Tag Archives: Mattel

#0891: Elasti-Girl

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

ELASTI-GIRL

DC UNIVERSE CLASSICS

Elastigirl1

I’ve had over a week of Marvel reviews; maybe I should give their distinguished competition a bit of focus. Of course, being me, I’m not gonna go with a heavy hitter or anything like that. No, no, I’m pulling out the stops, and looking at a member of one of my favorite DC teams, the Doom Patrol. The Doom Patrol were essentially DC’s equivalent of the X-Men (they actually premiered three months prior), but they’ve never been quite as successful. And I’m pretty sure that most of them don’t actually exist anymore. I’ve actually already looked at one of the three founding members, Negative Man, and today I’ll be looking at another: Elasti-Girl*. Despite what the name might imply, she didn’t have stretching powers, but instead could grow or shrink in size, similarly to Marvel’s Giant-Man. She’s also only ever had one action figure, which is the one I’ll be reviewing today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Elastigirl2Elasti-Girl was released in the first year of the Club Infinite Earths subscription, which continued the DC Universe Classics line. In the first year, they offered twelve main figures, plus four “oversized” figures. Elasti-Girl was the third oversized figure, and was released in October of 2012, alongside Poison Ivy. The figure stands roughly 10 inches tall (about 4 inches taller than her main line counterparts) and has 22 points of articulation. Elasti-Girl is built on a lot of the same pieces as Series 8’s Giganta Collect-N-Connect (rumor had it that Elasti-Girl would have been a CNC herself, had the DCUC line not failed at retail). She uses the arms, upper torso, and upper legs from that figure, along with a new head, hands, lower torso, and lower legs. The end result is really quite nice. The proportions are decently balanced, if a tiny bit stylized, and the detail work on the hands and boots is very strong. In addition, the head is one of the best sculpts to come out of DCUC; it’s not too big or too flat like so many of the others, and her expression avoids being dead or vapid. The only part I can really find any fault with is the torso section, which falls a bit more into comic book proportions than the rest of the sculpt. It’s not terrible, though, especially in light of the rest of the line. Elasti-Girl’s paintwork is pretty straight forward; the colors are nice and bright, and there’s some nice, subtle accent work, which gives her a more life-like appearance.  No DCUC figure was ever particularly plentiful in terms of accessories, so it’s not a huge surprise that Elasti-Girl only gets one. It’s a little, 1 inch version of her, to showcase her shrinking powers. It’s not anything amazing, but it’s nice that they gave her something.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I didn’t actually back the subscription service during its first year, so I had to contend with Matty Collector’s horrid “day of” sale. On the plus side, it wasn’t as terrible as other times, and I was even able to get a second Elasti-Girl for my Dad. Honestly, it’s figures like this that remind me of exactly why I collected DCUC in the first place. She’s a good, solid representation of a lower tier character, who makes use of just the right balance of re-use and unique parts. If the later sub figures had been able to stick to this kind of quality, maybe the line might have survived a bit longer.

*Not to be confused with Elastigirl from Pixar’s The Incredibles, who actually used the name with DC’s blessing, but had to be called “Mrs. Incredible” on all official merchandise.

Elastigirl3

#0867: Wonder Woman

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

WONDER WOMAN

DC COMICS MULTIVERSE (MATTEL)

WWDoJ1

March 25th will see the release of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. March 25th will also see me avoiding movie theatres like the plague, because I have no desire to see the movie (my scathing hatred of Man of Steel is the main reason, but there are a few others). For the most part, I’m also steering clear of the associated toys that go with said movie due to them a) being based on designs I’m not super thrilled by, and b) made by Mattel, who happen to be one of my least favorite toy makers. However, I’m a firm believer that a cool toy is a cool toy regardless of its source material or manufacturer. And that, dear readers, is why I’m reviewing today’s figure, Wonder Woman.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

