@stoopid_sandwich True, but I actually like the Year-2 / 3-Jokers / Hush Batman body. I don't find it to be too tall because they made most of Batman's supporting cast too tall as well. Like Nightwing and Batgirl. So in the Batman corner of my DC collection, that figure is pretty much perfect scale-wise.
Plus the Platinum figure has the more correct colors, with lighter gray and blue. Ironically the "Breyfogle" figure is actually colored perfectly to match the Batman figure from the Spawn/Batman 2-pack. It's really head-scratching that they pretty much reversed the color schemes.
Yea, i dont think McF will leave DC, his numbers are good and everytime you see him on a video he has a smile from ear to ear, its Todd's toy career high point.
@stoopid_sandwich True, but I actually like the Year-2 / 3-Jokers / Hush Batman body. I don't find it to be too tall because they made most of Batman's supporting cast too tall as well. Like Nightwing and Batgirl. So in the Batman corner of my DC collection, that figure is pretty much perfect scale-wise.
Plus the Platinum figure has the more correct colors, with lighter gray and blue. Ironically the "Breyfogle" figure is actually colored perfectly to match the Batman figure from the Spawn/Batman 2-pack. It's really head-scratching that they pretty much reversed the color schemes.
I'm a little confused by the second half of your message? You're saying the Breyfogle batman is a better fit for the Spawn Batman crossover? Because the whole point of the revised platinum edition is that the colors are more reflective of Todd's original art from that crossover. Even the headsculpt with the shorter ears is based on Todd's design
precisely. And since then I got rid of all my DCUC collection and acquired upwards of 100 multiverse figures in the span of a year. which to be honest was on par with the amount of releases I accumulated from Mattel but that was over a ten year period. That's another check in McFarlane's column. He produces so much in a small window of time that not only is there something out there for everyone, But inevitably you'll have an entire roster of characters within months if not weeks. Say what you will about McFarlane but he is not a fan of making people wait for anything. Whether that's his next special edition release or an entire roster of the JLA from an era that we, as collectors have been clamoring for, for entire decades. And that's just Todd's personality. He looks at the industry standard and all of its conventional wisdom associated with that particular thing and says "Well I bet I can do it better than that."If Hasbro and McFarlane switched licenses they may be inadvertently be saving me from myself, as I'm definitely not rebuying everything in a different aesthetic/scale.
Every DC collector said that when McFarlane got the license 😀
I feel as though we’re looking at different lines. He’s started and failed to complete multiple teams, often because of his reluctance to do female characters. We’ve been sitting at a nearly complete Rebirth Justice League for quite a while now because he refuses to make Hawkgirl or a Rebirth Wonder Woman.
There’s a lot I genuinely do enjoy about this like, but the character selection has been one of the most frustrating aspects to me.
@hbhfback
I used to rationalize it as Todd's design-first sensibility -- after all, they made Fire, who's translucent and neon and glows, over a lot of other female characters -- but I'm throwing up my hands now that Geo-Force is hitting shelves. I've found where my line is, and I don't know why but that line is making Geo-Force before Katana. Done making excuses, Todd!
Not just releasing Geo Force before Katana or Hawkgirl, but releasing two versions of Geo Force and neither of them are his most iconic, longest tenured costume.
Character selection and consistency are the key issues with McFarlane. They are issues so glaring that I’ve significantly cut back on my purchases. Am I going to get an iconic version of the character or some random appearance? Is it a regular release or a platinum? Is it even accurate to the source material? Does it scale with other figures or fit in the same era?
There is no doubt that McFarlane figures are functionally better than Mattel. The articulation is awesome. My McF figures can stand in dynamic ways that some of my Marvel Legends figures can’t…despite the thigh cut on ML it’s a different animal for plastic toys to hold their weight or be balanced in certain poses. My McF figures are always winning out.
I strongly believe that peak McFarlane figures are better than any mass toy line, but there are too often silly blunders and way too many figures below that standard. They also still have the same flaws they had in 2020 as it comes to proportions, scale, ratcheted ankles that won’t sit flat, etc. Combined with a loss of goodwill…the happiness I used to get from buying figures was replaced with relief when I got a chase I wanted for non scalper prices.
