Fwoosh Staffers have joined forces to bring you a review of the latest series of DC Univerese Classics. This series is currently popping up everywhere at local Wal-Mart stores. So, be on the lookout and read the review while you wait!
Let’s see what Fwoosh Faithful RoboKillah, Matthew K, Prodigy and VeeBee have to say about this highly diverse, highly anticipated latest round of figures!
Figure One: Mr. Miracle
"Okay, let me start off by saying I don’t really know much about Mr. Miracle. I vaguely remember reading a series of some sort when I was a kid, with Miracle and Barda, but I can’t tell you anything that happened in it. That being said, it takes nothing away from this being a fantastic figure. In fact, I think Mr. Miracle may just be my favorite of wave 6. His slightly larger head makes the already awesome DCUC body even better in my eyes, balancing out his proportions and upping the realistic factor just a bit. This coupled with a generous helping of accessories (hand cuffs, flight disks, mother box) and he’s a clear winner. No stuck joints, clean paint, solid construction. My only, minuscule complaint would be that he can’t actually hold his mother box, but that doesn’t overly bother my grand, vanilla posing collecting style.
DCUC Mr. Miracle makes me want to go out and read more about Mr. Miracle. That, my friends, is a beautiful thing."
Figure Two: Hawkman
I think Hawkman has one of the most convoluted and confusing continuities of any of the DC universe big guns. This turns off a lot of comic readers, but that sort of thing actually makes the character a lot more interesting to me. I’ve read a lot of Hawkman lately, from Golden Age Carter Hall to Silver Age Katar Hol and back again to the Modern Age reincarnated Carter Hall and I enjoy it all (still haven’t touched much Hawkworld or 90’s Katar Hol, though). There tends to be a nice pulp adventure feel in Hawkman comics and I think that has a lot to do with fact that the character was heavily inspired by the Alex Raymond Flash Gordon comic strip. A big part of the appeal of the character for me is the design and Mattel and the Four Horsemen have done an excellent job translating that into 3-D form.
Did you see the prototype pics from SDCC or The Four Horsemen’s website? Well, if you have, you’ve seen this figure. Hawkman is one of the best prototype to final figure translations I’ve seen so far in DCUC. A few nits aside, what you saw in the proto is what you get in the production figure. The headsculpt is very reminiscent of Katar’s 80’s appearance and has the feel of Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez artwork. The body looks like an all new sculpt and is nicely proportioned. A slight nitpick I have in general with DCUC figures is that their shoulders tend to stick out a little bit too far and they have small trap muscles. This is not the case with Hawkman. His Shoulders are set well inside the torso and have a great range of motion.
Another cool feature of the sculpt is the wings. There is an incredible amount of sculpted detail in those feathers. The engineering in the wing articulation is also impressive and something I hadn’t seen before (not that I keep a close watch on wing articulation in action figures). They are hinged at the back and can pivot forward and backward, but there is also a hinge at the top of the wing. While the hinge at the top of the wing only allows for a couple of positions that look good, it’s still a really nice feature that allows for flying and standing poses. Hawkman looks great on a flight stand. It’s also worth noting that he seems to be pretty well balanced and holds standing poses well despite the heavy wings on his back. I was a little afraid he would be a toppler, but so far, so good.
He comes with three accessories, a shield, mace and a sword. The shield clips to his arms similar to the way Wonder Woman’s shield from series 4 clips on. The sword can be stored in a loop on Hawkman’s belt and you can also hang the mace from there. The sculpt on all three of these is very detailed. There are lots of cracks and chipped texture on the ‘metal’ parts of the shield and weapons and the handles of both weapons have sculpted straps with a leather textured look to them. The two weapons are slightly loose in his grip, but not so loose that you can’t get them into good poses.
The paint on Hawkman is clean, if not very flashy. It’s a little flat. I think they could have done a little more in this area such as a wash on his body. Perhaps some airbrush highlights similar to MOTUC He-Man’s would have been nice. The only other area where I think they could have done better on this figure is his bicep veins. The sculpted veins on his biceps did not turn out quite as nice on the final figure as they looked in the prototype. I think this has a lot to do with the fact that the parting line of the mold is right alongside the vein itself and obscures the detail somewhat. A minor nitpick to be sure and in no way keeps Katar (or Carter if you prefer) from claiming the top spot as my favorite DCUC figure released thus far.
Figure Three: Killer Moth
Lavender shirt. Orange and lime green striped tights. Orange undies and gloves. Lime green mask. Drury Walker must be a very secure guy to go parading around in that outfit, or a complete moron. Honestly Killer Moth is the name in this wave I cared the least about. I hadn’t read any appearances of his when he was announced, but have since read quite a few and have developed an appreciation for the guy. Even so, I thought that the Horsemen would be hard pressed to make a desirable or cool figure from this design. I should have known better
Moth is based on the now familiar series 2 Black Manta base body. It may be just a trick of the eyes, but it feels like the shoulder balls are more flush with his body than they are on other figures using this base. At any rate, his headsculpt is nice and sharp, is a good proportion to the rest of his body and sits well on the neck. There is something inexplicably appealing to me about the mask design for Killer Moth, and the sculptor captured that feeling here. He also has a nice bright yellow belt with a well functioning holster loop for his blaster.
His wing assembly is glued to the peg hole in his back. The wings are a neat semi-translucent red plastic and are not articulated. I expected the wings to have a hinge articulation of some kind, but it really isn’t needed.
