Once again, slightly new packaging. Blah, blah, blah. If you’ve read the last three parts, you know what to expect by now. Both variants of Mary are carded in the same flying pose. Both figures came with the same collector pin and both figures came with the torso of Darkseid. I’m not opening my white costumed Mary, so you might as well take a good look now.

Mary Batson… do I really care a lot about this character? No, not really. I’ve never been a big follower of the Captain Marvel comics, although I don’t mind when they work a special appearance of Billy into a comic or cartoon every now and again. On the other hand, I can’t seem to recall any instances of actually seeing Mary Batson recently. Still, I’m all for adding as many of the ladies as I can to my DCUC collection, and she is a pretty nice looking figure.

Mary is an extremely slight figure in terms of her overall build. Yeah, most of the ladies in this line of figures are smaller than the dudes, but Ms. Batson here is downright petite. Although in retrospect, I recall the fists on my Black Canary being ridiculously small too. Either way, Mary here looks less like a super hero and more like just a regular chick in a cosplay outfit, which I presume is pretty character accurate. DCUC hasn’t always been a slave to scale, so it’s nice to see them pay attention to it here.

The sculpting on this figure is very good. I must admit, I wasn’t sure about the face sculpt when I saw initial pictures of the figure. Something about it just struck me as cheesy. But getting the figure in hand, its not at all bad and the paint apps on her lips and eyes are applied with precision. The outfit consists of a red top and skirt with yellow trim, yellow knee-high boots, and a little cape that hangs off to the side. Again, the paint apps here are all good, whether you’re looking at the red and yellow (which I prefer) or the white and yellow variant. Ms. Batson is missing a few traditional points of articulation in the DCUC line. Her head is balljointed, but her sculpted hair really makes it useless. She has ball jointed shoulders, swivel cuts in her biceps and wrists and hinged elbows. She has universal leg joints at her hips, but her sculpted skirt really inhibits her leg movement. She is also missing the torso hinge and the swivel cuts in her upper thighs. She does have hinged knees and hinged ankles.

The only problem I really have with this figure are her thin legs, which got somewhat deformed because of the way she was posed on the card. When I first got her out of the package, they were really bad, both bowing to one side. Since then, they’ve corrected themselves somewhat, but considering the female DCUC figures have trouble standing at the best of times, Mary Batson is even worse. I got tired of her falling over and taking out half my shelf of figures, so I finally decided to just give her the Super Powers stand that came with Desaad. Besides, its bright, bubbly colors suit her a lot more than they do Darkseid’s chief torturer.

And now… Darkseid.

You’ll have to forgive my gushing and unbridled excitement over this figure, but to better understand it let me point out two things. First, I’ve wanted a Darkseid figure ever since I was a wee lad and Kenner’s Super Powers figures were out. I only had a few of these, and its not because my parents were stingy or anything, but I just always opted for more Star Wars or GI Joe or Transformers whenever I was getting figures. Secondly, this is the first Collect & Connect figure from the DCUC line that I’ve been able to assemble. These figures are just impossible to find in my area, and when you do see them on the pegs, its always the same few over and over again. As a result, I have a small box full of arms and legs from various C&C figures, but Darkseid is my first complete one, and its all thanks to Matty offering this complete wave for sale in one shot. I’ve heard a lot of horror stories from other collectors having problems assembling their Darkseid figures. I guess I lucked out because mine went together with no problems and he holds together just fine. At least I was comforted to know that I had a spare torso in my variant Mary Baston in case I needed it.

First thing I gotta say is how friggin huge and hefty this figure is. His torso is like a huge solid plastic brick and he towers above my other DCUC figures. He isn’t over endowed with details in most of his body, but he’s got it where it counts. His grim, stoney head sculpt is fantastic as is the stoney skin on his arms and legs. His spartan blue garb is perfectly iconic. Despite being a C&C figure, Darkseid still has most of the usual DCUC articulation. He has a ball jointed neck and shoulders. His arms have swivel cuts in his biceps and wrists and hinged elbows. His legs have universal joints at the hips, which are slightly hindered by his tunic. He has swivel cuts in his thighs and hinged knees and ankles. He is missing the ability to swivel at his waist, but he does have the large torso hinge, and I find it actually a lot more useful on this figure then it is on most.

Darkseid comes with two accessories. First he has a Mother Box that fits onto the back of his belt and has some really nice sculpted detail and allows him to open a Boom Tube up all over yo ass. I’m really happy they threw this in because he can share it with my Mr. Miracle figure. He also comes with the golden “killing glove” designed by Desaad, which can be swapped out with his regular gauntlet hand. The detail on this piece is really amazing and I definitely prefer displaying him with it on. In fact, I have no idea where the regular hand got to. I’m guessing the cat claimed it and carried it off to his lair under the sofa.

And that wraps up my look at DC Universe Classics Wave 12… finally. I love this wave and I love my new Darkseid figure, but I must admit to being just a tad DC Universed out. I’ll be looking forward to moving on to a bit more variety this weekend.