I think the debate about what makes a “better” toy line is interesting. My DCUC figures don’t have as much articulation or detail but they just look so damn good next to each other on the shelf. The level of happiness I get from seeing the whole JSA…Todd is never giving me that.
For anyone else who is as impatient as I am, CMD store has the new 52 Batman with Bat-Glider up for order (in stock). I had an order in with Amazon, but they still had no shipping date.
I've been collecting DC figures for more than 20 years now, second only to Marvel Legends. My biggest desire is for them to as closely match that ML aesthetic as possible, since that's my primary and favorite line.
I started with DC Direct (later DC Collectibles), in the early days they were larger scaled (6.5" - 7")and basically statues with extremely limited articulation. I bought all of those early figures and still have quite a few (Vandal Savage, The Shade, Promethea, Tom Strong, Dream and the other Endless, the Preacher series, some LOSH, etc).
Then Mattel created the DC Universe Classics out of what had been their very limited DC Superheroes line that was basically just Batman and Superman. Many of these DCUC figures were sculpted by the Four Horsemen and had similar features/proportions/molds and far better articulation than DCD had been producing. This quickly became my default DC line and is still to this day. The vast majority of my DC display is made up of these figures that all go very well with each other (even if they all look basically exactly the same).
To better compete with Mattel, DCD/DCC began scaling down their figures to the more popular 6" scale and improving their articulation and paint, but were often still quite brittle. I continued to buy some of these to supplement by DCUC collection.
Then McFarlane got the master DC license and I about lost my shit when he announced he was going to do them at the 7" scale. I initially swore that I was out for this reason alone. Then I started finding these figures everywhere on clearance for under $10 and bought a few. Pretty soon I decided that I would buy at least one version of every character and that's what I've done since. Now, most of these have remained unopened, but I have began to supplement by Mattel collection with characters that McFarlane has done that they didn't. They don't look good together because of scale issue and very different proportions, though - so I try to keep them on different shelves. I've enjoyed quite a few of the figures, but will probably always hate the scale and ridiculously long legs on a lot of the figures. That being said, there have been quite a few that I've been glad to add to my collection and I've really enjoyed the vehicles even if I have way too many Batmobiles and other Bat-vehicles now.
In general I do like McF better than DCD/DCC (which he now distributes under that name as well), but I can't see ever liking them more than the Mattel stuff. That's just me. When you collect a line for so long and then a new vendor gets the license and dramatically changes the scale and aesthetic, it can be infuriating and I'll probably never forgive him for that, even if I do still give him a lot of my money. It's always going to be a pain point for me. Ideally I want everything in that 6" scale to better match the Marvel Legends collection, and quite frankly I don't believe that Todd cares about scale in the slightest anyway. He proves that over and over again.
Got in the full set of DCC Doomsday Clock 2packs this week (along with my MTS order of ZSJL Darkseid and throne, and BvS GL Knightmare and battle damaged Armoured Batman)and as great as they are (I really do think they're pretty bloody perfect); it brings up my real longing that Todd/McF will give us both an og Watchmen comic wave and a Doomsday Clock wave (and a Batmanhattan figure too, am I the only one?).
With him starting on Milestone early next year (Icon is a part of the Q1 Gold Label wave) I believe/hope that's an indication that we will indeed see some Watchmen and maybe even V For Vendetta releases next year.
I thought the Fabok Joker statue was a figure and got so excited for a great looking Joker figure for a second before realizing it was in fact just a statue.
I preordered Page Punchers Damian from amazon when he first dropped but his delivery date was switched to a "you'll get it when you get it" date. Randomly was checking BBTS and they had one left in stock. Been waiting to cross him off the list for a while.
@mysticmanjrf no way McF figures are better than any mass market toy line, even just current ones. Top of my head: GI Joe Classified, Transformers, Jada Street Fighter, and Marvel Legends are way more impressive as figure lines and in many cases individual figures. The one thing DC Multiverse has going for it is mass- there are just so many of these things released, and often very quickly after being announced.
But like you said, roughly half of the figures have some obviously glaring design or execution flaw that make me wonder if the design team is quiet quitting. It takes McF like three tries attempts at the same character to get it right.
