Mezco One:12 Collective Judge Dredd

Mezco’s One:12 Collective burst onto the scene with one of the strongest action figure releases of 2015, which means anything afterwards is going to be held up to that extraordinarily high goal. After carpet-bombing the world with a deluge of Batman costume variations, Judge Dredd is up next to receive a handful of cloth-imbued figures. How does the Judge stack up to the Bat? Let’s see.

Judge Dredd is the third figure to be released under the One:12 Collective banner, counting the various versions of Batman and the Mutant Leader, which was released with a battle-damaged Batman in an SDCC exclusive set. We’ve got a Superman, Flash, and Frankenstein’s Monster ahead of us, so 2016 should prove interesting. Some prototypes of upcoming figures don’t look as polished as the final figures that have already come out, but I’m going to assume that the process of refinement is still ongoing, so I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Batman set a high bar with its merging of action figure playability, Hot Toys clothwork, and artistic stylization. The end result was a fully functional action figure that moved like the best of toys, but looked like the high-end collectible that it is. In short, it plays great and it moves great. If cloth at 1/12th scale isn’t your thing, then you really shouldn’t be looking at this line because it’s aiming for something different than your standard Walmart offering. I’m used to clothing looking good on 12-inch figures, and I quickly became accustomed to well-done 6-inch clothing on figures from 3A, but Mezco took it a whole other step forward with Batman. Judge Dredd is another beast entirely. Where Batman’s overall look relies on spandex and a cape, Judge Dredd needs to look like a future-cop draped in leather. It’s easy to keep a decent level of articulation if you only have to replicate spandex, but replicating the thicker leather look on a 6-inch figure while maintaining that playability is asking a lot more of the scale.

Thankfully, Dredd seems to be the success that Batman was. The main points of possible contention — knees and elbows — keep a full range of motion, allowing him to kneel, bend his arms, extend his arms to his sides or whatever you need. The pleathery material used for the suit is extremely lightweight and flexible and only impedes his ability to do the splits if you want him to do things like that. Dredd will have no problem mounting his upcoming bike if you entertained any anxiety over that.

While I’m not going to be stripping the clothes off my figure, I can tell you that Dredd has a thinner body than Batman, and it has the same level of articulation as your average Marvel Legends figure, except with ball-jointed wrists.

Being a mixed-media figure, Dredd has plastic parts for his boots and gloves, but cloth covers the rest. One area you might have a problem with is his zipper. At this scale it is practically impossible to have a working zipper that is perfectly in scale, so some might have a problem with how overt it is. It doesn’t bother me at all, but it is what it is. It works great, though, regardless of the scale issue.

His two shoulder-pieces look like they may get in the way of some of his articulation, but they’re ingeniously held on by magnets, as is his badge. And these are powerful magnets. Like, if you want to attach his shoulder pad, just throw it toward the figure from across the room and the magnetic attraction will pull it where it need to go. That may be an exaggeration (okay, it is totally an exaggeration), but if you’ve ever used one of the larger-sized “rare earth” magnets, then you have an idea. This is not your average refrigerator magnet; they hold those shoulder pieces on and they don’t let them drop off unless you’re trying your damnedest to get them to fly off. Due to this, his badge will have a tendency to end up upside down or sideways since there’s nothing there to keep it perfectly upright, but it’s not going anywhere either.

Dredd comes with several accessories and alternate parts. He has a number of different hands: a set of fists, a gun hand, a finger-pointing hand, and two expressive left hands for various combos. He comes with a pair of working handcuffs that open up and can fold up. He comes with a baton, a pair of grenades, a knife, his Lawgiver gun, and an extra (both are removable) ammo clip for the gun, all of which can be snugly stored in various holsters over his body. I love it when crap can be stored on a figure. The baton and knife are more for looks, though, since his hand seems a bit too stretched out to hold them well. Win some/lose some I guess, unless you want to heat his hand and close it a bit more.

Judge Dredd stands at 6 ½ inches, which means he scales well with the Mezco Batman figure and works with most similarly scaled lines.

You can preorder him at BBTS. It seems like they’re trickling into stock, so you’ll just have to take your chances.

There’s a Cursed Earth variant, and a black and white version as well (in stock).