Killer Moth comes with one accessory, his gun. It’s a traditional sci-fi looking blaster with a classically appealing design. It’s painted a nice shiny gold and fits well in his holster and his hands. The blaster certainly adds a lot to the play/posing value for me as well. Overall, this figure is pretty snazzy. It’s fun looking for sure. Your mileage may vary, especially if you are one of those too cool for school snobs that thinks every character has to be dressed in black leather to be cool.
He also looks pretty neat on a flight stand!
More pics at this gallery .
Figure Four: Superman
While Superman has had a few different looks and variations to his costume over the years, such as a different looking "S" symbolm, a smaller cape, or even some darker colors to his costume. But in the 90’s they brought out a new look that would go down in history as the most memorable alternate version of Superman ever: Mullet Superman
Mullet jokes aside, this is a quality figure. He’s made from the same buck body that Series 2 Blue /Red Supermen were made from so his proportions and size are perfect, and in scale. He’s a huge improvement over the previously released DCSH Superman because of his superior size, colors, and the abilty to stand up straight. Plus the blue and red are much more accurate to the comics then the previous Superman was.
The headsculpt is heroic,and well painted as is the rest of the figure. Not paint slop, and the articulation works fine. The hair restricts the back and forth movement of the head a bit, but the mullet is all about show not functionality, right?
This is not a perfect figure though and far from the perfect Superman. His cape doesn’t seem to reach all the way to his blue costume, leaving a bit of skin showing in between the blue costume and the red cape. It makes the cape look to be floating on his chest instead of being attached or tucked into his blue costume. The "S" symbol could be a bit more thicker on the red parts and brighter on the yellow. The headsculpt could be a bit larger to fit in with the bigger headsculpt sizes that are coming in the recent DCUC.
Those minor nitpicks aside this is a nice, fun, well made figure. He fits in great with either your JLA display or if you’re a completist like myself he goes perfect on your "Death of Superman" display. He fits pefect along with Regen Supes from this wave, Red/Blue Supes, Steel, Cyborg and Eradicator.
Now we just need a Superboy with a Leather Jacket and round sunglasses.
Figure Five: "Shazam!"
SHAZAM! The favorite character of Horsemen Eric "Cornboy" Mayse finally lands in the DCUC line and let me tell you, it was well worth the wait. You can easily see the extra care that was given to this figure in terms of sculpt and overall execution, I dare say this is probably the last Captain Marvel figure I will ever have to buy, they nailed him.
If you have been with DCUC for awhile now you know the articulation scheme, Billy here clocks in at about 25 points, depending on how you count them. I really like the red and yellow tones they used for the plastic to make up the colors of his costume- they are very brightly colored and that fits well with the charm of the Earth’s Mightiest Mortal. The real standouts though are the sculpts for his head and cape, yes cape. His smiling expression is just perfect, it captures his attitude without being overly cheesey. He looks confident and he has the expression that he really loves being a superhero, a good throw back to the character’s classic days. Also, his cape is a real eye-catcher too. He certaily has one of the most unique capes in all of the DCU and every little detail is represented here from the gold color to the pefect "embroidery".
I really love this figure and it is one of those instances of when the toy makes me like the character more. I love it when they get it so right. This figure is not only a great toy, but it also captures the essence of the character to a tee.
Collect and Connect Figure: Kalibak
Though he may be the unfortunate son of Darkseid, even dear old dad can’t be disappointed in the Collect and Connect figure of Kalibak that Matty has offered us. Hoo boy, Eric Treadaway put a lot of love into this ugly mug and everything just hit on all the right switches. I dare say this is my favorite Collect and Connect figure thus far, not just because of character and over execution on its own, but I have absolutely no issues with him. There has always been a little nagging detail holding back perfection in the past C&C figure, be it technical bug (Rex’s fall off leg, Grodd’s limited POA) or personal opinion (less than prefered versions of Despero and Metallo and Grundy’s size), so Kalibak takes the crown as best C&C for a lot of reasons.
The sculpt, of course, is completely solid and the Horsemen always excel at giving us outstanding representations of the more monsterous characters. Kalibak is VERY Kirby- from his sash to his Beta Club (made in China!) and has all of the funtioning articulation of a standard figure. Those things I expect from Mattel and the Horsemen. However, I was shaking in my Chuck Taylors about how big K-bak would ultimately turn out being. There is some history to the line with, um, embiggining(?) of some of the characters like Grundy and Lobo and I really did not want Kalibak to suffer the same fate. He should be as wide as a truck, but daddy Darkseid has always been taller. Since it only makes sense (in my mind anyway) to display the two together they had to be scaled properly in relation to each other. I am happy to say that it worked out just right (as shown in the pictures) and father and son are two of my favorite DC figures.
So, here is the thing, if you are at all on the fence about grabbing up all of the figures that we have reviewed for you, take the plunge. Kalibak is well worth it. Even though he was recently *spolier* taken out rather uneventfully by Mr. Talky Tawny*spoiler* you will want to continue to build up your denziens of Apokolips with Kalibak. Now, let’s get the rest of Darkseid’s Elite… Mantis, Steppenwolf, Glorious Godfrey, Dr. Bedlam, Vermin Vundabar and, of course, GRANNY GOODNESS!
*Thanks for reading and be on the look out for this great new series!
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