I just heard that Spidey VE is definitely maybe coming out soon.
Not much of a surprise, I imagine the licensing is a good deal easier for that than LotR.
Also won't be seeing a big change in the market here in Australia either... it's about as easy to get an OG Iron-Man as it has been to get a Spidey, so there won't be any changes in prices of original machines... at least, not significant. I reckon Spidey would be a looker with original LEDs, too.
And running on Spike. Hmmm.
Yeah it's very RBION-esque. The ramps are even the same color and placement, even the multiball loading causeway. I dig the backglass, though I've only been able to earn a magic token one time... those damn alarms keep getting me and I've only successfully been able to disable them twice. Seems quite easy to clear the drops near the pop bumpers to me, but that could be luck. They packed quite a lot of stuff into this little guy. The "beep beep beep" sound effect is fantastic when you first move up to the board game and it's showing you where you begin and need to go.
Glad I'm not alone in this. Surprised to see that not many comparisons have been drawn between the two (at least, from what I can find in a Google search). I'm really surprised how much they packed in as well, so I'd be surprised if its layout didn't heavily influence RBION, at least in terms of underneath the playfield and things like VUKs and the vari-target. Must've helped, at least.
But yeah, I'm kind of digging it now, with the exception of the drop targets near the pops like I mentioned earlier. Everything else is quite neat on it. Maybe we'd even see a Planetary re-release of it someday.