After much anticipation, or maybe angst, the DC Collectibles Icons line launched last month. Hitting directly to comic shops and specialty shops, it was met with a very love/hate kinda thing. Many loved the figures, pointing to the detailed sculpts, the nice accessories, and the uptick from the usual DC figure articulation. Others hated the line saying they were too small, or they couldn’t pose them the way they wanted, and they wanted a more “Marvel Legends” articulation setup.
I was right in the middle. I really liked the sculpts and wasn’t bothered by the articulation, but I had an issue with the scale. Not because these were smaller than Legends or DC Universe Classics, but that they weren’t really even true 6-inch scale. They came in a bit under the 6-inch level. Batman barely came to 6 inches to the top pf his ears, which made him about 5’11” scale-wise. Not such a big deal for a smaller character like Nightwing or Mr. Miracle, but Bats needs to be over that 6-inch mark if this line is going for the true 6-inch scale mark.
Well, that main issue that I had may have been erased because it looks like, with series two, the line’s scale is indeed at 6 inches. Black Adam is almost 6.3 three inches, and both Flash and Hal come in at over 6 inches. Hal is right at his 6’1″ height scale-wise. So hopefully the issues with wave one’s scale is corrected and this line will proceed as the true 6-inch line I had hoped for.
Now that I’ve bored you to death with my scale-nazi issues, I should probably get on to the figure itself.
Hal is billed as the ninth figure of the Icons line and is part of wave two. He’s also billed as one of the two “deluxe” figures in the wave. He’s priced higher and billed as “deluxe” because of his bigger accessories. He comes with an entire kit that builds into a Ring-projection armored suit.
His packaging is nice with a clear see-though blister in the front to go with the standard Icons white color palette. The back of the box shows who else is in wave two along with him, using some nice pictures of the figures. I’m not really a big packaging kinda guy, so this will just end up being very pretty trash. If you’re a MOC guy, though, this will be some sweet packaging.
Hal has the standard Icons articulation setup that we’ve seen on all the previous figures: ball-jointed neck, shoulders, torso, and hips. He has a lower ab crunch, double-jointed elbows and knees, swivel upper arms and forearms, and swivel boots. He also has up-down movement from the hinge in his wrists and feet, as well as swivel movement in his feet. Some of the usefulness of the articulation of the wave one figures were criticized because they didn’t quite work right. A big difference is that his ball-jointed neck movement is far superior to the first wave as he can look up and down very well.
His articulation scheme, while not perfect, allows him to get into most all flying and action poses, and it definitely gives you enough range that posing him makes him a fun toy to play with. One of the major gripes of the line has been the lack of a thigh swivel, and its missing for sure hinders from being the most poseable figure ever, but a statue he ain’t. That said, it doesn’t affect him to the point where it’s a deal-breaker for me. He can get into just about any pose that the majority of Marvel Legends or other 6-inch figures can attain. Spider-Man he’s not, but his movement is better than most DC Collectibles figures and is definitely better than his DC Universe Classics counterpart.
The standard flying pose is no problem, but the main thing I wanted to point out is that a running pose is easily achieved with him. It’s been brought up a few times on the boards as not being possible because of the articulation setup, but I had no issues pulling off a good running pose. Now, while Hal Jordan has little to no use for a running pose, it’s there if needed. The articulation setup is definitely different than what I’m used to, but I am starting to really like how natural the poses you can put him in look.
I mentioned before that Hal is a higher-priced deluxe figure; that’s because he comes with all of this Lantern construct goodness:
It’s a cool addition to get some Lantern constructs and something like the fighter-jet armor is right up Jordan’s alley. It all snaps on fairly easily and functions well enough. For me, though, I’m not gonna get a whole lot of use from it, but I do welcome accessories, and constructs are definitely what you’d accessorize a guy like Hal with. Besides the constructs, he also comes with two interchangeable open hands to hold his Lantern with.
As for the scale issues, with wave two they appear to have been corrected. This is definitely a true 6-inch scale figure. Hal is noticeably taller than wave one Bats. Normally that would really suck, but being that it’s Bats, I’m sure we’ll get another one soon enough in the line. For now, wave one Bats will just become my Grayson Batman. Hopefully this will become the norm for the scale of this line from now on. If it is, I’m all in. It’s also worth mentioning that he scales pretty well with the super undersized DCUC Sinestro. (Note: my Sinestro was actually modded to add a half inch of height to fit into my DCUC collection a few years back.)
For me this is an awesome figure of one of my all-time favorite characters. I dig his sculpt and playability. Plus, and this may be just me, but I love the way DC Collectibles figures feel. They’re a softer PVC plastic and don’t feel as plastic-y as some other lines do. This is one of those figures that I just can’t stop posing and playing with. I’m really looking forward to getting more Lantern characters to pair him with, and maybe even a classic version of Hal in the future. This is definitely my favorite figure of the new 52 version of Hal, and probably, along with the DCUC version, my favorite figure of Hal, period.
I know some folks have reservations about this line, but Hal poses and moves just as well as just about every 6-inch figure on the domestic market. If you’re a DC fan or just a fan of cool figures, head over to your local comic shop, or grab him on one of the usual online spots and pick him up. Thanks for checking out my review!
You can grab Hal and his other Icons line mates at Big Bad Toy Store or Amazon.
