The convenience and relative security of pre-orders has been a boon to my collecting, but it does have it’s own drawbacks. One such drawback is when the figures you pre-ordered show up every where else, online and brick and mortar stores, except for the retailer where you placed the order. That’s what happened to me with DJ here. I had almost forgotten he was coming until I got a surprise shipping notice last week. But now that he’s here, let’s take a look at the Black Series version of DJ!
I still can’t get over that DJ isn’t actually his name, rather an initialism for his cynical motto, “Don’t Join.” I don’t know why this bugs me, it’s not like we ever heard the name Ponda Baba or Dengar on screen and I was perfectly fine calling Ponda Walrus Man for almost 20 years.
I am fond of the character as he appeared in the film and that’s probably mostly due to my enjoying what Benicio brings to a role, weird ticks and all. I do like that he helps Finn figure out his role in the galaxy and subverts the common Star Wars trope of the scoundrel with a heart of gold.
DJ comes with two blasters, a rifle that looks to belong to the Canto Bight police and a smaller sidearm that looks to be a re-use of the resistance soldier pistol we’ve seen with Poe.
I like that the blaster fits in his holster and the holster is made from soft plastic so it doesn’t impede leg movement.
The sculpt is very nice with great rumpled detail in the costume and a decent likeness to Del Toro, but I think the choice of expression is a little off. DJ has a bit of a wide-eyed almost surprised look and I think a more squinty, flinty portrait would have been more appropriate.
The face printing is a step up from the usual eye paint work, but it’s not perfection. It’s really tough to get the scruffy, salt and pepper facial hair that DJ has in the movie on a small scale figure and thought they might be able to get there with the face printing, but they don’t quite hit the mark.
The articulation is the usual Black Series fare with:
- Swivel/hinged neck, shoulders, elbows, hips, wrists, and ankles
- Swivel thighs
- Ball-jointed mid-torso
- Double-hinged knees
I was impressed with the elbow movement, as it gets more than a 90-degree bend, but the mid-torso joint is basically just a swivel. You are also fairly limited by the fairly stiff plastic trench coat, though I’m glad they used that material because it looks perfect. He won’t be sitting much.
The paint is good and I especially like how the gold collar detail turned out and the subtle drybrush on his leather jacket.
Overall DJ is a decent figure and a good representation of the character, but not a terribly fun figure. I’m not sure what would have jazzed him up a bit more, maybe a computer terminal to hack?