WWDoJ2Wonder Woman is part of the first assortment of the Dawn of Justice series of DC Comics Multiverse. Multiverse has previously been a 3 ¾ inch line, but starting in 2016, Mattel is bumping the line back up to the more familiar 6-inch scale. Also, it should be noted that there are currently two different case pack-outs for this line, and Wonder Woman is only in one of them. That said, she doesn’t look to be all that hard to find right now. The figure stands just shy of 6 ½ inches tall and has 26 points of articulation. The articulation is overall fairly decent, but it seems a bit rudimentary when compared to, say, one of Hasbro’s Marvel Legends. The lack of any real movement on the head is a bit frustrating, but excusable. The height (well, the whole scale, really) of the figure is definitely a bit off; she’s the tallest of the four figures in the series, despite Gal Godot being the shortest of the three leads. She’s more scaled with something like a NECA figure than she is her fellow Multiverse figures. Her sculpt is all-new, and it’s generally pretty good. There’s definitely some oddities, such are the somewhat obvious joints in the arms and legs, or the strangely geometrical upper legs, but the overall proportions of the figure are surprisingly well done. She’s easily one of the most realistic female figures Mattel has ever produced. The details of the costume seem to pretty close to what we’ve seen of the movie’s design, and there’s some decent texture work. The head is pretty decent, if not amazing. I don’t immediately see Gadot’s likeness when looking at the figure, but it’s hard to say how much of that’s the sculpt and how much is paint. Speaking of paint, that’s where this figure takes a slight dive. On a whole, I actually like it, especially the choice to go a bit brighter with the colors than what we’ve seen from the film. However, the application is a bit spotty. The two biggest areas of issue WWDoJ3are the face and the boots. The face is at least fairly clean, if perhaps a bit thick and in need of some accent work. The boots seem like the painter just got confused by all those sculpted lines and gave their best approximation; they’re quite sloppy, and the flesh toned ankle joint breaks them up in kind of an odd way. Wonder Woman is packed with a sword and shield (which appears to be the Aegis, aka the shield given to Perseus by Athena). The shield is an amazingly sculpted piece, and by far my favorite part of this whole figure, though it can be a bit difficult for Diana to hold it. The sword is generally pretty nice, though the rather obvious “CHINA” stamp on one side makes it look like Wonder Woman has had to make due with a repro of her actual sword. Wonder Woman is also packed with what has to be the lamest build-a-thing piece I’ve ever gotten; it’s the supporting column to the display base for the Batman Grapnel replica. Seriously, it’s lame.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

When I saw the various Dawn of Justice merchandise in the store, I was prepared to totally overlook it. But, I saw Wonder Woman, and was genuinely surprised by how much I liked her. No, she’s not a perfect figure, but she’s really not bad, either. And, with the size that she is, she actually fits in pretty nicely with the recent Adam West Batman and Christopher Reeve Superman from NECA, making for a pretty cool trinity display (though I’d happily replace this figure with a Linda Carter Wonder Woman, should NECA ever get the rights…). I’ve certainly gotten worse figures from Mattel.

#0859: Perseus

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , ,

PERSEUS

CLASH OF THE TITANS (MATTEL)

Perseus1

The incredible success of Star Wars and its associated merchandise was something that just about everyone was looking to cash in on in the late 70s/early 80s. Kenner had struck gold with their 3 ¾ inch line, leading to a number of imitators, hoping to get a slice of that success. Mattel tried a number of different lines, based on various sci-fi and fantasy properties of the time, each very clearly based on the Kenner aesthetic. One such line was Clash of the Titans, based on the 1981 film. The line was far from a smash success, and only managed to produce four basic figures and two larger creatures. Today, I’ll be looking at their figure of the film’s hero, Perseus.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Perseus2Perseus was part of the first, and only, series of Clash of the Titans figures from 1981. The figure stands just shy of 4 inches tall (making him pretty tall for the time) and has 5 points of articulation. While the sculpt was clearly designed to mimic the Kenner figures of the time, this figure is noticeably less sturdy than his Kenner compatriots. For a classic Greek hero, he sure is scrawny. The sculpt is okay overall, but there are a number of odd things going on with it. The legs/pelvis area is definitely pretty weird looking; in the movie, he’s wearing a long tunic sort of a thing, but here it’s been transformed into an odd, squared off diaper thing. And that’s not even addressing the fact that his legs don’t appear to actually connect to his torso. His torso sports a strap that abruptly ends at the hip. In the film, this strap is connected to his scabbard, but Mattel wanted to be able to have Perseus share his legs with Thallo, so there was no scabbard to be had. The head probably exhibits the best work of the sculpt, but it’s still not all there. I can kind of see Harry Hamlin in this sculpt, but he looks a bit exaggerated, and almost has a sinister, scheming air about him, which hardly seems right for the film’s hero. Perseus’s paint is faitlu basic. One shade of brown for his hair, boots, bracelets, and eyes, another for his strap, and a light beige for his tunic. It’s nothing amazing, but it’s all pretty clean. Plus, he got eyes, which means he fared far better than any of the humans from Mattel’s Battlestar Galactica line! Perseus was originally packed with a sword and his shield, the Aegis, but my figure doesn’t have those.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I’ve actually never seen Clash of the Titans. I’ve seen clips from it, I’ve heard the soundtrack, but I’ve never seen the movie. However, I’m a bit of a Greek mythology geek, and I’m also a huge action figure geek (try not to be too shocked). So, when I found this guy in a box of loose figures at a flea market last month, I was actually kind of excited. As usual, it’s a Mattel product that’s nowhere near the competing product of the time in terms of quality, but I kind of have a soft spot for this figure. And one of these days I’ll get around to watching the movie…

