Tag Archives: DC Universe Classics

#0189: The Demon, Etrigan

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

THE DEMON, ETRIGAN

DC UNIVERSE CLASSICS

Ah, yes, DC Universe Classics. A line I loved and hated. I love most of the figures, but I grew to hate Mattel, the producers of the line, more and more as every series went by. This figure goes back to the happier times, way back in Series 1, before things went to crap.

The character in question is The Demon, Etrigan, a character created by Jack Kirby in 1972. He was originally Sir Jason Blood, a knight in King Arthur’s court, who was bound with the demon by Merlin. Jason became immortal, and had the ability to summon the Demon’s form by reciting “Gone, gone the form of man. Rise the demon, Etrigan!” The character had prominent appearances in Batman: The Animated Series and Justice League, if you want to check those out.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Etrigan was released in the first series of DC Universe Classics. I always have found this to be an interesting choice, given the character’s relative obscurity, but I suppose Mattel wanted to show they intended to go pretty obscure with the line. He has 23 points of articulation is is just shy of 7 inches tall. DCUC was usually heavily dependent on the Buck System, but Etrigan actually had an almost entirely unique sculpt. The only thing I believe was ever reused is the upper torso piece, which I believe was later see on some of the Collect-N-Connect figures such as Atom Smasher. Etrigan’s sculpt is a truly impressive piece of work by Mattel’s oft-used sculpting team The Four Horsemen. The skin has some wonderful texture work, and the sleeves and cape are nicely tattered. Etrigan’s lower arms and hands are a bit rubbery, but nowhere near as bad as some later entries in the line. The paint work on Etrigan looks great. All the basic paintwork is clean, no slop or bleed over. He also features several washes, which really help to bring out the details of the sculpt. Etrigan’s only accessory is the left arm of Metamorpho, the C-N-C of series 1. Etrigan doesn’t really have anything that would work as an accessory, and he’s a bit bigger than the typical figure, so it’s understandable.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I had initially not planned on purchasing Etrigan, or really getting into DCUC at all. The line-up was mostly figures I already had in some form or another, and most of Mattel’s previous DC work had been lackluster at best. DC Direct seemed to be killing it with their more expansive offering of DC figures. But then, Mattel announced the next two series of figures. Specifically, they announced Series 3’s Green Lantern, which quickly caught my attention. So, I gave the first series a second look, and found that several of them were actually quite good. I found Etrigan and two of his compatriots at my local Target and picked them up, effectively creating a monster. Yay.

#0144: The Creeper

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

CREEPER

DC UNIVERSE CLASSICS

Hey, look!  Something that’s not Minimates!  Yeah, don’t get used to it.  There’s another Minimate review scheduled for tomorrow.  You can’t escape the Minimates!

This figure comes from DC Universe Classics, a line I’ve looked at a few times before.  I feel I’ve said my piece on the line as a whole, so I’ll just jump straight into the figure itself.

Today’s review focuses on the Creeper.  For those of you who don’t know:  The Creeper was a character created by comics legend Steve Ditko (of Spider-Man fame) in 1968.  The Creeper was talk show host Jack Ryder, who got fired and took a job in security.  He’s sent to rescue a scientist being held hostage at a costume party, so he improvises the costume seen above.  Ryder is injured in the rescue, so the scientist injects him with a healing serum, and plants a device that allows the costume to disappear in the wound.  So, now he had enhanced physical abilities, but he’d be cursed to look like this whenever he used them.  How ‘bout that?  The character’s origin was revised numerous times, most prominently in the “Beware the Creeper” episode of Batman: The New Adventures, where he was given a connection to the Joker.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Creeper was released as part of the 16th wave of DCUC.  He’s obviously based on the character’s comic book appearance overall, but it appears that the figure took a few cues from the animated version.  He stands just shy of 6 ½ inches and features 27 points of articulation.  Creeper was based on the tall-skinny buck, which was released in the line a bit later.  I don’t remember for sure whether Creeper was the first figure to use this body or not.  I have to say, it’s a bit of an odd choice for him in my opinion.  I’m not saying Jack Ryder was a huge guy or anything, but he was usually depicted being a bit stockier than this.  He’s got character specific lower arms and lower legs to show off his distinctive feather trimmed boots and gloves, which look pretty good.  Mattel opted to sculpt Creeper’s feather boa, which is a fair choice I think, but does end up being the slightest bit restrictive.  The head is probably my least favorite part of the figure, which has a lot to do with the animated influence, I feel.  I would have preferred to have a more Ditko inspired sculpt, Beatles hair and all.  It also doesn’t help that the sculpt doesn’t look to have translated very well from the prototype stage, making Creeper look more like a yellow Joker, and less like his own character.  A lot of this has to do with the paint.  The paint work on the body is up to the usual standards of the line, but the head is just a bit off, particularly on the eyes and very definitely on the teeth.  Creeper’s only accessory was a piece of the wave C-n-C figure, Bane.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I actually kind of like the Creeper, and I was looking forward to this figure when it was announced.  It’s not a perfect figure, and I remember being a bit disappointed at the time, but I’ve grown to really like the figure over time.  Wave 16 was actually one of the few waves that I found almost all in one shot, except for one figure that I eventually paid too much for.  Fortunately, Creeper was not that figure, so I can enjoy he him for what he is.