Not just releasing Geo Force before Katana or Hawkgirl, but releasing two versions of Geo Force and neither of them are his most iconic, longest tenured costume.
Character selection and consistency are the key issues with McFarlane. They are issues so glaring that I’ve significantly cut back on my purchases. Am I going to get an iconic version of the character or some random appearance? Is it a regular release or a platinum? Is it even accurate to the source material? Does it scale with other figures or fit in the same era?
There is no doubt that McFarlane figures are functionally better than Mattel. The articulation is awesome. My McF figures can stand in dynamic ways that some of my Marvel Legends figures can’t…despite the thigh cut on ML it’s a different animal for plastic toys to hold their weight or be balanced in certain poses. My McF figures are always winning out.
I strongly believe that peak McFarlane figures are better than any mass toy line, but there are too often silly blunders and way too many figures below that standard. They also still have the same flaws they had in 2020 as it comes to proportions, scale, ratcheted ankles that won’t sit flat, etc. Combined with a loss of goodwill…the happiness I used to get from buying figures was replaced with relief when I got a chase I wanted for non scalper prices.
I think the debate about what makes a “better” toy line is interesting. My DCUC figures don’t have as much articulation or detail but they just look so damn good next to each other on the shelf. The level of happiness I get from seeing the whole JSA…Todd is never giving me that.
This is sucha good effin post that it's hard for me to disagree with. No brainless bashing or praising, just stone cold facts.
I've been having a problem with this line for the past 2 years or so. I always look at a line as a customizer first, which means that I rarely (if ever) buy figures that I'm not 100% on board with, especially if it's a character I have a fondness for - for example, that's why I haven't bought a single Nightwing or Batman Beyond from Todd yet - because, at the end of the day, if I know that I could make a better version of that character myself, I will just do that. So, whenever they release crap with awful proportions or reusing a body that shouldn't have beeen reused, I groan and pass on that figure. In the "good old days" of the line, when we were getting new sculpt after new sculpt, I was much more eager to jump on to enhance some almost-perfect-figures myself (be it by painting, sculpting some details or shortening legs) because I saw the money/passion that went into it. But now? When they do Commander Steel on the Speeding Bullets buck and can't even fucking paint the stripes on properly on the sculpted arm/leg ribbing? Give me a break.
So, I cut back. Character selection also had a major impact on my decisions as well, though, not because they haven't released Zatanna, Hawkgirl or any other figure that "already should've been done" by this point. No, my stance on character selection is that companies should release whoever they decide to do, I will never be shouting from the side lines at them because they dared to make character A before they did character B. Would I buy Ambush Bug or Geo Force? No! And I haven't. But I'm aware that they have their fans who will jump on the opportunity to buy the hell of out of them. And again, my customizer brain says that if Todd won't give me *blank*, then I'll just make them myself, that's not a problem. Other times they make someone like Question, who I've already customized, so I skip on him too. On the other hand are figures like Jonah Hex and Captain Boomerang dressed in poorly made cloth coats that make want to skip those guys as well and cross my fingers for plastic/better fabric coats in the future.
Another thing I'm annoyed by are, of course, the dreaded variants, blind packs, platinums, goldmembers and what nots. That combined with much, much worse distribution in Europe mpacts my buying habit as well. For the first few years it was so god damn easy to preorder whatever I wanted and get it fairly quickly (2-4 weeks after US release) in hand. Plus, basically all of the older releases were restocked regularly, too. Really miss those days.
To make a long story short. I'm still here. Still excited to see new teases and preorders pop up every other week. But the endless sea of no effort repaints is making skipping figures VERY easy. But when they do hit, when they do it juuust right, especially with the movie figures - I really, truly believe that those become some of the best, if not the best, mass market collector figures on the market.
The McFarlane RunFair EQL drawings are open for Hugo and Bullseye Bats:
https://mcfarlane.runfair.com/en-US/us
Good luck to Everyone! I was fortunate enough to find both of these at Walmart some time ago.
LOL... the Bullseye Bats I've found at Target three times now and sells on Ebay for between $24 and $27? Don't worry if you don't win the Todd Lottery to buy that one - it doesn't seem like anyone is too desperate for it.
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