METAMORPHO — MOVIE

SUPER POWERS (McFARLANE)

Have I mentioned how much I liked the new Superman movie?  Well, I’m gonna mention it again, because it bears repeating.  It was really, really good.  Just start to finish.  Few films have understood the DC characters the way this one did.  That extends to the quirky odd-ball characters, which includes Metamorpho, who makes his live action debut in the film, portrayed by Anthony Carrigan in his third live action DC role.  He gets to be sufficiently cool and likable, to the point that he was a favorite of both my wife and son, neither of whom knew the character prior to the movie.  I guess maybe the guy that made Rocket Raccoon a household name might have a way with quirky odd-ball characters.  Metamorpho’s been getting a definite marketing push from the movie tie-ins, which includes getting a Super Powers figure.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Metamorpho (Movie) was released in Series 12 of McFarlane’s Super Powers line.  He’s the fourth of the five single-carded movie tie-in figures.  Like Guy, this is Metamorpho’s second Super Powers figure, following up on a comics release from last year.  The figure stands just over 5 inches tall and he has 7 points of articulation.  He uses a lot of parts from the comic Metamorpho, specifically the torso, arms, and lower right leg.  He gets a new head, upper legs, and lower left leg, as well as a new belt piece.  The movie’s design is ultimately pretty faithful to the classic comics look, so the re-use is pretty sensible, and the new parts help to bring him more in line with the movie’s adjustments.  I actually find myself preferring the head sculpt on this one to the comics version; it’s just got a little bit more character.  As with all of the head sculpts from these figures, the likeness isn’t really a match for Carrigan, but it’s close enough to sort of suggest him.  Perhaps the oddest part of the mix of old and new parts is that the texturing on his face disappears when you get to his neck, but other than that, things work pretty nicely.  The color work on this Metamorpho is notably a bit more desaturated than his comics counterpart.  It still very much reads as Metamorpho, though, and I’m glad that this time they did a better job of consistent paint versus no paint on similarly colored sections.  There’s a little bit of slop on the change-over from his right leg to his shorts, but otherwise the application is pretty clean.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I was ultimately a little bit let down by the comics Metamorpho.  Like, he wasn’t bad, but he felt a bit more middle of the road than I’d expected.  I wasn’t sure if I was going to go for this one, since he’s a bit similar, but I opted to get the whole set, and he was along for the ride.  I’m glad I did, because not only did I thoroughly enjoy the movie’s take on Rex, but I also think this figure turned out a little bit better than the prior one.  And here I live, in this world where I have two different Super Powers Metamorphos in my collection.  Who’d’ve thunk?