Tag Archives: Dark Knights Metal

#3021: Batman Earth -32 & Green Lantern Hal Jordan

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , , , ,

BATMAN EARTH -32 & GREEN LANTERN HAL JORDAN

DC MULTIVERSE (MCFARLANE)

“Hal Jordan’s life was changed twice by crashing aircraft. The first time was when he witnessed the death of his father, pilot Martin Jordan. The second was when, as an adult and trained pilot himself, he was summoned to the crashed wreckage of a spaceship belonging to Abin Sur. Abin explained that he was a member of the Green Lantern Corps, an organization of beings from across the cosmos, armed with power rings fueled by the green energy of all the willpower in the universe. Upon his death, Abin entrusted his ring and duties as the Green Lantern of Earth’s space sector to Hal Jordan.

In DC’s Dark Multiverse, on Earth -32, the green light of will has twisted an angry Bruce Wayne into something very dark and sinister. After the murder of his parents in Crime Alley, young Bruce is gifted with a Green Lantern ring, which allows him to fly and to generate deadly hard-light energy constructs. With no Alfred Pennyworth™ to guide him, he soon swallows his fear and pain and lets the void that remains corrupt him and the ring, unleashing a wave of darkness across his world, and now ours, as The Dawnbreaker.”

Hoo boy, it sure has been a lot of Marvel-centric Hasbro reviews around here lately.  I’m gonna be honest, that’s burning me out ever so slightly, so I’m voting to mix things up just a tad this week.  Don’t get too excited, though, because that doesn’t mean it’s all butterflies and rainbows.  No, in fact, I’m jumping over to the McFarlane side of things.  Oh boy, won’t that be fun and thrilling?  Well, this one’s at least half not-Batman.  So, there’s that, right?  Sure.  Without further ado, here’s some Green Lantern stuff, with a bit of Batman mixed in!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Batman of Earth -32 and Green Lantern Hal Jordan are the second DC Multiverse two-pack of 2021, hitting retail last fall.  They’re based on Dark Knights Metal, and follows up on the Superman vs Devastator and Flash vs Red Death packs previously released from the same cross-over.  Dawnbreaker is identical to his single release from 2020, for better or for worse, while Hal is a new release to this pack.

GREEN LANTERN HAL JORDAN

We’ve gotten one of Earth’s other Green Lanterns from McFarlane already (twice over, in fact, since there were both Comic and Animated versions of John produced), we hadn’t yet gotten Hal Jordan.  Instead, he’s exclusively available in a two-pack with a figure that you inevitably already bought when it was released as a single, over a year before the two-pack was released.  But I’m not bitter about that or anything.  The figure whose release scheme I’m not at all bitter about stands 7 1/4 inches tall and has 32 points of articulation.  From the neck down, this figure’s sculpt is the same as the John Stewart figure.  I was less than enthused by the sculpt when it was used for John.  I’m still not incredibly enthused by it here.  It’s still over-designed, which is a real bummer when it comes to a GL design.  As I brought up the last time I discussed the mold, it was clearly designed with both uses in mind from the start, so there are elements of both costume designs worked it.  The John costume elements are a bit less of an issue on Hal’s costume, generally, so it works a *little* bit better, but it’s still really cluttered.  The one new piece to the sculpt is the head, which is admittedly a much better offering than the one we got for John.  It’s actually kind of a decent rendition of Hal, and probably one of McFarlane’s best human heads, so that’s certainly an accomplishment.  Hal’s paint work is alright; the colors match those used for John, which is at least consistent, I suppose.  I still think the green is maybe a bit too dark, but at least there’s more of it to sort of offset that this time.  At least the application is pretty clean.  Hal is packed with two construct pieces, a boxing glove and a jetpack, as well as a large construct stand meant for both Hal and Dawnbreaker.  After the kind of uninspired minigun piece from John, it’s actually really refreshing to get the boxing glove construct, which not only actually clips over his whole hand, but also is just appropriately true to the character.  The jetpack isn’t quite as much his speed, but it’s still a little more inventive, as is the larger display stand.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I do like GL-related stuff, and had generally found the early McFarlane stuff lacking in that regard.  The John Stewart really let me down, I won’t lie.  And, while I liked Dawnbreaker decently the first time around, I’m also not super enthused about having to buy him a second time around to get Hal.  I mean, Hal’s a decent figure and all, and certainly a better figure than John, but saddling him with a complete re-pack just generally sucks.  Additionally, as nice as he his, he’s at best a lateral move from the DC Essentials figure, much like Superman and Nightwing were.  Honestly, I kind of wish Hal and John were reversed in terms of quality, because I don’t really *need* another decent Hal figure, but I’m still waiting on an okay John.  Well, at least Hal’s a nice figure.

