Review: 70790 Lord of Skull Spiders

The first villain set for Gen 2 of Bionicle, the Lord of Skull Spiders is the leader of the horde and the guardian of the City of the Mask Makers. Along with the horde he was able to control anyone who became a Skull Spider's host.

Packaging:

The packaging is the exact same box that we got with the smaller Masters. The front shows off the finished build along with the Golden Mask of the Skull Spiders in the middle of a web.

The back of the box gives us a full size image of that mask along with some demonstrations of the play features. Just like the Masters, the box includes a comic strip showcasing the Lord of Skull Spiders fighting off Protectors.

Model Review:

While I’m sure the size isn’t entirely comprehensible through photos, this set is definitely a little bit bigger than I thought it would be. Not by an enormous amount or anything, but certainly a touch larger which makes for a more menacing villain.

The Halloween color scheme works very well for the Lord of Skull Spiders, naturally it correlates with spiders and spooky season, all while giving us a color scheme that we haven’t seen yet for 2015. The transparent orange liftarms are incredible, these transparent pieces from Gen 2 continue to be some of my favorites for the entire Bionicle line. The small bits of white from the various spike and teeth parts add a lot to the overall look and fill in some of the voids between legs to make for a more solid looking model. The eyepiece, which is really just a chest armor plate, was to my surprise printed rather than a sticker. I know, after the Masters wave, I should have anticipated this, but it’s still so surprising to me. If this set was made today we know that it’d be a sticker.

Naturally just with this set having six legs I’m reminded a lot of the Nui-Jaga, thankfully these legs actually touch the ground though, no offense to the Nui-Jaga.

The play feature for this set is pretty straightforward, squeezing a lever on the back of the spider causes all of the legs to wrap as if it were grabbing its enemy. It’s a neat play feature but I would have preferred if we had an attacking play feature rather than just a grab someone sort of thing. Still to this point in the 2015 line we have no attack mechanisms against the Masters and Protectors, although that should change soon.

Some people may get upset over the yellow Technic gears which stand out from the rest of the color scheme, but I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. It’s not a UCS set, it’s a Bionicle.

Current Pricing & Final Thoughts:

This set will absolutely be falling on the more affordable side, especially for Bionicle. In used condition you can find this set for around $15, and if you even want to go brand new, there’s great deals for under $30 every now and then, but typically that will run you about $40-50.

At the end of the day, this is a nice looking set that certainly compliments what we’ve seen so far out of 2015, but as the lone villain set for the initial relaunch of Bionicle, there’s a lot more that could’ve been implemented, and I feel very unsatisfied with this being that lone villain set.

Score: 6.9/10

Video Review: