We wrap up this look at DCUC wave 18 with my most anticipated character, Bronze Tiger. As with Captain Boomerang, I became a fan of Tiger reading the Suicide Squad book by John Ostrander, though the the characters could not be more different. Ben Turner is an honorable, disciplined and decent man whilst Boomerang was none of those things. I think the ‘good’ members of the Suicide Squad and their support staff made for a nice balance and interesting team dynamics in a book mostly about completely amoral super-villains.
Accessories
Tiger comes with the Apache Chief Collect and Connect piece, an alternate head sculpt as well as several weapons repurposed from previous DCUC figures – Deathstroke’s sword and staff as well as Nightwing’s Tonfa sticks.
The weapons are a nice inclusion, though I don’t really think of Tiger as a weapons guy but as an open hand martial artist. I would have preferred some fists. A knife hand sculpt or a hand with splayed fingers would have also been awesome for martial arts move posing, especially if they were swappable.
The alternate head sculpt is my favorite accessory. The tiger mask gives you Tiger’s look from his early appearances (he’s since reverted to wearing that costume in modern times) and the unmasked head gives you his Ostrander Suicide Squad look.
Well, it sort of gives you that look as his costume in the Suicide Squad was different. Since I was not a fan of that costume and prefer this one I’m okay with that – YMMV. I really like the swappable heads and hands they have been including with DC figures lately and would like to see more of it in the future.
Sculpt
The base body looks like the standard medium build body. His ‘skirt’ piece and head sculpts are new. I like the sculpt on the skirt and belt as it has a nice fluid look to it. The unmasked head has an appropriately intense expression on his face and the tiger mask is beautiful. It makes me want to see the 4H take on a character like Prince Tuftan from Kamandi or add Tiger Men to their 7th Kingdom line.
Articulation
Bronze Tiger has the standard DCUC articulation. I would have liked to have seen double elbows and knees for some more martial arts poseability. Hinged wrists would be a great inclusion as well. The good news is that the ‘skirt’ does not hinder articulation.
Paint
The paint is pretty clean and neat with most of the body cast in an orange plastic for the costume. Fortunately the ‘tiger stripes’ on Ben’s costume are all crisp and clean. The paint job is nice on the tiger mask with multiple washes and some gloss for the inside of the tiger’s mouth.
Overall I’d say Bronze Tiger is a really good figure and a few more additions (double joints and some different hands) would have made him spectacular. 18 waves in and I’m still impressed by the character selection in DCUC. I love the character of Bronze Tiger, but I think it would be kind to call him a D-lister. And we still got a figure of him. As a fan of odd ball comic book characters I love that.
Turnarounds
Previous Wave 18 reviews: