PCB The Amazing Garfield Review! (no not the orange cat) (Patreon)

It kinda feels like I’ve been stuck in a loop with all these Spider-Man/Scarlet Witch posts... weird how preordering messes with the flow of things, huh?

Anyway, let’s jump into ANOTHER Spider-Man… thing!

I’m gonna go out on a limb and say it. I don’t completely hate the Amazing Spider-Man Suit. It’s not my favorite, but the grungy, bizarre, intentional departure from the traditional look is kinda funky… like funky as in cool… like what your parents mean when they say funky… it’s funky in that sort of way

…ah forget it

It’s got texture for days and I think PCB really captured the likeness here without just rolling the fig around in some dirt for twenty minutes. I mean have you SEEN how dirty that suit is in the movie?! It’s like Peter doesn’t even know what a laundry machine is!

But really, this fig is great! Like all Phoenix Customs figs that have come before, this one is nothing short of quality!

I was a little worried about the hands, but the blue/red turned out great! They’re clean and smudge free! Woo!

The dotted texturing is nice, but I personally find that it doesn't flow as well as PCB’s other figs. Particularly in the head, where the webbing and texture is all so tightly designed/printed, that the blank sides of the head look really bright red compared to the face. It’s a weird choppy cut in the flow and stands out… but it’s also how every Spider-Man ever is printed. I think it’s just a design thing more than a production thing… but I feel like if it was printed over dark red plastic elements it would look equally weird sooo… *shrug*

A similar word about lack of print could be said about the legs… 

This is gonna sound pretty harsh… but printing this fig without dual molded legs is a HUGE downgrade. Heck, even some minor interior leg printing would have been better than just nothing…

It took well over a year to get this fig from pre-order to final product and the dang thing looks incomplete when you put it in any pose that doesn’t keep the legs together. While the rest of the fig is great, those big chunks of blue on the insides of the legs really kill the vibe. It’s a Spider-Man fig after all, weird funky poses are all I wanna do with it!

While this fig came with a gigantic number of zero accessories, the bonus “Andrew Garfield” head is pretty great! Also it’s really cool to get that official spiky hair in dark brown, as it had only come with the old CMF Team GB Relay Runner (and just super recently with those Buzz Lightyear movie sets). On its own it averages about $5, so kudos to PCB for collecting enough of those hair pieces for the perfect likeness!

One last thing (and you may have been able to hear the hint of this in my corporeal voice in your head), but I would have liked an accessory. Like a custom backpack or skateboard or film camera… or something other than just a head. But at the same time I also appreciate that smaller price tag soooo… again I’m cool with the minimal stuff included here.

Speaking of that, it was indeed a great price at only $65! But man, that preorder wait time really kills the mood :/

I feel inclined to mention that this was also one of the last Phoenix Custom figs I’ve ordered through their personal website. Nowadays (and it’s been like this for a while now) PCB goes exclusively through reseller sites. In my eyes, it feels like the end of a chapter in the Phoenix “Saga”. I’ve followed Adam and his brand for a long while now, and excluding the crossover projects they’ve done with other customizers, I’ve been ordering from that site as far back as their New52 Superman in 2016. It’s a shame to see it slowly shift into just a shell of it’s once bustling hub, when back in the day when you could order a custom fig and it would be in your mailbox the following week.

…sigh

I should wrap this up, huh?

All in all, it’s a Phoenix fig! While I’m personally getting frustrated with the pre-order scene they and Jaka have been spearheading, this was still worth the wait. It’s not perfect, but it’s the closest thing to it!

Perhaps we’ll see a Battle Damaged version of this fig in the future with a leg upgrade? Who knows!

What are your thoughts though? I’d love to hear about the reception of this one :)