Perseus3

#0852: Tri-Klops

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

TRI-KLOPS

MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE

TriClopsVint1

Mattel is a company most often remembered as the makers of Barbie, but pretty much since the inception of Barbie, they’ve been trying to capture an equivalent market, but more aimed at boys (for better or for worse). There first real try was a line called Big Jim, which was a sort of an odd mix of Barbie and G.I. Joe. It was a decent enough success, but certainly didn’t have the lasting power of Barbie. Their next attempt, Masters of the Universe, was far more successful, though it sort of comes and goes. The line was a fairly standard “heroes vs. villains” set-up, and one of my favorite villainous characters is Tri-Klops, who I’ll be looking at today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

TriClopsVint2Tri-Klops is part of the 1983 series of the original Masters of the Universe line. The figure stands about 5 ½ inches tall and he’s got 6 points of articulation, as well as a rotating visor piece. Structurally, he’s the same as the basic He-Man figure, with his own unique head and armor piece. The base body is, of course, hysterically proportioned, but that’s kind of on purpose. He’s certainly very muscle-y. The character-specific parts haven’t aged quite as well as other MotU figures. While later Tri-Klops figures would put effort into giving him some interesting tech things going on with his visor, this one doesn’t do any of that; he’s got a simple ring with three eyes on it, each eye having a slightly different brow. That’s really it. Not the most exciting design work. His armor is a bit more interesting and ornate, though still rather basic.  As far as paint goes, Tri-Klops is pretty TriClopsVint3basic, relying mostly on molded colors. Whatpaint he does have is generally pretty clean, overlooking the obvious wear and tear from regular play. The one odd thing is the total lack of paint on the insides of the arms, leaving his armbands only half-existent. Tri-Klops originally included a sword (which was unique to him) and a weird, glow-in-the-dark skull ring thingy. My Tri-Klops, however, does not have these.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Since I wasn’t alive in 1983, Tri-Klops was purchase second-hand. He’s actually a fairly recent addition to my collection, having only been purchased last December. I found him in an antique store near my family’s usual holiday vacation spot. I’ve always liked Tri-Klops, but I can’t say I have a huge affinity for his vintage look. Definitely a character whose 2002 design was the one I enjoyed the most. Still, not a bad figure, especially given when it was released.

#0846: Black Lightning

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

BLACK LIGHTNING

DC UNIVERSE CLASSICS

BlackLightingDCUC1

As much as I loved DC Universe Classics, the problems with the line (which were mainly distribution-based) cropped up pretty early in its run. While the first series received fairly even distribution, series 2 and 3 were fairly spotty in coverage (possibly due to slow sales on Series 1). By the time Series 4 came along, it seemed things had mostly been sorted (apart from the odd instance of several variants being easier to find than their regular counterparts). Then came Series 5. See, Walmart is notoriously difficult to work with, especially if you’re a toy maker. In order to carry a line, they’ll frequently demand an exclusive series. Because of this, they did not carry the first four series of the line. To ensure their support of future series, Series 5 was given to Walmart as an exclusive. Walmart under-ordered and ended up sending no more than a single case of figures to many of its stores, with some receiving none at all. The end result was one of the hardest to find series in the line, with individual figures commanding extraordinarily high prices on the aftermarket. Black Lightning, who was having a bit of a career revival at the time, had the misfortune of being one of the figures in this set.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

