DCC Batman Animated figure reviews- JOKER 09May15

Started by Tomato, December 18, 2014, 05:44:46 AM

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Tomato

So having gotten my two face figure in hand earlier today, my resolve has finally broken: I'm breaking down and collecting these bad boys. Given all the attention these figures are getting here, I figured I'd give my own firsthand assessments of these guys.



First though, lets get the ugly out of the way: Sadly, I can confirm that these figures DO have issues with breaking, as within 6 hours of opening the figure I've already had to glue Harvey's right foot back on. Now, in DCC's defense, it was MY fault... I had set the figure up on a higher shelf on my computer desk for some quick photos, and I knocked the desk when I was moving my chair back. The foot wasn't hard to glue back on, but it is something you're gonna want to keep in mind.

That said, while I can't really blame DCC for me bouncing my brand new figure off my desk chair and onto the floor, I DO have a gripe with DCC about their QC for the accessories. See, Two Face comes with 3 distinct pairs of hands... an open pair, a closed pair, and a gun holding pair. However, when I started playing with different looks for my display, I quickly noticed something odd about the pair of fisted hands.



Now, I don't know if that's a common problem with the Two Face figures being released, but I find it extremely annoying when I get figures with two left hands... I have a Scarlet Witch figure like that, and I have to hide the right arm behind her back so I don't get upset every time I glance at my shelf.

But lets move on to the good. And despite my grievances, there is a LOT to love about this version of Two-Face. He's got 13 pints of articulation, including ball joints in the shoulders, rotating hinge joints in the elbows and hips, and swivels in the ankles, wrists, and knees. His head is also TECHNICALLY on a ball joint, but it moves very little aside from a side to side motion. The accessories are great as well. I'm not a fan of all of them (random chemical canisters which serve no purpose and are barely recognisable from the show make Tomato sad  <_<), but he comes with a nifty gas mask, as well as two guns (one handgun and one tommygun) that look like they were all pulled right from the show. I still wish he had an extra coin flipping hand (he's got it in the palm of his normal good hand... why DCC?) but I really enjoyed what was there, even if I don't have a use for any of it on my shelf.



But really, lets be honest: I don't care about any of that. I bought this figure because it's a daaaang good rendition of Harvey's TNBA design, the best we've ever seen in figure format to date. And that's saying an awful lot, since the Kenner and Mattel versions are not bad figures... but when I stood Two Face next to my TNBA Kenner figure, the differences were startling. I hadn't been 100% sold on the line before now, but seeing the two together... that was the moment I was sure I wanted the rest of this line. Some QC issues aside, this line might be everything I want from the animated series line. I just hope DCC fixes these QC issues before people flee this line before it gets going.

bat1987

Looks great. There really isn't much room for improvement here, its as on model as possible. Heard a lot of QC issues with these guys unfortunately, mostly involving figures joints snapping etc. Too bad, they look really good, hopefully they fix those as the line continues. In the meantime the only thing collectors can do is use the hair dryer on stuck joints to soften them up and it solves things in most cases (Capullo Talon had a stuck ab crunch and this is how I fixed it).

JeyNyce

Quote from: bat1987 on December 19, 2014, 04:09:33 PM
Looks great. There really isn't much room for improvement here, its as on model as possible. Heard a lot of QC issues with these guys unfortunately, mostly involving figures joints snapping etc. Too bad, they look really good, hopefully they fix those as the line continues. In the meantime the only thing collectors can do is use the hair dryer on stuck joints to soften them up and it solves things in most cases (Capullo Talon had a stuck ab crunch and this is how I fixed it).

It makes me asked the question if these figures were made with kids in mind or adults collecting them.
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Tomato

#3
Well the really sad thing is, up to the point the figure dropped I didn't have any issues with the joints. You have to take the time to break them in carefully, but I've had worse issues unsticking some of my DCUC figures than I did with Two-Face.

As for who these are for... DCC has always been about adult collectors. And the issues here are not uncommon with their figures (I got reeeeaaaal lucky with my Arkham City Killer Croc. I've heard nightmare stories about those heavy arms breaking clean off). it's just that the animated figures have much smaller joints, so the plastic they use is even more likely to break apart.