Thanks to my sponsors over at All Time Toys for setting me up with this set to review.  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website.

#3003: The Batman Who Laughs – Sky Tyrant Wings

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , , ,

THE BATMAN WHO LAUGHS — SKY TYRANT WINGS

DC MULTIVERSE (MCFARLANE)

“Born from the nightmares of the Dark Multiverse, The Batman Who Laughs is a hybrid version of the Batman and The Joker from Earth -22. This twisted version of Batman was created when nanotoxins from The Joker’s heart were released into Bruce Wayne’s bloodstream, causing the Dark Knight’s perfect mind to merge with the warped psyche of the Clown Prince of Crime. He soon became part of an attempt to plunge the entire Multiverse into ultraviolence, chaos, and utter darkness. After being initially defeated, The Batman Who Laughs managed to survive and remains a threat to the greatest heroes of the Multiverse.”

For Day 3 of the post-Christmas, we’re going back to more of my usual territory, specifically the realm of super hero comics.  Even more specifically, DC Comics.  They’re pretty busy doing nothing but Batman these days, and, well, umm, here’s some more of that, I suppose.  The last few years, DC’s bread and butter (and, by extension, their main licensee McFarlane’s bread and butter) has been Dark Knights Metal, a multiversal story where everyone is Batman.  Except for Batman.  Sometimes Batman is Joker.  And here we are with that.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The Batman Who Laughs with Sky Tyrant Wings is the second version of the Batman Who Laughs to be released in McFarlane’s DC Multiverse line, as part of the Merciless Collect-To-Build assortment, which was released at the tail end of 2020, at least in some quantities, and made it out more fully last year.  The figure stands 7 inches tall and he has 40 points of articulation, thanks to the extra joints present in the wings.  In terms of articulation scheme, he generally follows the usual McFarlane set-up, for better or for worse.  The notable change-up is to the hips, which don’t have the same full range of mobility that we usually see, being far more restricted to just forward and back.  Given the long jacket, it’s not a huge surprise or hinderance, but it’s still noteworthy.  This Batman Who Laughs is based on the character’s later appearance after he steals the wings from the Sky Tyrant, the Dark Knights Metal version of Hawkman.  To give McFarlane some credit, as far as I can tell, there are no shared parts between the two versions of BWL they released.  There are certainly similarities, but this sculpt just generally improves upon the shared elements between the two, making for a generally more well put-together offering, at least to my eyes.  The crazier, more exaggerated facial expression works a lot better for the character, especially in toy-form, and the texture work on the outfit is pretty solid.  McFarlane certainly does torn-up and gritty well.  I also feel that the more posed hands work a lot better for the character than the more generic gripping hands of the prior release.  The most obvious change here, of course, are the wings.  They actually work quite nicely, as they’re well-articulated, well-detailed, and not terribly balanced considering.  It would be nice to see such work on a proper Hawkman, but this is McFarlane, so a Batman variant is really the best we can hope for, I suppose.  The paint work on this figure is generally pretty good.  It’s largely rather basic work, but I think that’s for the best, especially after the weirdness surrounding the accent work on the last figure’s mouth.  It just looked odd, so going a little more straight forward here is probably the right call.  The Batman Who Laughs includes a display stand and a collector’s card for the figure proper, as well as the head, shoulder pads, and sword of the Merciless Build-A-Figure.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Dark Knights Metal really isn’t my sort of thing.  It’s honestly a lot of the stuff I don’t like about DC’s current obsession with Batman and the need to constantly place him above all of the other heroes rolled into one big event.  The Batman Who Laughs himself is a concept that I don’t think is terrible, but like the whole cross-over, I kind of feel like he got played out a lot quicker than he went away, and he just sort of keeps resurfacing.  So, I wasn’t seeking this figure out on my own.  That said, I received this one from Jess’s parents for Christmas, and I can certainly appreciate the thought, the gesture, and ultimately the figure proper.  The story that spawned him may not be my main thing, but the figure did turn out pretty nicely, so I can’t really knock it.