I had a few knee-jerk reactions when I first saw Mezco’s interpretation of joker. I liked but didn’t love the head, but I felt the entire interpretation was … missing something. There was something “dynamic” missing that didn’t occur to me at first. It took a while for me to realize that I wanted his vest to be either orange or green. It was not enough to discourage me from wanting him, but it made me hesitate.
I’ve since unclenched my buttocks a bit about the aesthetic that Mezco is going for regarding certain characters, which has helped me appreciate that they’re going for a quasi-realistic take that, admittedly, clashes with my own need for a bit more comic-bookiness to the characters. Once I let that go, I’m able to appreciate the figure on its own merits and not butting up against my own preconceived notions.
This Joker is now what I’m going to imagine the Joker in the DC Cinematic Universe is like, and I will now imagine Leto’s “Joker” is just a weird guy with loose neck muscles who calls himself “the Joker.”
Joker is mostly satisfying, with only a few minor quibbles.
Joker’s heads
Joker comes with two heads: normal (for him) and manic. Remember up there when I said I liked but didn’t love the head? Mind changed. In hand, I love these heads. The normal head features a huge grin with a mouth full of slightly yellowish teeth that play great against his whitish skin. His hair has a great, slicked-back sculpt and his face is expressive. His eyes are cold and devious, full of that peculiar mixture of joy and insanity.
The manic head features disheveled hair and Joker in full-on crazy laugh mode. You can almost see the string of capitalized, bolded “HAHAHAs” spilling out of his mouth. One eyebrow is cocked for a bit more madness. As much as I loved the big, open mouth laugh, the eyes are the best thing here. There’s so much going on: rage, humor, determination, and complete whack-jobbiness all blending together.
Joker’s clothes
Joker features a full suit, vest, tie, short-sleeved shirt — all form fitting and looking very size-appropriate given the layers. He doesn’t look overly bulky despite all that’s going on with him. And while I didn’t remove more than the jacket, the shirt and tie do go all the way down and are tucked into his pants, so there’s no half-ass job going on under the vest. This Joker is fully dressed.
The fabric used is clearly a high thread count because it really doesn’t look like a small figure wearing tiny clothes. If not for the obvious stitch-size differential, these look like real people clothes, at least as much as can be expected at 1:12 scale. This might be their best effort yet as far as hurdling the uncanny valley effect.
Joker’s socks
Joker’s got bat symbols on his socks. Because why not?
Joker’s arms
Joker features swivel-hinge elbows. They have a decent range of motion, but I found myself missing a true double-joint range for the inability to touch his face easily, or to drape his jacket over his shoulder convincingly, and a lot of other small moments of mobility that you can imagine. I can understand why he was articulated this way, but I do wish for double joints.
He does, however, feature the Mezco standard ball-jointed wrists, which does make up in some slight, small ways for the lack of double-jointed elbows.
Joker’s hands
Joker has a pair of fists: one right gun-holding hand, one right Joker-card-holding hand, and one left “jazz hand.” I think he might have needed at least a couple more pairs of hands. He could have used a pair of grabbing hands for sure, and maybe a right-hand match to his jazz hand. Hell, a left-handed trigger hand would have been nice so he could shoot two guns at once. What we got is nice, but more options are always better.
Joker’s accessories
Joker comes with a purple-gripped Magnum. The bullet effect from the Punisher figure does fit into the end of the gun, so that’s pretty cool. He also comes with a chattering teeth. That’s all he gets, which is kind of light considering someone like the Punisher came with three heads and several guns. With just a gun and a set of teeth, you’re left feeling a bit … ”is that it” in terms of accessories. Even more weapons, or the same gun with a “BANG” flag hanging out. Hell, even an oversized mallet. I think I’m hardwired at this point to expect Joker figures to come with bigass mallets. Or a crowbar (which I can easily scrounge from other figures, but still …)
Joker’s legs
Joker’s hips have a nice range, and his knees are double jointed. His ankles are thinner than most Mezco figures, which means he has a bit more play in them. We’re still not hitting a huge range of motion there, but it’s a pretty good normal human range. His pants don’t seem to inhibit his leg articulation at all.
Quibbles aside, this is another strong figure and it fits into the One:12 aesthetic perfectly, straddling toyetic fun with a quasi-realisticness married to nods to the comic origins.