Edit: I forgot to mention in my review... despite what you'd think, I have had no trouble getting Two-Face to stand, even on his tiny feet. as ling as he's in his standard pose, the figure stands solidly. You have to really knock him to get him to topple over.

I should also mention... I don't know when it'll get here, but I have officially bought my second animated figure. I'm still waiting on a tracking number, but I had about $6 in spare change saved up, so I put it toward getting BTAS Catwoman.

Tomato



So, after Two-Face, the next character in line I need to review for you guys is Catwoman. I'll be honest, this figure was where I had my first real conflict with the line. On the one hand, up to the switch, I was collecting the TNBA style figures almost exclusively. I liked the style more overall, the worst design was fixed in JLU, and the Kenner BTAS toys were... well, IMHO, off-model is being kind to the things. Many of them came in battle poses, the sculpts were awful, the proportions were off... even the few characters I liked more in BTAS style were such ugly figures that I stuck with TNBA just to have something that looked decent. On the other hand though... Catwoman is and always has been one of those designs I've always prefered the BTAS design for. Part of that is the fact that TNBA Catwoman looks more like Catgirl, but the other is that I just plain like the design more. Ultimately though, that's part of the reason I'm loving this line... it blurs the lines just enough that I can have my BTAS figures mixed with the TNBA ones and they still look like they belong.



Anyway, back to the review portion. I'll get the negatives out of the way first, though thankfully there aren't half as many problems with her as I had with Two Face. Really, about the only issue I have with the figure is the sort of thing another collector might crucify me for, and that's her absurd amount of ankle articulation. Catwoman's feet can swivel around at the boot top, swivel up and down the the ankle, and swivel side to side at the base of the foot. And while this is fantastic for giving those feet a great range of motion, it also makes the figure a lot harder to stand properly... Despite having baby feet, Harvey has almost perfect balance, whereas I feel Selina is much more shaky. it doesn't help that the side swivels on mine are kinda loose, and kinda flop all over the place if the figure isn't standing on them.



But again, that's getting into really nitpicky territory. Overall, the figure has a lot more going for it, and is objectively the better of the two I own thus far. And, unlike Harvey (whose accessories were pretty much all garbage except the two guns) Selina has some really awesome accessories for us to play with/display. In addition to Isis (who is included in all my photos and will likely remain part of her display) she also comes with her signature whip, the jeweled necklace from her first appearance in "The Cat and The Claw," and a set of binoculars (which are silly and can't be held in front of her face, but whatever). The Whip in particular is a great piece, and is made from this bendy sort of plastic that allows it to behave in a similar manner to a real whip, but still hold certain poses if need be. And Holy Cats Batman, I am absolutely in love with the Isis "accessory." That little cat packs a whopping 6 points of articulation (Head, legs, and tail) and is one of those additions that, in hindsight, I couldn't imagine the figure going without.



Overall, I'm incredibly pleased with what I got with this Catwoman figure. It was the one I had the most issues with during the initial solicits... in most of the photographs I've seen, Catwoman looks almost wall-eyed. In person though, the figure looks so much nicer than the solicits make it seem.

Tomato

So I just recieved Mr Freeze, making him my last purchase for Wave 1 (Any chance of me picking up TNBA Batman went away with the BTAS reveal). I'm gonna do a more "official" review once I get him home, but... meh. Mr Freeze was the figure I was least looking forward to for wave 1 (I'm so done with the character. The BTAS origin was nice, but it's been repeated ad nausium in the movies and games in the years since. I am so thankful to Scott Snyder for subverting it.) and it doesn't help matters that the person who sold it to me sold me a broken figure. It's nothing I can't deal with, but it's still frustrating and I'm sure it'll color my review.

Like I said, I'll go into more detail when he's at home and I can compare him to other figures, but freeze is easily the biggest disappointment of the three I've purchased.

bat1987

Cat looks great. And even better, she doesn't look out of place with TNBA 2 face. As for Freeze, he looks good, but like you said, there's always the figure you get for completion's sake even though you're not really looking forward to it (for me it was Jim Lee Ivy, such a lackluster figure).

