Black Canary’s package is identical to Elongated Man’s. Check out the in-package shot, and let’s move along…

Oh, where to begin? Maybe by throwing it out there that this figure gives me more of a Street Fighter Cammy vibe than Black Canary. A lot of it is definitely the head sculpt. And while I took some issues with the one DC Direct used for Zatanna, I was ultimately ok with it. Black Canary’s is a little tougher for me to get behind. Look at the eyes, they’re some kind of bizarre East meets West hybrid. It’s like they wanted to go with an anime look but held back just enough to give us this… whatever this is. The huge eyes, coupled with the very angular configuration of the face and the small head, makes this figure in no way Black Canary to me. I do, however, like the ponytail… it’s fetching.

The rest of the figure has some hit and miss issues as well. Canary’s long sleeve one-piece is executed with a high-gloss black finish, and I wholeheartedly approve. She has the same type of real thread fishnets that Mattel used on the DCUC version of the figure and it meets with the same success and failure. They look great when viewed from the front, and they look like crap when viewed from the back. I also have some issues with the proportions of the hands and feet. The feet look too big, but I’ll chalk that up to the style of the boots, but the hands look a bit oversized as well. When I compare them to Zatanna’s they don’t look much bigger, so maybe it’s just an optical illusion. Either way, between the head, hands, and feet, the proportions on this figure seem a bit skewed to me.

Black Canary’s articulation includes a ball jointed neck, arms with ball joints in the shoulders, hinges in the elbows, and swivels in the wrists. The legs rotate at the hips, and have hinges in the knees. It’s worth noting that the ball joint in her neck doesn’t have a huge range of motion and most of the time it looks like she’s looking down. Blah!

I don’t totally hate this figure, but it really doesn’t seem to fit in this line. It feels more like one of those Ane-Comi statues, only not as hyper cute. Truth be told, I’m not sure where this figure would properly fit. She’s an interesting conversation piece standing among my DC Direct figures, but I’m not putting her anywhere near my DCUC shelves. I’ve got a perfectly fine Black Canary represented there.

And that’ll do it for this week’s little excursion into Identity Crisis. Yes, I have more of these figures, and I’ll have to decide which ones I’m going to open so I can revisit the rest of them at one point or another. Until then, I’ll be back tomorrow to kick off the weekend as Star Wars content makes its return to FigureFan!

Elongated Man is part of Identity Crisis, Series 2, which warrants another look at the package. The front presentation hasn’t changed, but the back of the card is new to show the figures from the second series and offer some little blurbs about the characters. The figure is carded with his two interchangeable arms flanking him on both sides and the large figure stand partially concealed behind his legs. It’s a great looking presentation, and I’d happily hang it on my wall if I weren’t about to rip it open.

The boys at DC Direct really nailed this figure. The head sculpt is great, particularly the prominent jaw line and sunken cheeks, which is very evocative of the character art. The hair sculpt is equally impressive, and the paintwork on the face is precise and clean. The body is a pretty simple, muscled buck, but the superb coloring really makes it stand out. The bulk of his costume is a dulled gloss red with bright yellow bands for his belt, and the edges of his gloves and boots. The torso stripe is matte black and the gloves and boots are both high gloss black. No doubt, this is what the coloring on a comic book figure is supposed to look like. Bravo!

Elongated Man shares most of the points of articulation as the other figures in this series. The arms feature ball jointed shoulders, hinged elbows, and swivels in the wrists. The legs feature cuts in the hips and hinged knees. The head is not ball jointed, but rather only turns, and we’ll see why in a minute. The figure does, however, have two extra points in the biceps, thanks to his removable arms, hurray for bicep swivels! Elongated Man is definitely the best articulated figure in this series.

Action features on a DC Direct figure? Well sort of. As we saw from the in-package shot, Dibny comes with two stretchy arms that can be swapped out for his normal arms. It’s a nice way to feature his powers in action figure form, although they are real space-killers when you try to display him. I prefer to compromise by displaying him with one stretchy arm and one normal. The figure also has an extending neck feature, which is very well done. Kudos to you, DC Direct, for these cool little extras. Oh yeah, he also comes with the ginormous Identity Crisis figure stand.

Much like Dr. Light, Elongated Man, is a great stand-in for my DCUC display. I really adore this figure, and even if you aren’t collecting this line and don’t want to mess with Club Infinite Earths, you should do yourself a favor and pick him up. No DC figure collection should be complete without a Ralph Dibny, and this is just a great version of the character. I’m really interested to see if the Signature Collection version will be good enough to replace this one in my display, but either way, having an Elongated Man on my shelf will make the wait a lot easier.

Tomorrow, we’ll wrap up the Identity Crisis with Black Canary. And in this case, I did not save the best for last.

The package is identical to what we saw with Dr. Light, so I’ll let the photos speak for themselves. Once again, it’s a great presentation and if I didn’t want a loose Zatanna in this costume, I might be tempted to leave her packaged and hang her on my wall. The card is just so damn colorful and pretty, depicting our heroes displaying their collective shame and the huge bubble leaves little to the imagination.

Zatanna appears for much of the book in her more familiar (at least to me) coat tails and fishnets, but this particularly version comes from the flashbacks to when she mind-wiped Dr. Light. It’s definitely not my preferred look for the character, but as a fan of the character, I like to have as many versions of her as possible, so this particular figure was a nice pick up. i also can’t deny that the early 80’s vibe she’s got going on here has a certain charm. You get a blue, white and black one-piece with long sleeves, a white cape, and blue and white thigh high boots. A good piece of the costume relies mostly on paintwork for the details, which is fine, although there’s a little bit of slop here and there.