#0098: Negative Man

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

NEGATIVE MAN

DC UNIVERSE CLASSICS

Ah, DC Universe Classics.  A line that left me with so much confusion.  The line led me to steadily hate everything Mattel did.  But on the same hand, it was the DC toy line I’d wanted since I was 4 or 5.  Not only did it have great versions of the big name characters and their supporting casts, but it also gave us characters we never thought we’d see released in a retail toy line in a million years.  I’ll be looking at Negative Man, one of those characters, today.

Negative Man, or more specifically Larry Trainor because Negative Man wasn’t actually his name, was a member of the wacky 60s super hero team the Doom Patrol.  The Doom Patrol weren’t your conventional super heroes, no, they were freaks and outcasts that the public had shunned.  They were led by a wheelchair bound man and they fought the Brotherhood of Evil.  No, I didn’t make that up.  They were totally the X-Men, only at DC.  Not a rip off, mind you.  They debuted the same year, and neither one was really a best seller.  But eventually X-Men became one of the bestselling comicbooks ever, and the Doom Patrol were mostly forgotten.  Sure they’ve had a few reboots, but none of them ever really captured the fun of the original series, and none of them ever really lasted all that long.

Anyway, Larry was a test pilot who was exposed to some strange energy that turned out to be the sentient being N-Man.  N-Man was trapped inside of Larry’s body, and could only be released in 60 second intervals, or Larry would die.  When N-Man was present in Larry’s body, Larry was radioactive, so he had to be wrapped in specially treated bandages to keep the radiation contained.  I’m gonna be honest, it was a pretty sweet concept!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Larry was released as part of the 13th wave of DC Universe Classics.  Believe it or not, Larry’s actually had a few looks over the years.  Mattel has chosen to go with what is probably the character’s best known look, his red and purple number that he sported for the majority of the original series.  While I’m partial to his original green uniform, I think they picked the right costume.  He stands just shy of 6 ½ inches tall and he has 24 points of articulation.  DC Universe Classics operated on the buck system, meaning they had a set of differently sized bodies and the picked the one that best suited the character in order to save on tooling.  Larry is based on the medium build male buck, which works fine, since he’s not supposed to be a powerhouse.  I’ve heard arguments that he should have been on a skinnier body, but I think the medium build looks just fine.  In addition to the buck body, Larry has specially sculpted parts for his head, neck, hands, belt and boots.  The head, neck and hands are all bandaged, and they all look pretty cool.  They found a decent way of handling showing a face, without it looking too silly, which is a good thing.  The belt has a cool leather texture to it, which is one of those things that could have easily been left out, but I’m really glad wasn’t.  The boots are actually a reuse from the line’s Green Arrow figure, but if it’s a good part, use it.  The paint on Larry is all well applied, with no slop or bleed over.  There are several washes present to bring out the details in the sculpt.  In one area of disappointment, Larry includes no accessories apart from the requisite C-n-C piece.  It’s Trigon’s staff for those who care.  But, Larry himself gets nothing, not even a cool snap on Negative Man effect!  I guess they had to draw the line somewhere.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

In spite of DCUC’s spotty distribution, I actually found Larry in store with relative ease.  I was greatly excited by that, as he’s one of my favorite characters, and I’ve always wanted a figure of him.  This one did not disappoint.  Larry shows the DC Universe Classics line at its best.  Well distributed, well sculpted, cool obscure character.  He was just full of win!

