SUPERMAN — 2025 MOVIE

DC MULTIVERSE (McFARLANE)

“Maybe that’s the real punk rock.”

While I’ve briefly touched on my feelings regarding the new Superman movie here on the site, I don’t feel I’ve truly articulated exactly how I feel about it.  The original 1978 film is a truly defining film for really the whole genre of super hero films, and a really tough act to follow, to the point that really not even any of the other Reeve films could do it, much less the two reboots after them.  I was hopeful for Gunn’s new take on Superman, but I simply didn’t anticipate just how well the film would do at capturing the spirit of the character.  I haven’t been as excited about a super hero movie since Captain America: Winter Soldier, which I assure you is exceptionally high praise.  David Corenswet’s turn as Clark Kent is on par with Reeve in terms of definitive, and I’m officially in my “want a bunch of figures from the movie” phase.  So, here’s one of those!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Superman is part of McFarlane’s DC Multiverse tie-ins for the movie, specifically from one of the two standard price-point figures (the other being Metamorpho).  This one is just meant to be the standard, barebones version of the character, in his standard attire from the movie.  The figure stands just over 7 1/4 inches tall and he has 35 points of articulation.  The articulation is the standard set-up for the McFarlane stuff, so he’s pretty decently posable.  The sculpt on the figure is all-new.  It’s certainly a stronger offering, with the articulation being worked in rather organically, and the proportions not being super out of whack like earlier releases.  His head sculpt has a really strong likeness of Corenswet.  It’s probably the best of the multitude of sculpts offered up alongside the movie.  The hair’s maybe a little tighter to the head than in the final film, but it’s not far off.  The body sculpt does a lot with the piping and texturing of the design, which translates well to the figure form.  While most of the more recent Supermen have used cloth capes, this one goes back to sculpted, I would presume due to budgetary constraints for this release.  It’s honestly not a bad set-up.  Sure, it’s a bit restricting in posing, but the sculpting of it’s pretty solid.  I like the texturing, and it’s got a pretty natural hang.  The color work on this figure is decent enough, if a bit darker than the colors in the final film.  The suit’s using mostly molded colors, apart from the yellow, which is pretty cleanly painted.  The skin tone is totally painted, which is a little thick and slightly less lifelike, but not terribly so.  The application is again quite clean, and the likeness shows through really well.  Superman is packed with two pairs of hands (a pair of flat, and a fist/open gesture combo), a display stand, and a card.  I do wish he had a pair of fists, rather than just the one, but it’s still workable.  Also, I’d have loved to get a flight stand instead of the standard, but that’s been true of the last several Superman releases.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

It’s been no secret to my friends and family just how much I enjoyed Superman, so the fact that I didn’t really have any of the figures made them a prime target for gift options for my birthday this year.  This figure in particular was given to me for my birthday by my son Matthew, who was very excited to get him for me.  I had initially thought I’d just be content with the Super Powers figure, but I do really, really love how this guy turned out.  Once more, McFarlane turns in a really great Superman figure right before they hand over the license.