Tomato

All right, before we get into this, lets talk about the elephant in the room: I don't really care for Mr Freeze as a character. His redone origin from BTAS is powerful, but it's been my experience that beyond that writers don't really know what to do with him after the origin is over. He gets his revenge on Boyle, he works on curing his wife, no reason to keep going after Batman. I am SO happy with Scott Snyder for tweaking his origin... I won't spoil for those who have yet to read the annual, but there's a legitimate reason for Batman to be involved and to stop him from restoring Nora. So, unlike the other two (who are arguably some of my favorite Bat-villains) I'm going to be a bit more critical of this figure than I was with the others.



I'll start with the ugly. I bought my Freeze figure used, with "damage to the box". Yeah, not only was to box absolutely trashed and the figure not placed in to remains correctly (the whole thing was stuffed in a bag, with the extras just scattered about), but I found Mr Freeze's arm looking like this right after opening it up. It's nothing horrible (the hand actually does fit back on fairly snugly, I just can't use the additional articulation point.) but it still turned me off to this figure even more than I already was.



However, while I can harp on the seller for selling me a broken figure, this problem is entirely DCC's fault. Because of the way his arms are designed, Freeze's elbows can't rotate more than what you see above... meaning he can't even point his gun from the elbow, he literally has to raise his entire arm up. It's a problem I don't have with Two-Face, so it's frustrating to deal with it here.



My Last major gripe is the paint job. While I'm not fond of the whole "Mr Freeze is only a head" nonsense, even in BTAS he was wearing a suit of armor. So why are the paint aps all matte colors? You can see that Hasbro went with a metallic paint ap with their Freeze, and DCC has done plenty of metallic paint apps before (hell, BTAS Batman has a metallic sheen in the solicits). The metallics really helped freeze pop with my old TNBA figure, and it's frustrating for me to lose that.



His accessories aren't great, but I can't really blame them. They have Freeze's cold gun, and his stupid spider legs, and then all the different hands. I ended up sticking with the default hands, mainly because the pegs on freeze's wrists stick out a bit, and it's really jarring with the open hands.



Overall, Freeze leaves me feeling more than a little underwhelmed. I hate to say this, but the Mattel figure I already had was better... the major selling point for the DCC figures is the additional articulation and sculpting, but the sculpt on the original Freeze was fine, and the articulation is so restricted it's almost not worth bothering to include. That, combined with the fact that the paint apps are worse and the figure is known for having problems breaking... I'm just not thrilled. I'm enough of a completionist that even if I had the chance to change things I'd still buy it (though from a different seller) but it's disheartening when I also purchased two other figures (Ultraman and Superwoman) at the same time for cheaper, and they're by far the superior figures.

Tomato

#8
So, Wave 2 came out... sort of, anyway. Technically Ivy has been postponed until sometime later on, but we still got 3 of the four figures in wave 2, which isn't too bad. For reasons I've already discussed here and in other threads I'd been avoiding picking up any of wave 2 (disappointment in Freeze+trying to consolidate). But after selling off my entire animated BTAS/TNBA collection, I decided to dip my toe in once again, and pick up a couple more animated figures, including...



The Joker!

Now, I'll be honest, I wasn't really sure whether I wanted to buy BTAS era Joker early on. Don't get me wrong, I wanted him more than I did TNBA Joker (*shudder*) but there's a small part of me that wanted to wait in case they made JLU era Batman and Joker, since they're both the definitive versions of the characters for me. But with it becoming more and more obvious that DCC is going to cover every nook and cranny of the Batman animated universe before going on to additional series, I decided I'd rather settle for BTAS Joker for the time being than hold onto the hope that they'll get to JLU sometime in the next 10 years.



That's changed now that I have him in hand. Between the less brittle plastics and the better proportioned BTAS design, Joker is easily the most stable of the DC Animated figures I own. He also looks better in person than I thought he would, and he's also got a great range of motion. Even if I do still plan to replace him with the JLU figure if it is ever made, I'm also not ashamed to have this figure among my collection for the time being.



Now, I do apologize about a few things going forward: because I sold off all my BTAS/TNBA figures prior to this review, I won't be able to have any comparison shots with my previous animated figures from now on. I also am unfortunately lacking Mr Freeze's head for a proper group shot... long story on that, but it's only gone temporarily.

bat1987

He looks great! Very sharp looking. Only thing I'm not a fan of when it comes to these is episode specific accessories. For example, Joker doesn't have his throwing cards, Harley won't have her mallet etc. Minor nitpick, but I bet when they do 2 packs they'll put new accessories as an extra incentive.