Spider-Man 3 has hit not only theaters, but nearly every retail store this side of Your Black Muslim Bakery. You can get a wide selection of Spider-Merch at bookstores, video game stores, Burger King and, of course, toy stores.
I stopped by my local corporate toy monolith to see what Spidey stuff they had. By the time I came up for air, I owned no fewer than seven different official merchandised products you can strap to your wrist. None of them allow you to sling an actual web, but each of them tries to make the fantasy come true. I'm here to tell you how badly they fail.
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Web Crawl Race Game
This comes with a big red boxy device that you attach to the door. From the device hang two plastic marionettes of Spider-Man and Venom. The wrist devices shoot not webs but red laser dots. You aim these dots at the big red boxy device, and this makes Spider-Man and Venom get pulled upwards. It's difficult to describe their movement, but I imagine the word exactly halfway between "epileptic" and "horrific" in the dictionary might do it.
This is supposed to be a race, but all you end up doing is holding down a button and keeping your arm very still as your chosen comic book character spasms up the wall. Luckily, any child given this toy will quickly realize that he or she has been given two laser pointers that can be used to annoy large groups of people.
Does It Make You Feel Like Spider-Man?
Unless there's a comic where Spider-Man has to shoot webs at a plastic puppet of himself in order to make it convulse, no.
Does It Amuse the Cats?
Oh, yeah. They love the little red dot. They want to kill it.
Dart Slinger
My favorite part of this one is the blurb on the back, which promises "HOURS OR BAG-GUY SHOOTING FUN!" Apparently Spider-Sense doesn't include copy-editing abilities. The box doesn't contain either hours or bag guys, but it does contain little targets and a wrist-mounted dart shooter. The targets include one Harry Osborn, two Venoms and three Sandmans. Sandmen. Three of that guy. Anyhow, the duplication was kind of silly; there are lots of other characters they could have included. Aunt May, for instance.
The thing has a respectable amount of power for a toy. The darts won't be denting anyone, but at least they reliably knock over the targets. One thing bothered me, though. You have to prime the device after each dart. That doesn't seem right. Spidey doesn't have to prime his webs, and it's kind of icky to imagine him doing so.
Does It Make You Feel Like Spider-Man?
Sort of, aside from the priming. At least I was shooting stuff. The darts lacked a certain adhesive quality, though.
Does It Amuse the Cats?
Somewhat. They wanted to see where the darts went, but had no interest otherwise.
Spider-Man 3 Battle Tronics
This doesn't actually shoot anything. Instead it's a video game that you strap to your wrist. The buttons and the screen hang down into your hand. There's no reason you should have to strap it on, but that's a secondary consideration, because there's no reason to play it in the first place.
The game makes a big deal out of your options – Four Characters! Three Attacks Each! – and the gravelly digitized sounds. Once you get past all that, though, you find out that it's a battery-eating version of Rock, Paper, Scissors.
It's actually worse than Rock, Paper, Scissors. First, nobody wants to strap an electronic device to his wrist to find out who gets shotgun. Secondly, it's easy to remember that rock smashes scissors, but somewhat harder to remember whether Sandman's hammer fist beats Spider-Man's web-balls. (Example chosen for maximum sophomoric innuendo.)
Does It Make You Feel Like Spider-Man?
No, it makes you feel like you have the proportional strength and speed of someone who just blew $15 on a lame toy.
Does It Amuse the Cats?
No. Cats care nothing for digitized voices yelling at them to choose a character.
Next week: More of the same!
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Born helpless, nude and unable to provide for himself, Lore Sjöberg eventually overcame these handicaps to become a webslinger, a gunslinger and a mudslinger.
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