Review: 76308 Spider-Man Mech vs. Anti-Venom
Posted by CapnRex101,
Symbiotes have featured in numerous Spider-Man sets and Venom in particular is extremely common, so more variety would be nice. A new Symbiote character therefore joins the selection in 76308 Spider-Man Mech vs. Anti-Venom.
The exclusive Anti-Venom minifigure is certainly a standout here and I think Spidey's mech looks good, although it also highlights a significant missed opportunity, in my opinion.
Summary
76308 Spider-Man Mech vs. Anti-Venom, 107 pieces.
£12.99 / $14.99 / €14.99 | 12.1p/14.0c/14.0c per piece.
Buy at LEGO.com »
Though I wish Spider-Man had been updated, this is a great set on the whole
- Exclusive Anti-Venom minifigure
- Appealing and suitably colourful mech
- New web element
- Elbow or wrist articulation was needed
- Missed chance for a new Spider-Man
The set was provided for review by LEGO. All opinions expressed are those of the author.
Minifigures
This version of Spider-Man debuted in 2021 and has now appeared in fourteen sets, plus two more with dual-moulded legs. Though the minifigure is extremely common and that reduces its appeal, this is a superb design, especially given the printed arms. However, there was definitely an opportunity for something more interesting, to be be discussed later.
Anti-Venom was created when remnants of the Venom Symbiote mixed with white blood cells in Eddie Brock's body, forming a new Symbiote creature and reversing Venom's typical colours. The character's translation to minifigure form is very successful, recreating Anti-Venom's unique face shape and the stretched spider symbol on both sides of the torso.
This minifigure comes with a white scrollwork element to represent the Symbiote reaching out, which works well. Spider-Man's accessory is more notable though, as a flexible web piece has been introduced this year.
You can trap a minifigure inside the web and I chose Spider-Man for this image because Anti-Venom tends to blend in with the web.
The Completed Model
Of the twenty Marvel character mechs released since 2020, four are based on Peter Parker's version of Spider-Man. On that basis, I was not clamouring for another one, although I do find this design quite appealing. The splashes of white look great alongside red and blue, while the slender limbs and feet mirror Spider-Man's traditionally lithe and agile appearance.
The lack of articulated wrists, elbows and knees definitely limits the mech's agility, though you can still achieve some dynamic poses, especially with added support from the web piece. The feet are relatively stable, nonetheless, despite their narrow proportions. Also, the waist rotation and moveable fingers are useful for action stances.
Among the white highlights mentioned earlier is the spider emblem on the mech's chest. This design looks excellent and immediately reminds me of Spider-Man's costume from the recent PlayStation 4 video games, which leaves me wondering why the minifigure was not updated to match. It would only have required a new torso and seems like an easy opportunity to include something unique.
Using the standard Spider-Man minifigure is a bit disappointing, but he looks fine when seated inside, as only the head is visible. White accents also appear on the arms and I like how wheel arch pieces have been used at the shoulders, so the shaping seems more organic. These have only appeared twice before, in much larger sets.
The thumbs' positioning is awkward, too far from the fingers, but works for certain poses and leaves space to attach the web element on the left hand. While I appreciate this option, there should really have been a connection point on the palm of the hand instead, which would look better. The clip on the mech's back is a neat addition though, storing the minifigure's accessory holder.
The grey ball joints are a noticeable issue on some of these mechs, but I think Spider-Man's vehicle manages to integrate them well, particularly at the hips. Similarly, the narrow feet are appropriate for Spider-Man, more so than several other mechs where they are used. They do look odd from certain angles, admittedly, but can be effective in many poses.
Overall
Given the relative frequency of Spider-Man mechs, I assumed Anti-Venom would be the only notable feature of 76308 Spider-Man Mech vs. Anti-Venom. His unique minifigure is definitely the highlight, as expected, but the mech also deserves some praise. I think the colour scheme improves on past Spider-Man mechs and the included web piece is useful for posing.
However, re-using the Spider-Man minifigure from many previous sets seems a shame, as the white highlights on the mech should have meant producing a minifigure to match. Nonetheless, this is a good set for the price of £12.99, $14.99 or €14.99 and I have no doubt that Anti-Venom alone will justify the purchase for many fans.
74 likes
29 comments on this article
One of these days LEGO will recolor the ball joints... one of these days...
This format is over used.
I think the webbing connections being thumb mounted rather than palm mounted is to better replicate Spidey’s classic thwip pose; even if it is at the wrong angle it looks better than coming out the palms like repulsors
I’m so annoyed the dual moulded legs seem to have vanished from these sets. We finally had the perfect Spider-Man minifigure, and now it’s being constantly undermined by cost cutting. I realise the bar is relatively low for a set of this ilk, but still.
@Brickalili said:
"I think the webbing connections being thumb mounted rather than palm mounted is to better replicate Spidey’s classic thwip pose; even if it is at the wrong angle it looks better than coming out the palms like repulsors "
Yes, I would keep the direction of the web the same, recreating the 'thwip' pose, as you mentioned. I just meant that the connection point should be on the palm, as it was with 76171 Miles Morales Mech Armour a few years ago.
