In some ways, Secret Wars was bad for comics. Commercially, the 80’s event was hugely successful for Marvel even though it seems to have just a lukewarm reception by fans in some circles. It helped to establish the belief that events sell and Marvel seemed hellbent on taking that approach in 90s. One of Spider-Man’s big plotlines was Maximum Carnage. It was a multi-issue arc with a bunch of heroes and villains teaming up to form super teams, and like Secret Wars, it didn’t seem like fans thought much of the finished product, but it sure seemed to sell well. And if it had not we wouldn’t have the extremely derivative Maximum Clonage (sic) to follow. Also referred to as The Clone Saga, Peter Parker was suddenly confronted with multiple versions of himself thanks to The Jackal and no one knew who the real Peter was. It’s the storyline that brought us the Scarlet Spider and it’s also the storyline that gave us Kaine.
Kaine was yet another clone of Peter. He was the like the goth Peter before Sam Raimi came up with the idea for Spider-Man 3. Clad all in black with this weird, blue, membrane running throughout and a tattered cape, he caused some trouble for both Spider-Man and Scarlet Spider before eventually being outed as yet another clone. Kaine was actually the point where I fell off the story as a kid. It just got way too soap opera-like for my taste and I got enough of that at home from a mother who would monopolize the television on Saturday to watch all of the episodes of All My Children she had recorded during the week.
Kaine may have been a lame addition to the story, but if I’m being honest, he did look kind of cool. When Hasbro unveiled a Kaine figure last year, I took one look at it and said to myself, “Why not?” As a Marvel Legends figure, it looked interesting and the crazy pricing we’re seeing from the world of action figures makes these $25 ones feel more susceptible to impulse buying now. Kaine comes in the retro Spider-Man packaging which makes sense given his era. He never did get a single card release in that line, so I guess this is like making up for lost time. There was a Maximum Clonage box set that contained a Kaine figure that was probably exclusive to some store. It was a classic Toy Biz repaint and I think they used an Archangel body for the base and just slapped a cape on it. Maybe if he had made the jump to the actual show he would have been given a more prominent release, but honestly it’s all Kaine really deserved.
Hasbro apparently felt like he deserved better, because this Kaine figure goes harder than I would have predicted. This figure is basically all new sculpt. The blue veins are all sculpted and painted as are the fins, or blades, on his forearms and shins. Even the crotch piece has sculpted veins. The hair, head, and cape are all new as well and the only reuse this figure can take advantage of rests with the hands and feet, which I’m sure are recycled from tons of figures. This does come at a cost for the consumer as Kaine only comes with one set of alternate hands, but that’s how it goes. He has fists and open, style posed, hands. The cape is sort of an accessory because you can remove it, but the straps for it on the torso are much harder to get off so it’s really not designed to be removed, but you may want to and we’ll get to why in a bit.
What I find really striking about this figure is that wonderful head of hair. Kaine looks like he walked out of a shampoo commercial or something. Fabio would be jealous as his hair never looked this good while hawking imitation butter. It, as well as the cape, are just one shade though. There’s no paint added which is a bit of a bummer as I think a wash would really help liven this figure up and also reduce that plastic look. I find this figure looks a lot better on my desk when the lighting is getting dim because it takes away that plastic sheen. Still, by the standards of the line, Kaine is an impressive looking figure and if you’re a customizer of some talent you can probably get this to look even better with minimal effort.
Since this is an all new body you may wonder if it has some articulation surprises. And the answer there would be, “Not really.” They had to make new molds to produce this figure, but I bet they just took an existing digital sculpt and then added the details to it before cutting steel. As a result, Kaine feels like a lot of Marvel Legends. He has the hinged ball neck, ball hinged shoulders, butterfly joints, bicep, double-elbows, swivel and hinge wrists, ab crunch, waist twist, ball hips, thigh cuts, double knees, and ankles that hinge and rock. Range at these joints is also all typical Marvel Legends stuff. He can almost do splits, kick forward 90 degrees, and the ab crunch works well enough. Where this figure is limited is the head and that left shoulder. The combination of the big hair and the plastic cape really lockdown the head. He can turn to the side a bit, look down, and barely look up. The left shoulder is also restricted by that cape, but really only in a sense that it can’t rotate all the way around. It does a decent enough job of getting out of the way with most movement and once you’ve settled on a position you can just reposition the cape. It’s not nearly as bad as it looks like it would be, though I’m sure there will be people getting custom soft goods capes for this guy.
How do we feel about having a Marvel Legends Kaine? Fine. He’s a solid entrant for the line and it feels like real effort was put into making an accurate representation of the character in plastic form. Now I understand there’s some debate over just what color the blue vein things should be. He often was drawn to have gray instead of blue. Not being a massive fan of the character, I don’t care. I like the light blue on black so I’m happy. I’m not happy about the lack of accessories, but I expect that of Legends now. I have a weird soft spot for the trash of the 90s, so that’s primarily why I have Kaine. He’ll go with my Scarlet Spider and look like his goth cousin and that’s cool. And if you too think he looks cool then by all means drop $25 and grab him. I don’t know if he’ll be anyone’s favorite release in the line come the end of the year, but he certainly won’t be the worst.
We have more Spider-Man and Maximum Clonage stuff here if that’s your thing:
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