Rat Bat Spider (Glow)

Review by Sanjeev

"Spectacular Adventure Beyond Time and Space", indeed! That was the tagline for 1960's Sid Pink classic, "Angry Red Planet"! Well...it was certainly a spectacle, that's for sure!

I'm a big fan of classic cheese, and this film certainly ranks up there with the best of them. And I was only too delighted to hear that M-1, in conjunction with Club Daikaiju, had made a vinyl of the coolest monster in the film, the (somewhat) terrifying Rat Bat Spider! Now, imagine my reaction when I heard that, not only did they make a vinyl of the character, but they'd released a glow version!!

I was lucky enough to pick up a limited release of this figure via eBay. It featured a very nice box with great graphics. Inside, the standard figure was bagged (unstapled) and came with a tag.

The tag, attached to the figure with a silver elastic string, is very well-done, too. It features great graphics on the outside and fun info (including an excerpt from the actual screenplay!) on the inside. Surprisingly, of all the vinyl kaiju toys I have, this is one of only two that I own to have an actual tag. All my others came in clear plastic bags stapled shut with a header card.

The figure, itself, is really amazing. It's only around 5 inches tall, but it more than makes up for its height in girth. This thing's definitely a shelf-dominator! But more importantly, the sculpt is what really makes this figure stand out. It is simply sharp and well-detailed.

Even the articulation is excellent--for a retro-style vinyl kaiju, of course! The two aft legs on either side are actually static, but there are still a total of ten points of articulation on this figure...six of them just in the forward legs/claws.

There are several paint/vinyl color variants of this figure (if you have time, be sure to check out ClubTokyo's fantastic database). I selected the pink glowie over the more plausible (?) black/green Neighborhood variant just to throw an interesting splash of color into the glowie shelves (after all...if you watch the film, you can't actually tell what color the monster is!).

Now, of course, the most important part of a glowie is its GLOW. So, without further ado, I give you glowie Rat Bat Spider!

Remember: it's in CINEMAGIC!!