DCUC Packaging. Been there, done that. I will, however take the time to note how amazing Raven looks in her package. A lot of that has to do with her cloak being pre-posed, but we’ll get to that a bit more in a little bit. I was worried about Batman having some wonky legs because of his action pose in the package, [Yeah, he looks like he’s throwing a shot put at the Olympics -FF] but luckily he came out just fine. Also worth noting is that Batman’s cardback has the bio burned out by a Sinestro Corp symbol. Cool!

Let’s start out with Batman, because despite how much I absolutely adore this figure, the truth is I don’t have a whole lot to say about him. It’s the color scheme that I really love. The yellow Sinestro colors just look AMAZING against his black outfit and the little Sinestro emblems on his chest and left bicep are nice and crisp. Unfortunately, Mattel used the same ochre colored plastic for his arm bracers as they did for OMAC’s boots and gauntlets, but even that can’t blemish this figure. I just think those parts should have been yellow like the rest.

I suppose the head sculpt is also worth mentioning, since it’s Batman looking completely and totally batshit crazy with rage. Sinestro Bats also has his Power Ring molded onto his hand and nicely painted. Simply awesome.

Batman comes with his collector button and the torso piece of Validus. He also comes with a big yellow batarang style construct that attaches to his power ring fist. Or I should say it theoretically attaches. Mine only holds for a few seconds before it pops off.

Moving on to Raven… here we have a really nice sculpt that fits the character perfectly. Her hood, lower dress and cape are all cast in soft plastic and very flexible. The long gloves are both painted and sculpted. The attention to detail on her hands is particularly nice. She has little rings on both her index fingers and the thumbs and index fingers of her gloves are cut out. She has some nicely sculpted legs, but I think Mattel half assed it on her shoes. They clearly wanted to give her some heels, but instead of going all the way, she’s just got more like a sensible pair of low heels. The head sculpt is beautiful and the paint apps on her face are spot-on perfect.

So, the elephant in the room regarding Raven is the pre-posed nature of her cloak, which is perched up on each side of her head like wings. It looks fantastic when she’s posed with her arms up to mesh with each of these wings, but it looks pretty silly when she’s in any other pose. The easy solution to this would have been to give her a swappable cloak, but since that’s not something that Mattel has done with this line yet, they should have at least made her cloak removable. Still, I would imagine that most fans of the character will be happy with the way this figure turned out.

Raven comes with Validus’ right leg and her collector button.

Both figures have the same points of articulation. You get ball joints in their necks. The arms have ball jointed shoulders, swivels in the biceps and wrists and hinged elbows. The legs have universal movement in the hips, swivels in the thighs and hinges in the knees and ankles. They both have swivels in the waist and ab crunche hinges in the torsos. It’s pretty cool that they got all the usual points of articulation into Raven’s sculpt, as I thought she might be lacking some.

Unfortunately when trying to rotate the swivel in Raven’s left thigh, her leg twisted right off. I had to glue it back on making that joint useless. Thankfully it was a clean break and I’ll be able to glue it, but WTF, Mattel???

So, crappy quality control on Raven not withstanding, both of these figures are outstanding. If you can’t find love in your heart for Sinestro Bats, than I just plain pity you. As for Raven, I realize the pre-posed nature of her cloak will be a sticking point with some, but everything else about her is wonderfully executed. Overall, I think this is an outstanding wave and I highly recommend it. But, wait… we’ve got one more to look at… next time, it’s Validus!!!