BlackLightningDCUC2Black Lightning was, as noted in the intro, released in the Walmart-exclusive fifth series of DC Universe Classics. The figure stands 6 ½ inches tall and has 25 points of articulation. Lightning uses his Ed Benes redesign from the relaunch of Justice League of America. It was his current look at the time, and it happens to be far less dated than his original and 90s looks. It also had the added benefit of not requiring much new tooling. He uses the mid-sized male buck, with a unique head sculpt. The buck is a decent match for Black Lightning’s build from the comics and it allows him to fit in seamlessly with the rest of the line. While it was top-notch at the time of its release, it’s starting to show its age a bit, especially at the shoulders. Also, the poor quality of the plastic on this particular series makes Lightning’s body prone to warping, and some tearing at the joints, which is a definite negative. The head sculpt is fairly decent; it does a fairly good job of capturing Lightning. It’s not super distinctive, but neither was Lightning at this point. Unfortunately, it’s got some pretty obvious mold scarring, which is made worse by the fact that he’s bald. He looks like he’s taken some damage. The paint work is okay but not great. The base colors are nice and vibrant, which is good, but some of the lines, particularly the yellow for the belt, are really fuzzy. Also, while the prototype for this figure had clear goggles, allowing his eyes to be seen, their totally opaque on the final figure. Lightning included no accessories of his own, but he did include a piece of the C-n-C for this series, Metallo.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I had no luck finding any of Series 5 in stores when they were released, so I ended up having to buy this guy second-hand, without his Metallo piece. I was quite enjoying him in Justice League at the time, so I was glad to find him at a semi-reasonable price. The final figure is sadly a bit lacking, mostly due to the lower quality of the materials used for this figure. I’m happy I have him, but his lower quality contributed to me not going out of my way to find any of the others from this series.

#0845: Batmen

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

BATMEN

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (MATTEL)

DKRBats1

Batman’s had his fair share of wacky variants over the years. Some are actually pretty cool, and some are really far out there. And then some are just super lazy. Today, I’m going to be looking at one of the super lazy ones (alongside a fairly standard one), courtesy of Mattel’s tie-in line for The Dark Knight Rises.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

DKRBats2Batman (and Batman) were part of the “Basic Series” of Mattel’s small-scale The Dark Knight Rises line. These were the cheapest figures available, as they were mostly just recolors of the basic Batman figure. The figures stand 3 ¾ inches tall and have 7 points of articulation. The articulation is kind of odd; the figures lack any sort of elbow movement, which is incredibly limiting. The knees, hips, and shoulders are rather simplistic, but the neck joint is inexplicably a ball joint. Moving past the articulation, the sculpt actually isn’t that bad. It does a pretty good job of capturing the design of the bat-suit from TDK and TDKR, and it actually features a pretty great depth of fine detail work. The head, specifically his exposed mouth, does look a bit weird, like the mask doesn’t fit right, but that’s the only real “down” to the sculpt. The capes are both cloth; they’re just simple scraps of black cloth, cut into vaguely the right shape. Cloth very rarely works well at this scale, and these two show why. The capes are fairly rigid looking, and don’t do anything but hang there awkwardly. The paint is the dividing point for these two. The black one is a fairly standard Batman, looking more or less as he does in the film. He’s not really painted as much as he is molded in the proper colors. The parts that actually use paint are fairly basic, but well applied. The other one has a strange aqua sort of coloring to him, which is, of course, totally made up for the toy. It looks a bit more vibrant than the black one, and it has a few more paint apps, but some areas, such as the face, are a bit sloppier on this one. Neither of these two includes any sort of accessories.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Dark Knight Rises came out well after I’d stopped buying weird Batman re-colors (well…mostly), so I didn’t get either of these figures new. Instead, I actually got these from my girlfriend’s dad, who found them at the super market and thought of me. How kind of him! Can’t say I would have ever gotten them for myself, and one really has to wonder who the heck Mattel was hoping would be buying these, but they actually aren’t that bad.

