If you’ve been reading my other Icons reviews, you’ve seen that I’m really digging this line. Flash and Green Lantern were big wins in my book. Batman, while a bit too short, is still a well-made and fun figure. So for me, it’s been a very nice start to the Icons line. Now through the first two waves and nine figures, the body types have been very similar. Not exact same sculpts, but sculpts built off an original normal-sized male body. The only exceptions being Blue Beetle, who is smaller because of his younger age, and Lex Luthor, who is armored up.
With Black Adam we hit an entirely different build. This is clearly the beefed up “powerhouse” build. Now, before I jump into his size in relation to the line, or the overall aspects of the figure itself, let’s get the packaging out of the way.
The Icons line, like most other DC Collectibles lines, uses the standard white box with a clear bubble in front to display the figure. On the side of the package we can see Adam is the seventh figure of the line, and his look is based on his appearance in the “Forever Evil” story line. So far all the figures from the Icons line looks are based on a specific story line. That may scream “artist specific” to some and bring back some horrible memories from DC Direct’s past artist-specific figures, but these don’t stray that far from just being standard-looking figures.
So far every figure in the Icons line has come with multiple accessories specific to the character. Black Adam is no different as he comes with two extra sets of hands besides his fists. One set of “mad with power” hands, and one set of lightning-blast power hands.
As mentioned before, Adam is clearly built on what looks to be the powerhouse body for this line. His proportions, muscle build, and height are all much bigger than the previous figures in the line. His muscles are bulging out of his suit and he cuts a pretty imposing form on the Icons shelf. Being from the “Forever Evil” storyline, this is definitely a New 52 Black Adam. Now, while I dislike a lot of the New 52 designs, Black Adam isn’t one of them. He’s still pretty close to the Black Adam design that I preffered pre-New 52, just with a few modern upgrades.
You can see how he dwarfs Flash in both height and mass. This looks like the powerful, imposing, bad ass Black Adam that I know and love. An Icons Shazam on this same body seems like a no brainer. I don’t know if the indented sculpted lines kill this base body for other characters but his size is perfect for the brawny guys in the DC universe.
The sculpt is nice and detailed, and maybe even my favorite of the line so far. Besides his well-sculpted musculature, he’s highly detailed with indented sculpted-in lines on his suit, bracers, and belt. His cape is soft and non-restrictive, and it has some nice detail to it with little rips and weathering on the end.
His bigger muscles and build don’t hinder his articulation at all, though. He comes with the standard Icons articulation consisting of ball-jointed neck, hinge-and-swivel shoulders, double-jointed elbows, hinge wrists, floating ab, hinged torso, ball-jointed hips, double knees, and hinge-and-swivel ankles. Everything works well, allowing him to get into some cool poses, but, again, like a few other figures in the line, his upward neck movement is a tad hindered. Since this is pretty common in the line, it looks like DCC needs to look at cutting the back of the head open a bit to allow more upward movement. His joints seem tight and strong. There is no weak knee or elbow joints here that result in legs or limb warping.
He’s a blast to play and pose with and he’s such a hefty figure that he can support himself and hold up Green Lantern like in the above photo. His paints are crisp and his black isn’t so glossy that all his details are drowned out. His gold is shiny and well done, and his “lightning effect” chest symbol has some cool almost Kirby-ish crackle to it. The sculpt and paints really stand out on his face and neck areas. There are a few paint blemishes on him though. He has a little black dot on his nose and a speck of skin tone on the back of his hair. These are pretty minor though and not all that noticeable.
This is probably my favorite head sculpt of the Icon line so far. It’s menacing and really perfect for Black Adam. His neck is ripped and you can see veins popping and muscles stretching in it. The paints on his neck really pop and bring out the detail there.
This is one of those figures that takes you by surprise by how much you end up liking it. I mean I liked the look of the figure in the package but I really fell in love with it after opening him, and really appreciating the detailed sculpt, quality paint job, and articulation. He’s replaced Green Lantern as my favorite of the Icon figures so far. If you’re collecting the Icons line, this is a must have figure for your collection. I really can’t recommend him enough.
You can grab him at you local comic shop, Big Bad Toy Store or Amazon.