#0077: Batzarro

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

BATZARRO

DC UNIVERSE CLASSICS

Happy New Year everyone!

This isn’t the first time I’ve looked at DC Universe Classics, and I’ve gone into my frustrations with the line and those running it.  The final figure in the second and final year of the subscription’s run was just released this month, and he fits in perfectly with the overall mixed feelings of the line.  Anyway, I’ll save my thoughts for the last section. In the meantime, I’ll take a look at Batzarro.

Real quick sum up of the character for those who aren’t familiar:  In the 60s, the character Bizzarro was created as an Anti-Superman.  He spoke in backwards sentences, used reverse logic, and had the opposite powers of the Superman.  40 some years later, writer Jeff Loeb and artist Ed McGuinness created Batzarro, the Batman to Bizzarro’s Superman.  His name is Wayne Bruce, and he turned to a life of crime when his parents were born in crime alley.  Yes, that’s really his origin.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Batzarro was the 12th figure in Mattel’s 2013 DC Universe Classics: Signature Series subscription.  He stands a little over 6 inches tall, and has 23 points of articulation.  Batzarro has had exactly one look… ever.  So, that’s the look depicted here, which is far from shocking.  Batzarro is made from a fair deal of reused pieces, with a new head, cape and belt.  The rest of the figure is built on a basic DCUC body, specifically the Batman body.  It’s a sensible reuse, given the nature of the character, so no issues there.  The new pieces are all very well done.  In particular, the head looks spot on to the character, with his eyeless cowl and evil grin.  The paint on the figure isn’t perfect, as I did notice a few fuzzy lines and some missed marks, particularly on his belt buckle, which is a noticeable distance from the edge.  But it’s also far from terrible, so, it doesn’t ruin the figure.  It’s just mildly annoying.  Batzarro includes a single accessory, his batarang.  Given his place as the anti-Batman, Batzarro was frequently depicted toting around dual pistols, and the lack of inclusion here is unfortunate, especially given the pricepoint of the figure.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

So, yeah… this figure.  Hands down, one of the most mixed-feelings-y figures of all time.  You see, I didn’t want to like this figure.  At only 12 figures a year, he’s an absolutely terrible choice.  The character had one storyline, a few years ago.  It wasn’t a monumental story, and he’s not even really a major player in it.  The character’s design is perfectly fine, but not revolutionary.  Of all the characters in the DC Universe, he’s far from the top of anyone’s list of “necessary characters.”  And his placement at the end of the year means two things. 1) He wasn’t amongst the characters subscribers were shown when they signed up, meaning we had to accept him whether we liked it or not, and 2) he was one of the figures that had a direct impact on if the next year of the line went through or not.  Unsurprisingly, next year’s subscription didn’t go through.

But quite frankly, the most damning thing about this figure is that he’s actually a pretty well done figure.  Not the best in the line, but actually good.  Better than a lot of the other figures offered this year.  So, this figure that nobody wanted ended up much better than several of the figures that people have been wanting for years.  It all just leaves a bad taste in the mouth and further punctuates the mismanagement of the line.  So, here I am with a figure I quite like of a character I’m just indifferent about.  I suppose that’s not all bad…

#0072: Ice

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

ICE

DC UNIVERSE CLASSICS (MATTEL)

So, here’s an interesting review.  Rather than looking at something that’s been out for a while, I’m taking a look at something that technically isn’t out yet.  I’m doing some crazy time travel voodoo!

So, I spoke briefly in my review of Ultra Humanite about the demise of the DC Universe Classics line.  This year saw the release of third-tier Justice Leaguer Fire, leading many fans to wonder when we’d see her longtime companion Ice.  Well, Mattel, in their infinite wisdom was attempting to get another year out of the line by making anyone who wanted to complete the duo buy into a whole year’s worth of monthly figures on blind faith.  As much as some people wanted the figure, Ice isn’t exactly going to make a huge number of sales for the line as a whole.  So it failed.

Or did it?