#0820: Wolverine

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

WOLVERINE

MARVEL SUPER HEROES SECRET WARS (MATTEL)

WolverineSW1

I’ve no doubt that a number of people looked at yesterday’s review of the All-New, All-Different X-Men and thought to themselves: “Where’s Wolverine?” Well, the answer to that question is that Wolverine action figures were all over the place in the ‘90s, so Toy Biz felt he didn’t need to also be part of the set. But, who am I to ruin everyone’s fun? Let’s look at a Wolverine figure. In fact, let’s look at the very first Wolverine figure, from all the way back in 1984!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

WolverineSW2Wolverine was released as part of the first series of Mattel’s Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars line. The line was, of course, designed to tie-in with the Marvel’s Secret Wars comic (the first one!).  However, it was kind of a round-a-bout sort of tie-in, since the comic was actually published at Mattel’s request, because they wanted their toys to have a more direct tie-in. Thanks Mattel. Anyway, Wolverine was in the comic. So was the whole current roster of X-Men at the time, but he was the only one to get a figure from it. This was the true start of the “Wolverine publicity,” I suppose. Since it was 1984, Wolverine was sporting his spiffy brown costume, instead of his usually more known yellow and blue get-up. The figure stands 4 ½ inches tall and has 5 points of articulation. Like pretty much every Mattel line ever, Secret Wars was built on a hefty sum of parts re-use. Wolverine uses the basic arms and legs of the line, along with a unique head and a slightly larger torso piece, which he shared with Doctor Octopus and Hobgoblin. In general, the sculpt is rather on the soft side, with the exception of the soles of his boots, which are oddly well-defined. Of course, they’re only defined right at the base, so the tops don’t stick out from the sides like they should. The head isn’t anything particularly amazing, but it’s a decent enough likeness of Wolverine, and it certainly fits in with the rest of the body sculpt. The general proportions of the figure are fairly decent; the torso’s a bit on the flat side, but not terribly so. Most of this figure is carried by the paint job, since that’s where most of the character-specific elements come in. The paintwork is decent enough, and the colors are nice and bold (even if they did make him brown and yellow, instead of the proper brown and orange). There are some fuzzy edges, but nothing too bad. Wolverine was originally packed with a pair of snap-on claws (which came in either silver or black), and a lenticular shield thingy. Mine has neither of these, though.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

So, clearly I didn’t pick this figure up when it was new. Truth be told, Secret Wars was never a line I really thought about trying to track down, due to them lacking a lot of the quality of their contemporary, DC Super Powers, of which I am quite a fan. However, while at a small nick-knack shop on Small Business Saturday, my brother told me there was “some Wolverine figure” on one of the low-sitting shelves. It ended up being this guy, who was marked $1.99. For that price, I certainly wasn’t going to pass on a vintage figure in decent shape. There’s no denying that this figure is far from the quality of other lines from the same time period, but he’s a cool piece of history, and I’m happy to have him.

#0816: Batman & Two-Face

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

BATMAN & TWO-FACE

BATMAN (MATTEL)

BatsTwoFaceMatt1

For day 15 of the Post-Christmas reviews, I’ll be taking a step back to a few years, and actually looking at a Mattel product. Weird, right? In 2002, the DC license moved to Mattel from Hasbro (who had inherited it via their buyout of former holder Kenner), marking the first time in over a decade that the license had formally changed hands. It was something of a quick change, resulting in Hasbro being unable to release some of the product they had designed beforehand. When Mattel took over, they ended up making use of some of these already existing designs (which were all Batman-related), releasing them as a quick, one and done line of two-packs, each containing Batman and a supporting player. That wasn’t enough, apparently, as they also occasionally trotted the figures out for re-release over the years, usually single-packed and with wonky color schemes. Today, I’ll be looking at a pair of figures from one of those re-releases.

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Batman and Two-Face were released in 2008, in a line simply branded Batman. I should specify here that they were both single releases, which I’m just reviewing as a pair here for my own convenience. There was also a Joker figure in the set, which I don’t have.

