trim providing a really nice contrast. Ronin uses the “V” chest piece that originally came with Nightcrawler which gives the figure a really nice curved look flowing from the shoulders downwards, with the yellow trim really adding to the effect. Ronin also has a belt/sash piece to complete the look, which is from Iron Fist originally.

Ronin doesn’t come with any accessories, like almost everyone in waves 12 and 13. a pair of swords would have been so good, but that’s what you get for creating a wave that only reuses pieces.

Overall, it’s a new character, a Minimate we’ve not seen in the line before, which is certainly welcome in this age of a billion retreads of each character. The execution is pretty good too and Ronin will certainly look distinctive on the shelf.

MMC Score – 7 out of 10

The second Minimate in the set is Spider-Man, as seen just after the mass supervillain breakout from the Raft, where he got badly beaten up trying to stop the exodus. Amazingly, this is the second battle-damaged variant of Spider-Man in the Marvel line, so let’s see what’s different between the two.

First off, whereas the original battle-damaged Spidey played on the iconic “mask half ripped off, revealing the eyes” image seen many times in the comics and also the film Spider-Man 2, this version decides to lose the mask completely, showing us Peter Parker’s smashed-up face in its entirety. The detailing here is good, with blood running from his mouth and a cut cheek. However the black eye looks more like mud (if it is supposed to be mud, then I apologise) and the face looks slightly off because of Peter’s eyes. They are a cat-like orangey-yellow. No idea why. The hairpiece is the oft-reused Juggernaut hairpiece, which is fine because the Unmasked Spider-Man’s hairpiece was horribly loose.

The detailing on the body is a mixed bag. Spidey’s costume is as detailed as the ones that have gone before, except I really don’t like the muscle detailing, which stands out as too bold, like someone’s just drawn over the front of it with a thick Sharpie. The red of the costume is very dark, almost a maroon, it’s very noticible when compared against the other Spidey Minimates. Unlike most of the other figures in waves 12 and 13, Spidey is not skimped on when it comes to detailing on the sides and back – all the webbing lines are present and correct. However, the biggest flaw to this figure is the implementation of the battle damage; the rents and tears to the costume to show he’s been in a riot. On the previous figure, you could see where the suit was torn, there was an area of skin with a “flap” of suit hanging off, and it occurred all over the figure – on his back, shoulders, arms and legs. Here, the battle damage is restricted to just arms and legs, and the execution of it is shocking. They have just put an off-white triangle over the suit to simulate the exposed skin detailing. It looks really bad. It doesn’t actually LOOK like battle damage. They would have been better off losing the shoddy triangles and just keeping the battered head – the effect would have been better than what we have now. Spidey also has a “webbing cast” on his wrist, not sure what it’s been reused from, but it works fine here.

No accessories for Spidey, not even a webline. He does have a hole in the head and C3 feet, making him one of the few Spider-Men to have those.

Overall, this is an inferior figure to one that was released over 3 years ago, in terms of doing what it’s supposed to do – show off how badly damaged Spider-Man is. The tardiness of slapping 4 tiny, non-skin coloured triangles on the figure’s arms and legs and calling it battle damage is beyond belief. A very poor figure. 

Review and pictures by Danny Mills

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