When I cracked open three cases of new Marvel Legends waves all at once today, I was rather overwhelmed and unsure of where to start with reviews. Well… almost unsure where to start, anyway! Because the character whose inclusion puts the biggest smile on my face of any new ML figure this year is in this wave, and there was no way I could pass up doing his review first. Kicking off my Venom Legends reviews is a figure I never thought would be done: Marvel Legends Spider-Ham is now available!

The Right:

As an 80s baby, I’ve loved Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider-Ham, for pretty much my whole life. The Gentle Giant Spider-Ham mini bust from a few years back is one of my favorite products they’ve ever made, and I legit never expected that we’d see another licensed Spider-Ham collectible released.

But as soon as I walked into the Hasbro booth at New York Toy Fair 2018, my eyes lit up when I saw a certain anthropomorphic pig and I made a beeline for the display of Venom Marvel Legends.

At a glance, I immediately knew plenty of folks were gonna be scandalized by the articulation scheme on this action figure. And while it’s definitely not ideal, it’s also not as bad as it seems:

Ball-Jointed Head and Upper Body
Ball-Hinge Shoulders
Hinged Elbows
Swivel Wrists and Boots

That’s 10 points of articulation—awful by Legends standards, but better than a lot of other figures on the market.

And honestly, the upper body articulation isn’t all that bad. The wide range of head and upper torso articulation gives Peter Porker plenty of personality, and you might be surprised by how well the swivel wrists work in making this figure to life.

Venom Legends Spider-Ham is a 100% unique sculpt, and Hasbro makes excellent use of that fact. His eyes and nostrils are raised and sculpted, not just painted, and he’s got an adorable little mouth sculpted under his snout. Even the webs and spider logo are sculpted on—all details we often don’t get with figures that share tooling.

The proportions on this figure are also ace, as Spider-Ham looks like the wacky, zany cartoon-like character that he is. He’s perfectly sized and scaled at just about 3” tall, too.

While we don’t get any actual accessories for Spider-Ham himself, we do get two pieces for two other figures: the huge upper torso that’s the largest part of the Monster Venom Build-A-Figure, as well as a head to create Peter Porker’s arch-nemesis: the Swinester Six’s Pork-Grind.

If I never thought we’d see a ML Spider-Ham, my jaw just about fell straight through the floor when I realized we’d be able to make a Pork Grind figure. If the Venom symbiotic attached itself to a super-buff Porky Pig, Pork Grind is what you’d get.

The Pork Grind head works splendid on the Venom figure that’s two-per-case in this series, and is ludicrously crazy and fun to look at. This is some seriously inspired stuff from Hasbro!

The Wrong:

I love the crap out of this Peter Porker toy, but I’d be lying if I pretended that it didn’t have some shortcomings. The most glaring flaw with this figure is that the lower body has only two points of articulation: swivel boots. While this allows the sculpt to remain mostly unbroken aesthetically, it also means Spider-Ham can never balance on any non-flat surface or take on most dynamic poses.

I gave the web line effects piece from the House of M Spider-Man figure to Spider-Ham and was able to have some more fun with him that way by hanging him around and using it to attack Pork Grind, but it’s a real shame that Porker didn’t come with a web line accessory of his own like this.

In addition, while the upper body of the figure is molded in red with blue painted details, the lower body is molded in blue with red paint deco. The two shades of reds don’t quite match, which I can deal with, but it is a bit jarring. I wish the whole figure had just been molded in red plastic.

Overall: Spider-Ham is the single most unique Marvel Legends figure that Hasbro has released this year—not just in the Venom Series, but in any series—so I’m willing to give him a bit more leniency than your typical ML action figure.

While the lower-body articulation on Spider-Ham is almost nonexistent, I think the humongous Monster Venom BAF part and Pork-Grind head go a long way toward making up for that.

And although the posing potential does leave a bit to be desired, this is easily one of the zaniest and most unexpected things Hasbro has ever done in the line. It’s not perfect—but it is cute, well-proportioned, and most of all: fun. Props to Hasbro for trying something totally different.

GRADE: B

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