Monthly Archives: March 2012

Mar 31 2012

DC Universe Classics Wave 20: Red Arrow by Mattel

Welcome back for the fifth DC Univese Classics Wave 20 figure, and the last one we’re going to look at this week. He’s Speedy… er… He’s Red Arrow! Yesterday, I mentioned that I wasn’t really jonesing for a Green Arrow figure because he’s never been a favorite character of mine. You’d think that would be doubly true for Red Arrow, but truth be told, I’ve developed a bit of fondness for this character by way of Young Justice.

And once again, there’s the Wave 20 packaging. Red Arrow is packaged in a fairly neutral stance, holding his arrow in his left hand and reaching back for another arrow with his right hand. There are also three additional arrows mounted on the tray beside him.
Out of the package, Red is a great looking figure. I expected some parts sharing between Green Arrow and Red, but that’s surprisingly not the case. His outfit is two-tone red with a sculpted vest, complete with sculpted laces running across his chest and a belt and cross strap to match. He has a permanently attached copious quiver on his back. The head sculpt is also beautifully done. The mask is sculpted, rather than just painted, and he’s got a nice determined look with gritted teeth and a well defined jawline.
Red features the same articulation as Green Arrow. You get a ball jointed neck, the arms have ball joints in the shoulders, hinged elbows, and swivels in his biceps and wrists. The legs have universal movement at the hips, hinges at the elbows and knees, and swivels in the thighs. His torso swivels at the waist, and you get the usual ab crunch hinge.
Accessories? Obviously you get the bow and… hey, wait… its the same exact bow that came with Green Arrow! Am I being too picky to cry foul at the fact that Mattel packed the same accessory in two figures from the same wave? You do also get the extra three arrows. I’m not one to bemoan extra accessories, but these are going straight into the junk bin because they really serve no purpose. You can’t put them into the quivver, and the bow already has an arrow sculpted into it, so I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with these.
Surprisingly enough, Red Arrow turned out to be one of my favorite figures in this wave. I love the sculpt and the coloring and he’s just fun to pose and play around with. I’m not going to gripe much about the reuse of the bow, since the line was winding down and honestly the bow works fine for both figures. It’ll be interesting to compare this guy to the Young Justice 6-inch Red Arrow when I finally get around to picking that one up.

[And that’s another week in the can. There are still two more packaged DCUC Wave 20 figures to look at: White Lantern Flash and Reverse Flash, and then there’s the C&C figure Nekron. I’ll be getting around to finishing off the wave sometime next month. In the meantime, I’m taking tomorrow off, and I’ll be back Monday with a brand new week of action figure goodness. -FF]
Mar 30 2012

DC Universe Classics Wave 20: Green Arrow by Mattel

Yesterday I waxed surprised about how I could possibly be collecting DC Universe Classics for this long and not have Sinestro. The same could be said for Green Arrow, since he’s seen his first release way back in Wave ?? and I’m pretty sure he’s been hanging on the pegs as an All Stars re-issue from time to time. Truth is, I’ve never been a huge Oliver Queen fan and so he never was really a priority for me. I also vastly prefer his modern look over his older one, so I was more than happy to cross the character off my list by getting this modern version.

Paaaaackage Shoooooot! Green Arrow is packaged in a neutral stance, holding his bow and arrow off to the side. Not much else new to say here. Let’s move on…
Green Arrow is a fairly simple figure, but there’s still a lot more new sculpting on this figure than on many of the DCUC figures. His quiver is a permanently attached sculpted piece, as are the little pouches on his belt and the straps around his right thigh and both biceps. He even has a little dagger hanging off the back of his belt. I like the little sculpted lacing on his v-neck and the way his hood is sculpted as a separate soft, rubbery piece. The head sculpt is a slam dunk, particularly Ollie’s ‘stache and beard. The paintwork is very well done. He’s mainly just two-tone green with black leggings, but the detailwork on the face is immaculate and every little button on his pouches are individually painted. Nice!
Ollie’s articulation is exactly what w’ve come to expect after twenty waves of these figures. You get a ball jointed neck, the arms have ball joints in the shoulders, hinged elbows, and swivels in his biceps and wrists. The legs have universal movement at the hips, hinges at the elbows and knees, and swivels in the thighs. His torso swivels at the waist, and you get the usual ab crunch hinge.
Naturally, Ollie comes with his bow. I’m a little torn on the accessory. The bow looks fine, but I kind of wish it wasn’t sculpted with an arrow knocked into it. Chances are I’m going to pose him holding the bow down at his side or across his chest, and it just looks kind of odd with the arrow on the string like that. Not a big deal, but just my two cents.
This modern version of Green Arrow turned out to be a really nice figure. He wasn’t high on my list, but I’m certainly glad to have him, particularly since he is an A-lister in the DC Universe. I probably would have even picked him up if he didn’t have a C&C piece. Tomorrow, we’ll check out his one-time sidekick… Red Arrow!
Mar 29 2012

You have failed me again, Starscream… I mean… Matty Collector.