@CapnRex101 said:
" @Brickalili said:
"I think the webbing connections being thumb mounted rather than palm mounted is to better replicate Spidey’s classic thwip pose; even if it is at the wrong angle it looks better than coming out the palms like repulsors "
Yes, I would keep the direction of the web the same, recreating the 'thwip' pose, as you mentioned. I just meant that the connection point should be on the palm, as it was with 76171 Miles Morales Mech Armour a few years ago."
It should be on the wrist.
The thumbs look ridiculous...
Not a Marvel fan; but this look visually look their 'Superman Mech' equivalency, as in the bad guy should have the mech. Yes, yes I know Anti-Venom is more 'powered' than Lex Luthor, but come on...and how many Spidey-mechs and variants have there been so far...
Why do they never give Peter his boots anymore? It looks so weird without them. Way too much blue. The Insomniac suit also doesn't have boots and looks worse for it.
Gorilla thumbs look weird here. I’m also unfortunately (fortunately?) unfamiliar with characters created in the 2000s. Does he also go by Antivenin?
This is definitely a meh-c for me.
Yaoi hands...
@Huw said:
"The thumbs look ridiculous..."
Barbados?... not jealous at all! Now where's the extra jumper...
@sjr60 said:
" @Huw said:
"The thumbs look ridiculous..."
Barbados?... not jealous at all! Now where's the extra jumper..."
The weather's too nice here in Colorado. I was in shorts this week.We could use some more snow.
@WolfpackBricksStudios said:
"One of these days LEGO will recolor the ball joints... one of these days..."
I feel like 11 years in, we can probably put it to rest
Pretty cool. Not interested though, as I already have 76146 , and I'm completely happy with it. The Mixel joints for the elbows and knees on that one made posing it both fun and easy, and it looks like it really detracts from that on this one.
On the other hand, the extra minifigure is a big plus, even if I'm not very familiar with Anti-Venom.
Great review, Cap'n!
@WolfpackBricksStudios said:
"One of these days LEGO will recolor the ball joints... one of these days..."
Let's hold on, let's hold on... Someday, it's going to happen...
@CapnRex101 said:
"...which leaves me wondering why the minifigure was not updated to match."
I guess Lego just tries to put as few exclusive figures in small sets as possible. My bat is that the PS4 Spider-Man will release in a bigger set, either a simple one, or a set dedicated to the game... He will, eventually, given that fans wanted him for ages.
@Krutak said:
" @WolfpackBricksStudios said:
"One of these days LEGO will recolor the ball joints... one of these days..."
Let's hold on, let's hold on... Someday, it's going to happen..."
Technically, they already did this. There is a part on the Giant Man fig from set 76051 that is recolored from light gray to dark gray. It's been used in 33 sets total in that color. Part is 14704
I purchased this and the Iron Man mech on release day ONLY as supplement for the Daily Bugle and Avengers Tower respectively. Man, Anti-Venom looks really good hanging off the side of the bugle, and you can use the spiderman figure to ride the Spider-Buggy or recreate the pointing meme (the latter of which I did).
@Krutak said:
" @CapnRex101 said:
"...which leaves me wondering why the minifigure was not updated to match."
I guess Lego just tries to put as few exclusive figures in small sets as possible. My bat is that the PS4 Spider-Man will release in a bigger set, either a simple one, or a set dedicated to the game... He will, eventually, given that fans wanted him for ages."
Will he? TLG has the Marvel license, but not the Spiderman license. If the PS4 game was produced under Sony's license with Marvel, I'd think that TLG would have to license that version of the character from Sony in order to produce it.
@Murdoch17:
That was forced on them by Disney, who didn't like the look with a couple odd light-bley joint elements in the mix. Oddly, while they did originally color-lock everything, with explanations on why they would never break this color-lock, they produced the two ball-only elements in dark-bley, and the two socket-only elements in light-bley. Since the socket was the more critical of the two halves of the system, it would have made more sense to make the lone ball-and-socket element light-bley, like the other two socket elements, but they made it dark-bley like the other two ball elements. Therefore, they had to have vetted both colors for use on sockets, which meant they should be able to produce any of the three socket elements in either color (and even less critical for the ball-only elements). And they agreed to do just that with one of the socket-only elements in 76051. A few other set designers took advantage of this, and incorporated that forbidden element into sets while it was in production, but as soon as the Airport Battle set retired, that design apparently went right back to being color-locked in light-bley. That is, it did until 75551 released. Again, probably due to studio pressure, they brought it back to use in the giant Minion hands. And that set stayed in production for 32 months, with just a crazy number of uses during the final year of production. New uses have followed every year since (yup, all three of them), so I guess this means it's now allowed to be produced in either shade of bley as desired.