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Ice was released as…hmm…Ice was part of….um.   Ice is a figure that somehow fits into the DC Universe Classics line.  Exactly how is still a bit iffy.  Anyway, Ice is depicted in her Adam Hughes designed costume from when she was part of the Justice League International.  This is my favorite look of Ice’s, so I’m glad it was the one they chose for the figure.  Ice stands a little over 6 inches tall and has 19 points of articulation.  She’s built on the second female base body that Mattel introduced into the line, with new sculpts for the head, upper torso, and lower legs.  The head is okay.  Not the greatest, but far from the worst sculpt the line has produced.  The upper torso and lower legs depict the more 3d elements of Ice’s costume.  The fur of the boots looks pretty good, and the t-shirt thingy on the torso looks accurate and has some nice sculpted folds and such.  The paint is alright.  There’s some fuzziness on some of the lines of the costume, but nothing too terrible.  Ice’s only accessory is a clear ice blast piece, but my crazy time-travel-copy doesn’t have that piece. Oh well.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Funny thing about the toy industry:  In order to have the first few figures for next year ready to go if the line did go through, the first three figures had to already be in production.  So Ice actually exists.  Rumor has it that she’ll see a release on Matty’s site sometime next year, but I imagine she’ll see quite a mark-up, and trying to order something from that site has to be one of the levels of Hell.  So, I got one…early.

Another funny thing about the toy industry: sometimes figures “fall off” the production line.  And occasionally, they wind up on certain auction sites.  And if there were, say, a significant delay between production and release, these “rejects” might show up several months before the real deal.  And perhaps, a few fans, eager to get the figures a bit early and with a little less hassle might just happen to acquire said figures.  Not that I’d know anything about that, of course.  It’s purely speculative.  I got my figure through crazy time travel voodoo!

#0060: Ultra Humanite

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

ULTRA HUMANITE

DC UNIVERSE CLASSICS (MATTEL)

Hey, two new thingies to my blog:  DC Universe Classics and Build-A-Figures.  DC Universe Classics was a great line of DC figures released by Mattel over the past few years.  It was one of the most expansive DC lines to date, and even though not every decision was perfect, it was a really fun line.  Unfortunately, the advent of the New 52*, DC mandated that the classic looks of the characters wouldn’t appear at retail.  So, Mattel attempted to move the line to their online store, Matty Collector.  However, questionable character choices, no advertising, unreasonably high prices and an over-reliance on a blind-faith all or nothing method of distribution on the figures meant that the sub just barely made it through two years before dying with a whimper (Batzarro?  Seriously!?!  That’s the line’s final figure?).  But, the line did give us some great figures, like the one I’m looking at today.

This figure’s a build-a-figure, or Collect-n-Connect as Mattel branded them.  That meant that each figure in a particular series included a piece to one larger figure, so if you got the whole series, you’d have a cool extra figure.  This time around, it’s everyone’s favorite body-hopping mad scientist with a propensity for albino apes:  The Ultra Humanite!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Ultra Humanite was the Collect-N-Connect figure for the 14th series of DC Universe Classics, which was also the 3rd series of the line exclusive to Wal-Mart.  He stands around 8 inches tall and has 22 points of articulation.  Humanite’s had a few distinctive looks over the years, but Mattel decided to go with his albino ape in a red unitard look.  It’s a good choice, as it’s by far the most distinctive look that the character’s had over the years, and had some prominence a few years ago when the character appeared on the Justice League animated series.  Humanite is mostly a new sculpt, though he does share arms with previous C-n-C Gorilla Grodd.  It makes sense given their design similarities.  Everything else is new, and it’s all very well done.  The hair detailing continues over his whole body, and looks good enough. His clothing is a bit jarring in its smoothness when compared to the rest of the body, but that’s accurate to the characters design, so I suppose it’s to be expected.  The head sculpt is easily my favorite part of the figure.  It perfectly conveys Humanite’s smug superiority, while perfectly replicating his ape features.  The paint is nice and consistent with no slop or bleed.  There’s a nice wash on the body to bring out the detail in the sculpt.  It’s a bit heavy in a few places, but it does the job well.  Humanite didn’t include any accessories, but given he’s technically an accessory himself, that’s okay.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Due to the unfortunate distribution of the DCUC line, this was actually the first C-n-C I got all the pieces for.  And even then, it was more a stroke of luck finding the necessary figures at a nearby Wal-Mart.  But I’m really glad I was able to get him built with relative ease, as I feel he’s one of the strongest figures in the line.

*In 2011, DC decided to do a line-wide reboot of their entire line of comics, AGAIN.  So, they redesigned all the characters, and launched 52 new titles, referred to as the “New 52.”  I feel there’s enough nerd rage in this review already, so I won’t delve into my opinion on that idea at this time.