After flubbing up the Voltron Club Lion Force subscription by a) Not charging us when we were supposed to be charging, and b) Not letting us know whether or not our subs would even be processed until the day of the sale, and c) Not following through on their commitment to ship subber’s toys before everyone else’s, one might have wondered what was going to go wrong with the Club Infinite Earths subscription. Well, wait no more, because here it is…

DC Universe Fans [suckers],
                

It’s been a long time coming [Yes, it has been a long time. Long enough for us to get this right and yet we still couldn’t!] and DC Universe Club Infinite Earths is now on the horizon! Golden Age Flash will be the first figure released and we’ve just confirmed we’ll receive our shipment in mid-May. [Yes it was supposed to be April. Sorry, we didn’t whip our Chinese children slave labor force hard enough and they fell behind on their quotas.] That means the club will launch in May instead of April. For subscribers, we’ll begin processing orders when the shipment is received (ETA is currently 5/12) and sending them out about 10 business days later. [So, not only are we delaying the launch a month, we won’t even make good on our commitment to ship subbers’ figures before day of sale purchases. Ha Ha!] Although the club is starting in May rather than April, you’ll still get the nine figures you signed up for in 2012; we’ll just double up on figures for one month in the fall [We sincerely hope this fucks up your budgeting!} (you’ll have plenty of notice before it happens).  
                      

One thing of note: your club order will not be eligible for combined shipping until June, which is the first “renewal” month. [We could have changed this as a courtesy for your inconvenience, but that would deny us an opportunity to fuck you over on our ridiculously slow and expensive shipping!] You may recall that the first month a subscription order ships, it has to ship separately, then beginning with the second month it will be combined with your other subscriptions. [Ha Ha, fuck you!]
Okay, enough business — on to the good stuff! At press time, here is the release schedule (as always, subject to change) [LOL! That’s our way of saying all the information in this email is worthless!]                  

May: Golden Age The Flash
June: Atrocitus (monthly figure) & Metron (club-exclusive)
July: Starman (monthly figure) & Rocket Red (club quarterly figure)
August: Mirror Master
September: Black Mask        
          

Even though he won’t arrive until May, our Golden Age The Flash figure will certainly be worth waiting for! The original scarlet speedster, Jay Garrick, will come with his vac-metalized signature helmet and, like all figures in the line, will feature great details and full articulation. [Does anyone else find it ironic that The Flash will arrive a month late? We do!]    
           

We’ll post updates at MattyCollector.com as we get closer and have more information. [Be sure to stop by, so we can stick the pre-order offer for that ridiculous, shitty and overpriced Back to the Future hoverboard in your face!] For now, you can look forward to an amazing year packed with long-awaited true collector characters! Thank you for being a loyal customer – we appreciate your business. [Because who else buy you would let us fuck you over and over again and keep coming back?]

– Matty  
              

Apparently that was edited for content in a very childish and possibly slightly drunk manner. So, the long and short of it is the whole subscription will be delayed for a month, and subbers will get hit twice in one month for at least two monthly figures. Once again, Mattel seems incapable of following through on any of their commitments to subscribers. It seems to me like they could have at least shipped the Exclusive figure, which we already paid for, in April in lieu of the actual monthly figure, but nope.
Now, in the grand scheme of things, this is not a big deal for me. Waiting another month isn’t going to kill me, nor is having to buy two figures in one month. But, I feel sorry for collectors who actually have all three subs because between this and all the other shannagans that Matty pulls with the release schedules, its really difficult to budget for these figures and being able to budget for them should be one of the advantages of the whole sub service.

No, it just goes back to what I said when Matty screwed up the Voltron sub. Its been almost a year since they did open enrollment for subscriptions. That’s how much time lead time they had to get this right, and they still couldn’t do it. And yet this is the same company that blathers on in their emails about contracts and obligations regarding their subscriptions, which to Matty is apparently a one-way street. Its a joke. But this is nothing new. For a while I was glad to see DC Universe Classics go the route of subscription because it meant I didn’t have to hunt the figures down anymore and I didn’t have to pony up to buy a whole case at one time. But having to deal with Matty and Digital River on any level really sticks in my craw as a matter of principal.

If I weren’t so busy this week, I’d be tempted to cancel the rest of this week’s DC Universe Classics features in protest, but I wouldn’t have time to brew up anything else, so I guess I’ll press on.