I know what you're thinking, the title is crazy! How did greed save me? And how was my entire YouTube channel almost doomed? Well, True Believers, sit down and let me tell you the story!
There I was, working innocently on Spider-Man: Return to the Spider-Verse Episode 9: Leap of Faith (Available Now!), filming the fight at the Super Collider between Peter, Miles, and Prowler. This was the first thing I filmed for this episode, mind you. I get to the part where Miles hits Prowler with his Venom blast, and I'm thinking I'll creative. Dangerous thought, True Believers!
I took the Widow Bite effect from the Black Widow deluxe figure because I thought it would look like Miles' Venom Blast around his hand. It did, but it wasn't fitting on there quite right. So, like any sane person that takes care of their collectibles, I forced his fist into the socket through the Widow effect!
After the (perfect) shot, I removed Miles' fist, as I have done a million times before, but this time, the fist was pulled free of the loop connecting it to the peg! For those who aren't familiar with Marvel Legends, let me explain. The hand is connected to a peg that inserts into the arm of the figure. But the hand and peg are connected with a loop on the end of the peg that goes into a little rod on the wrist, allowing wrist movement for the figure. This break has only happened to one other figure in my collection, Gwenpool, as demonstrated in the pic below.
What happens is the rod at on the wrist breaks on one end and the loop slides out. What you have to do to fix it is kind of pull the wrist and the rod apart and get the loop back in. Two problems with that though: Firstly, I'm a nearly 30-year-old man with big clompy hands, and these parts are tiny. Like, TINY! It is very, very difficult to re-loop that peg. And secondly, once it's broken like that, that's it. Because every time you want to switch hands (which I do often in my videos), the wrist is gonna pull out of the peg and you have to go through the tedious reconnecting process again.
So, I was understandably frustrated, because I still had the entire dang video to shoot, and Miles was the star of this one. So I (painstakingly) got the loop rethreaded and stuck his fist back in. I got as many scenes shot as I could before I had to swap hands again. Inevitably, the time had come. But when I tried, the unthinkable happened! The loop pulled the whole dang rod off of the wrist!
I was done for. Any fix I thought of wasn't feasible. The rod, completely separated, was sooo tiny (I almost lost it, like, ten times). Handling it was dang-near impossible. I didn't want to super glue it back in because then I'd lose the wrist articulation. So my only option was to get a new fist.
Now, finding a specific part for a Marvel Legends figure can either be very, very easy, or very, very difficult. The left fist of an out-of-circulation Miles Morales figure that's not cheap on the aftermarket leans toward the latter. I reached out to my Marvel Legends Facebook groups. No bites. I saw one sales post with a bunch of fodder pieces and asked if he had what I needed. And he did... not. He had Miles' right fist. Like, really universe? What did I actually do to you?
Ebay was useless, they gave me results for every Miles Morales thing except what I was looking for. In desperation, I turned to Mercari. I was hoping, praying I could find something! I searched "Marvel Legends Miles Morales" and scrolled until I came across the seller that saved me: A man named Greed.
He sells Marvel Legends parts and pieces, and I came across a post that had both of Miles' web-slinging hands... and his left fist! Overjoyed, I purchased it immediately! Greed shipped fast and within two days, I was able to continue production on episode 9! So please, if you're in the need for a part, piece, or parcel, make Greed's shop your first stop!
My YouTube channel was nearly doomed! With Return to the Spider-Verse being my most popular content, and Episode 9 being hotly anticipated, postponing it indefinitely was simply not an option! My fans would have revolted! Unsubscribed en masse! I'm sure of it! Okay, maybe not, you guys are great, but honestly, I had been hyping Episode 9 as being close to finished, building anticipation. It would have really sucked if I had to come out with an apology video and asked you guys to wait EVEN LONGER for the next episode.
So that's the story guys, Greed saved my YouTube channel, and by extension, Face Front! You all can thank him for Episode 9! Again, Click Here to visit his shop if you need replacement pieces for your Marvel Legends. And Click Here to check out Episode 9! That's it for now, Face Front True Believers, and I'll see you in the Multiverse!