BATMAN

BatsTwoFaceMatt3First up is Batman. Not just any Batman, though! No, this here is a wacky variant Batman! The figure stands just shy of 5 inches tall and has 5 points of articulation. The sculpt is based on the New Batman Adventures version of Batman. It’s not a terrible recreation of the design, but I don’t think it’s quite as good as the prior Kenner version of the design, and it’s definitely not as good as the recent DCC version. However, it’s still a pretty decent sculpt, and it’s clear which version of Batman this is supposed to be. Plus, it’s got a much more natural pose than the Kenner version, which is a nice change. Wait, didn’t I say this was a wacky variant Batman? Why, yes I did! That all comes from the paint. Instead of the traditional grey for the body, he has this odd orange/silver thing. It’s not based on any particular look or anything, just random orange and silver Batman. How ‘bout that? The paint is decently applied, for what it’s worth, so there’s that. Batman included no accessories, just like all of the other Batmen who used this same exact mold.

TWO-FACE

BatsTwoFaceMatt2So, Batman was a wacky variant, but Two-Face is an actual adapted design, right? Not really, no. But that’s okay! Because toys! Like Batman, this figure stands about 5 inches tall and has 5 points of articulation. It’s worth noting that this guy feels like he’s just a bit smaller-scaled than Batman, which is especially notable when you compare head sizes. The sculpt is also based on his New Batman Adventures design, and it’s not quite as strong as Batman’s. It’s not terrible, and the body in particular is a pretty decent Timm-style suit sculpt (which is probably why Mattel ended up using a tweaked version of it several times in their JLU line). The head is pretty off, and it has a really obvious mold line running along the chin, which looks pretty bad. The paintwork is kind of interesting. It’s definitely not show-accurate, but it’s also not quite as out there as Batman, since it isn’t all that far-removed from some of his classic color-schemes from the comics. That actual application is reasonable enough. The colors are pretty vibrant, and most of the paint stays in the lines, which is nice. Two-Face also doesn’t include any accessories, but he does have his coin sculpted in his hand, so at least he isn’t totally lacking.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Batman and Two-Face were given to me for Christmas by my Super Awesome Girlfriend. And where did she find these 8 year old action figures? Some second hand store? Nope, it was CVS of all places. I was genuinely shocked by that. Neither of them are particularly standout figures, but they kind of a nifty throwback to the wacky variants of old, and I was happy to receive them.

#0767: Batman Beyond

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

BATMAN BEYOND

DC COMICS MULTIVERSE (MATTEL)

BatBeyondDCM1

Uh oh. It’s a Mattel figure. This can’t be good. Okay, that’s not entirely true or fair. Mattel figures have the potential to be good, or even on the rare occasion great. In fact, most are at least passable, but some aren’t. And also, I don’t like Mattel as a company, for a whole slew of reasons, chief among them being that a whole lot of their products just feel so lazy. In fact, in the last year, I believe I’ve bought a whole four Mattel figures, mostly due to the vast majority of their output being rather dull. One of those four figures is today’s entry, Batman Beyond. Let’s see how he turned out.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

BatBeyondDCM2Batman Beyond is part of Mattel’s DC Comics Multiverse line. The line doesn’t really have traditional series to speak of, but BB was released in the last year of the line. He’s part of the Arkham City sub-set, and is based on one of the alt looks for Batman from the game, rather than being an actual Terry McGuinness Batman Beyond. The figure stands 3 ¾ inches tall and has 18 points of articulation. The layout of the articulation is the same as both the Christopher Reeve Superman and Arkham Knight Robin figures. It’s not the worst articulation ever, but it could really, really use some sort of upper arm swivel and a mid-torso joint. The current layout leaves him a little stiff looking. In general, the sculpt of this figure feels pretty stiff and somewhat oddly proportioned. Some of that, such as the small head and larger hands, are at least partly present in the game design, but some of it’s just weird sculpting. Like Robin and Superman before him, the figure’s waist just sits too low, which looks really odd. Also, it looks like BB’s got at least a few parts in common with several of the previous Batmen. Because of this, he still has the usual Batman boots, which aren’t accurate to the design, as well as a weird shoulder piece that looks like it should have a cape or something attached, but it doesn’t, which is reasonable, since BB’s not supposed to have a cape anyway. Since one of the draws of Batman Beyond is his sleek design, these issues with the re-used pieces jump out a lot more than they would otherwise. BB does get his own head, belt, and forearms, which all do a pretty great job of capturing those parts of his design, and blend pretty decently with the rest of the sculpt. BB’s paint is one of his stronger suits. Everything is pretty cleanly handled, and his emblem in particular is nice and crisp, and really stands out well from the rest of the figure. BB has no accessories, which isn’t out of the ordinary for a Multiverse figure, but remains annoying given the price of the figure and the fact that he re-uses quite a few pieces.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Remember how I was done with DC Comics Multiverse? Yeah, that seems increasingly incorrect. When I was down in North Carolina visiting family, I ended up finding this guy on a grocery run. I’ve always had a soft spot for the Batman Beyond design, and Super Awesome Girlfriend was there with me, so there really wasn’t a chance I was saying no to this one. He’s a flawed figure to be sure, and definitely reminds me of why I don’t really do Mattel figures anymore, but he’s Batman Beyond, which does a lot to outweigh some of the cons.

