Here we have Sandman in hand, being a reuse of the large civilian body we saw a few times with Luke Cage as well as Hydro-Man. This build makes more than perfect sense for someone like him, who's a fairly muscular dude that's normally bully-like with his height even before using his sand powers. Sandman's got slightly rolled sleeves to expose some of his forearms, which are painted fleshtone rather than being molded separately. It kind of results in a discrepancy between the hands as well as his face and the forearms we're currently talking about. Being an older buck, he comes with pins for his elbows and knees, which I am fine with since at least it's consistent rather than being half-pinned, half pinless as some Legends figures inexplicably do. While there is no deco in his brown pants, at least the stripes on the shirt are decently crisp and opaque; one of them looks more narrow than the others, and I'm not sure if that's intentional or not. The ab crunch will result in the stripes breaking up, which is a common thing to expect when there is no double ball peg for the torso. So for the aesthetics, he does a decent job if nothing too mindblowing.
As for J Jonah Jameson, his body reuses the Average Suited buck we've seen plenty of times, from MCU Tony Stark to Ultimate Riders Charles Xavier, and it was even utilized by a Marvel Legends version of Chameleon that also worked as Triple J and Hammerhead. This time, we use rolled-up sleeves as well as a vest over the white shirt and an uneven tie to represent J Jonah's attitude in the Daily Bugle. Even without superpowers or strength, an angry look to his face, as well as somewhat veiny forearms, adds to his temper and overall lack of patience whenever he goes "PARKER I WANT PICTURES OF SPIDER-MAN" in his office. Once again, we don't really have any deco beyond the belt, the back of the vest, and the tie, which is honestly the best part of the figure for how well applied it is. I guess a wash to better make his clothes look less plasticky, in addition to some silver for the buttons on the vest, would be nice, but that applies more to the price hike these reissues got versus when they came out in 2020.
Their head sculpts each capture the right amount of anger for each specific character, with Sandman filled with rage in his scowl and J Jonah Jameson yelling at people about making their newspaper articles all about the web-slinging menace. By the way, is it me or does JJJ have a black tear shedding down his eye?
Articulation for both of them is the same, with the necks on ball and disk combos, shoulder rotation, outward arm movement, bicep rotation, double jointed elbows for Sandman and single joints for JJJ, wrist rotation and inward hinges, ab crunches and waist swivels, ball jointed hips, bicep rotation, double jointed knees, and ankles that hinge as well as pivot. Sandman has a spikeball and oversized fist each sculpted to resemble being made from sand, though they lack any paint. At least the sleeves are a good touch. J Jonah, in this pic at least, has two alternate accessory holding hands and a newspaper so he can rant about the current state of the Daily Bugle while demanding his employees not to fuck around too much.
Some of the other accessories that they come with include a damaged head for Sandman and a sheet of paper for JJJ to somewhat hold. It is double-sided, but it at least makes for a cute little read. Reminds me of the Lego Simpsons that had a 2x2 flat tile piece representing a newspaper reading "Old Man Yells at Cloud." And it's funny how Spidey and Electro are both toy images while Cyborg Spidey is a sketch.
For a size comparison, here we have them sandwiching Spider-Man from the RYV 2-pack. While Spider-Man being taller than JJJ is wrong since he was usually an inch shorter than his boss, it makes sense that Sandman would be taller than either of them. It would make more sense if we switched the heights of the slanderer and the webhead, but you could probably get a different figure that isn't RYV, whether it's the Amazing Friends version or any of the imports that are slightly shorter than the Sunfire buck. Overall, JJJ and Sandman make for solid reissues for anyone not wanting to pay top bill in the aftermarket. I think I like Sandman more in spite of his forearms, but JJJ is alright if you're going to ignore how cheap his vest is. That being said, they have been generally reissued at Walmart, and considering how those stores vary from either properly selling collectors' items or not, good friggin luck.
Final ranking: ⭐⭐⭐ and a half out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
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