The weird thing is, while the Airport Battle, and the polybag that piggybacked on it, retired at the end of 2017, 60160 stayed in production for another year afterwards, and 70612 kept on for another year after that. This means that there was really only a four month gap from January 2020 to late April 2020 where they weren't shipping any sets with this element. Otherwise, between those two licensed sets, it's managed to stay in constant production for just shy of nine years now. I don't know why those other two sets were allowed to keep using a restricted element for one to two years after the color-lock should have gone back into effect. What I do know is that I kinda wasted my effort in buying several of them off OPAB before it retired the first time.
Anti-venom is also rumored to be in the next wave (Peter Parker’s appartment), so this whole set is redundant for afols i guess.
@Brickodillo said:
"Anti-venom is also rumored to be in the next wave (Peter Parker’s appartment), so this whole set is redundant for afols i guess. "
Not if you want to get the character with the least amount of Spiderman possible.
@Ridgeheart said:
"I mean, I get why these things sell, they're basically just big action-figures that happen to contain a minifigure. I can see the appeal from a toy-standpoint, even if I can't really justify it as a Lego-product. I also get that I'm not the target-audience here, even though I am a comics-book nerd. This is a toy. It's not even a bad toy!
But speaking AS an unspeakable nerd, I'm wondering... instead of these feeble little mechs, why not just go whole hog? There already IS a giant Spider-Man Mech, the Leopardon. The thing's been around since 1978, in the weird and possibly profitable Japanese Spider-Man TV-show. There's an untapped market there, Kjeld!
https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Leopardon "
Great, now I can’t unsee that.
4 Spider-mechs, and besides the already-mentioned Leopardon (which would be awesome!), we've also never gotten a Peni Parker and Sp//dr mech?
Spider Man's printed arms are printed, but they still look BROWN ??
@PurpleDave said:
" @Krutak said:
" @CapnRex101 said:
"...which leaves me wondering why the minifigure was not updated to match."
I guess Lego just tries to put as few exclusive figures in small sets as possible. My bat is that the PS4 Spider-Man will release in a bigger set, either a simple one, or a set dedicated to the game... He will, eventually, given that fans wanted him for ages."
Will he? TLG has the Marvel license, but not the Spiderman license. If the PS4 game was produced under Sony's license with Marvel, I'd think that TLG would have to license that version of the character from Sony in order to produce it.
@Murdoch17:
That was forced on them by Disney, who didn't like the look with a couple odd light-bley joint elements in the mix. Oddly, while they did originally color-lock everything, with explanations on why they would never break this color-lock, they produced the two ball-only elements in dark-bley, and the two socket-only elements in light-bley. Since the socket was the more critical of the two halves of the system, it would have made more sense to make the lone ball-and-socket element light-bley, like the other two socket elements, but they made it dark-bley like the other two ball elements. Therefore, they had to have vetted both colors for use on sockets, which meant they should be able to produce any of the three socket elements in either color (and even less critical for the ball-only elements). And they agreed to do just that with one of the socket-only elements in 76051. A few other set designers took advantage of this, and incorporated that forbidden element into sets while it was in production, but as soon as the Airport Battle set retired, that design apparently went right back to being color-locked in light-bley. That is, it did until 75551 released. Again, probably due to studio pressure, they brought it back to use in the giant Minion hands. And that set stayed in production for 32 months, with just a crazy number of uses during the final year of production. New uses have followed every year since (yup, all three of them), so I guess this means it's now allowed to be produced in either shade of bley as desired.
The weird thing is, while the Airport Battle, and the polybag that piggybacked on it, retired at the end of 2017, 60160 stayed in production for another year afterwards, and 70612 kept on for another year after that. This means that there was really only a four month gap from January 2020 to late April 2020 where they weren't shipping any sets with this element. Otherwise, between those two licensed sets, it's managed to stay in constant production for just shy of nine years now. I don't know why those other two sets were allowed to keep using a restricted element for one to two years after the color-lock should have gone back into effect. What I do know is that I kinda wasted my effort in buying several of them off OPAB before it retired the first time."
They already turned the PS4 game spiderman into a minifig. He was just a comic con exclusive :'( I wanted that minifig so bad. It's been my phone background ever since they showed it off
I recently watched Season Three of What If...? The first episode was titled "What If... The Hulk Fought the Mech Avengers?" Even if the mechs in the episode were much bigger, I have to wonder if the person who came up with the concept for that episode was an AFOL.
@Haywire said:
"4 Spider-mechs, and besides the already-mentioned Leopardon (which would be awesome!), we've also never gotten a Peni Parker and Sp//dr mech?"
I would buy that in a heartbeat. And hey, we've gotten one Spider-verse set (76311), so maybe there's hope!
CAPNREX101 - There's actually 22 Marvel mechs, not 20. ;)
I have them all lined up on a shelf alongside the 4 Star Wars ones and 2 DC ones.
I like the new anti-venom figure but I wish Spider-Man had dual moulded legs.