#0728: Atom

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

ATOM

DC UNIVERSE CLASSICS

AtomGADCUC1

Sometimes, there are really, really cool figures of characters you like, that are held back by one tiny but hard to overlook flaw. Today, I’ll be looking at such a figure. I’ll get to the “why” of it in just a bit.

So, in the second season premier for The Flash, Barry fought a guy called Atom Smasher, aka Albert Rothstein. Rothstein comes from Earth 2, which was the home of the original 40s DC Comics characters. He’s also the godson of the original Atom, aka Al Pratt, who is the focus of today’s review. Unlike the later versions of Atom, who possessed the ability to shrink down to sub-atomic size (not unlike Marvel’s Ant-Man), Al was just a kind of short guy who was a good fighter. He was eventually given an assortment of powers after the fact, but those were kind of a retcon. Amongst other things, he served as a prototype for Justice Guild member Tom Turbine, from the Justice League episode “Legends.” And, he got a figure as part of one of the last series of DC Universe Classics. Yay for him!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

AtomGADCUC2Atom was released as part of Series 19 of Mattel’s DC Universe Classics, which was a whole series themed around the Justice Society of America, of which ol’ Al here was a member. Atom is presented here in his original costume from the 40s, which is definitely his more definitive of his two main looks. The figure stands about 6 ¼ inches tall and has 23 points of articulation. See that height? Remember when I mentioned he was a short guy? Yeah, Al’s listed height is 5’ 1”, which, in DCUC terms, should make this guy about 5 ½ inches tall. So, he’s about an inch too tall. This is because Atom is built on the larger male body (the same one used on the water-camo Aquaman from Series 7). Proportionally, it’s the best body Mattel had on hand; Al’s a pretty stacked guy; but it’s just too tall. It’s kind of a no-win scenario. A character like Al isn’t really privy to an all-new body sculpt, especially in a buck-based line like DCUC, so Mattel had to make due. Moving away from the size thing, Atom has a brand new head, forearms, abdomen, and shins. These are all nicely sculpted parts, and the buckles on the arms and abdomen are an especially nice touch, since they could have easily been painted on. The shins are a little bit shorter than previous pieces, so Mattel was clearly trying a little, but it’s not really a very noticeable difference. The cape is from Series 12’s Dr. Mid-Nite figure; it’s not a perfect match, but it’s close enough, and it’s a well-sculpted piece, so I can’t complain. For some reason, it sits out a bit from his back, which is a tad frustrating.  The paintwork on Atom is some of the best from this line. Some of the line work is fuzzy, but it’s pretty clean overall. The color work is really nice; everything is bold and vibrant, and he really just pops. The brown parts are meant to be leather, and so they’ve been given a slightly darker brown dry brushing, which is actually really effective in conveying the different texturing. Atom didn’t include any of his own accessories, but he did include the head and pelvis of STRIPE, the Collect-N-Connect figure for this series.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

The golden age Atom has long been one of my favorite JSA members. I was always a bit disappointed by DC Direct’s less than stellar attempt at the character, so I was intrigued by the DC Universe Classics version. I ended up finding this guy not long after he was released, while on a run to a nearby Target with my Dad. His size put me off at first, but the realization that this was probably the best version of the character I’d ever see in plastic, I went for it. I’m really happy I decided to get him, because, size issues aside, he’s actually a really nice figure.