Retrospective: ToyBiz Lord of the Rings Shelob from The Return of the King

"We could let HER do it"

With the Diamond Select Lord of the Rings series brought to an abrupt end with the collapse of Diamond Comics into administration, I have been looking back at some of the awesome Toybiz figures of the early 2000s to complement my Diamond figures in a wider Lord of the Rings display.

One of the immediate and obvious ways to do this, even before the Diamond line closed, was to use the larger deluxe 'monsters' and 'creatures' from the Toybiz line, a process I started with Treebeard, who you can see in my Merry and Pippin reviews, and now I have added Shelob.

Shelob, the greatest offspring of Ungolian, and as seen in Return of the King, was a 2004 release in the Toybiz series. She was crammed into Wave 3 of the slimmed-down carded packaging under the blue Return of the King packaging. The figure would be repacked a year later, in 2005, in a more extensive window box with both Sam and Frodo. The Toybiz figure is relatively lightweight in hand, with much of the great spider's body clearly hollow.

The main body is cast in a dark brown/grey with varying shades or brown to a light beige used to bring out the hideous details of Shelob's head. A yellowed bone is used on the exposed front pincer,s while the eyes are painted black. Projecting from the head are a pair of articulated mandibles in a darker grey, almost black finish.

From the main body we then have eight Spider legs, all multi-jointed and with a similar dark grey base colour with drybrushed brown and beige.

There are 38 points of articulation across Shelob with 8 ball joints per leg and another 3 smaller and simpler ball joints on each of the front mandibles. The legs can be spread or folded in on themselves - as seen on the cardback. The eight legs provide stability, but age will likely not have been kind to the figure and that will see looseness across some or all of the leg joints.

In terms of scale, in the movie we only see Shelob face off against Sam and Frodo who are Hobbits. That means we perceive her to be bigger on screen, with Sam just about able to look her in the eyes in a normal stance.

The ToyBiz figure may be slightly undersized, but still works with the DST Sam and Frodo, particularly as both come with the Phial of Galadriel accessory as seen in the battle with Shelob.

With plenty of fake spider-web about at Halloween, there is plenty of scope to accessories Shelob for display, something I am playing with to disguise the slightly bandy legs in places.

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About Me : As a child of the '70s and '80s I grew up in a golden age for action figures and in my youth bought and sold myself through collections of Star Wars, G.I. Joe (Action Force), and M.A.S.K. while also dabbling in He-Man, Transformers and Ghostbusters. Roll forward and I am now reliving that Youth with the action figures of today and am a collector and fan of the larger 6-8 inch figures from my favourite movie and TV licenses - including the ones mentioned above, but also the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Doctor Who, and the Aliens. I launched The Mephitsu Archives in 2015 with a view of creating a UK-focused site or these figures where fans can pick up the latest action figure news, read reviews and get information on where to buy their figures and what is currently on store shelves. I hope I am delivering that to you guys...

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