Art Asylum/ Diamond Select Toy's Spider-Man III minimates
Venom/Transformation Spidey, Gwen Stacey/Unmasked Spidey, Sandman/Battle Damage Spidey
by Mr. Stinkhead

Spider-Man III minimates are finally here. Are they worth the wait? They're the most detailed Minimates (both in sculpt and paint) that I've ever seen. You can tell that a lot went into the production of these. Yesterday we reviewed two 4-packs (24 and Rocky II), Today, they've split the line into 2 packs, so you can collect a lot or a little. Each one of these includes a Spider-Man in one form or another, and should be hitting stores now.

Venom and Transformation Spidey
The sculpt job on the free-flowing symbiote (that sounds like something disgusting from a porn shoot) is incredible. I've noticed a trend in the sculpted pieces getting tighter and tighter. Look at the hair on Lorraine in the Back to the Future minimates, compared to the hair on the early rounds of Marvel Minimates., there's a lot of growth there. Also look at the teeny tiny "tread" pattern printed on Black Spidey. At this scale, they could have gotten away without all the line word, but it looks really sharp.

One minor complaint about this particular two-pack. All the other two-packs have two figures that interract. Gwen and Kissable Spider-Man. Sandman and Battle Damaged Spider-Man...here you have two versions of the same figure. Though I like both of them, they can't fight each other or anything. Because the fight is internal. Anyway, I like that you could buy any of these two-packs and have a little scene set up, but with this set, they're more for interacting with other Minis.

Gwen Stacey and Kissable Spider-Man
Gwen, have you learned nothing? Way back in Series 4 & 5 you came out without any knickers, and now you've made the same mistake again. You know what? After yesterday's big talk about action figures and their underwear, I'm dropping it. (Dropping trou that is). Seriously, now I'm part of the problem. And I apologize. I will never talk about commando goin' action figures two days in a row again. Ever.

I do like how the lifted mask fits over the entire head... it's not a replacement head, which I expected. Interesting.

Sandman and Battle Damaged Spider-Man
Nice Sandman... the detail is great, and by giving him a non-standard base, he does end up being bigger than the other mates, without being super huge. I would have loved to have seen this guy in the original, slightly larger Minimate Scale. But the base is nice. I wish you could get a little more movement out of his arms. Currently it's just shoulder, but it still works. Battle Damaged Spidey looks pretty good. There's still the finite detail on his suit, but it's not overdone.

These are pretty sweet. You can pick them up now from YouBuyNow.com. If you like Spider-Man, this is a sweet bunch of sets to go after.

That concludes Minimate Week. You can check out all of our Minimate coverage, and visit Diamond Select Toys for more information.

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