The sculpting on the sleeves is quite nice as they feature hanging cuffs, which give her a certain wizardly look. The cape, collar and neck broach are all sculpted in soft, rubbery plastic and hang off the back rather nicely without throwing off the balance of the figure. I imagine the cape would be removable via popping off the head, but it’s not something I’m willing to try. The boots have a nice glossy blue sheen to them and the high heels strike a nice balance between looking good and actually allowing the figure to stand. They certainly look a lot nicer than the chunky grandma clogs that Mattel’s DCUC version of the character is wearing.

The head sculpt is a little hit and miss with me. From a technical standpoint I suppose it’s pretty good. The paint is clean, the sculpted bangs have a ragged and uneven look, and there’s some nice use of red metallic paint for her hair clip. The problem here is that I don’t think it really matches the line art all that well. She looks extremely animated, which would work OK for me as an original take on the character, but not so much as she appeared in the pages of this particular comic book.

Zatanna’s articulation is similar to Dr. Light’s, with just a couple of changes. You get ball joints in the neck and shoulders, along with hinges in the elbows. Alas, the shoulder hinges are pretty tenuous and I can feel the left elbow already starting to wobble a bit. The legs feature a T-crotch at the hips and have hinged knees. Where Dr. Light had swivels in the boots, Zatanna has swivels in her wrists. Obviously, most of the posing on this piece is going to be from the waist up. I can do a little adjusting with her legs, but they’re always going to look rather stiff, and unless she’s more or less standing straight, I find a stand is needed to keep her up.

Speaking of stands, Zatanna comes with the same huge, oval “Identity Crisis” stand as Dr. Light. It works fine for holding the figure up, but it’s a real space hog, which is something that most action figure collectors will find as a big drawback.

Besides being based on a comic that I absolutely love, this Zatanna presents my collection with a distinctive look for the character, and for those reasons I’m happy to have her on my shelf. The portrait is certainly rather odd, but there’s enough here to like, particularly the nice coloring in the costume, that makes her worth while to me. After all, I don’t think it’s possible for me to have too many Zatanna figures. I haven’t decided whether or not to display her with my DCUC Collection or carve out a new shelf for this series, but either way, I’ll definitely find a place for her.

*This Feature was re-worked and re-shot on 8/18/15. It originally appeared in a series of articles on DC Direct’s Identity Crisis line.

Anyway, I thoroughly adore Brad Meltzer’s Identity Crisis. Besides being one of the first complete series that I read on my tablet via that new-fangled digital media witchcraft, I found it to be everything a landmark comic event should be and yet seldom is. It had plenty of “oh shit!” moments, an ending that left me surprised and satisfied, but most of all, it really took some favorite old characters in new direction. Plus, Batman gets screwed over by his peers, and he’s a dick, so that’s ok by me. I’ll be the first to concede that some of the motivations in the series didn’t make any sense, and the whole rape reveal seemed to glom on a bit to similar themes in The Watchmen, but I don’t let any of that ruin my enjoyment of the experience. Today’s figure, Dr. Light, was one of the key players of the piece. Holy, hell, what a shitbag! Identity Crisis not only raised (or is that lowered?) Light’s status as a villain to that of serial rapist scum, but managed to retcon a justification for his past portrayals as a bumbler. It seems only fair we start with him.

The last time we looked at DC Direct packaging, it was from the Crisis on Infinite Earths series, and that packaging was downright bland and boring. That’s certainly not the case here. The card features some excellent character art of the Justice League, all looking rather shamed and guilty, with a shattered glass motif that carries on to the bubble and tray. Very nice! This package eschews DC Direct’s clever and occasional use of the figure stand to make up the series title for the package. This time the stand is partially hidden behind the legs of the figure. In fact, truth be told, Identity Crisis only appears in a small logo in the upper left corner. The back of the card is generic for all of Series 1, with photos of all five figures and little blurbs about their role in the series. I don’t often have qualms about tearing open DC Direct figures, but the presentation here is nice enough that it gave me pause. Nonetheless, I want a loose Dr. Light for my DCUC shelves, so tear it open, I shall!

Wow, the boys at DC Direct really did a great job sculpting Dr. Light! First off, look at the face! To quote the Young Ones, “Oi, he is a bastard!” From the patented arch-villain-arching-eyebrows to the demonic pointy goatee, this guy has “lethal injection candidate” written all over his face. The whole, “I’m gonna rape you” sneer isn’t helping things either. Just one look and you can’t help but hate him.

The rest of the figure is just as much a slam dunk, derived from a perfect mix of serviceable sculpt and excellent paintwork. Light sports a fairly neutral stance with his rubbery cape favoring one shoulder and his hands permanently clutching in fiendishly diabolical spasms. The deco that makes up his chest emblem and belt are sculpted as well as painted, and likewise, his hood features a sculpted and painted band and a fin protruding from the top. I just love Light’s retro character design, as he looks like he would be right at home menacing Flash Gordon. My experience with DC Direct paintwork has been hit or miss in the past, but the paint on this figure is a neigh perfect application of matte black, bright and clean white, and grey.

We should all know by now not to expect much articulation from DC Direct, but Dr. Light is far from a semi-poseable statue. You get ball joints in the neck and shoulders, with hinges in the elbows. The legs rotate at the hips, have hinged knees, and swivels at the boots. There is no articulation in the torso at all. Again, not a lot, but what’s here is perfectly serviceable.

The only accessory that comes with Light is his ginormous figure stand. It’s a simple oval with “Identity Crisis” printed onto it. I’m usually a big fan of the DC Direct figure stands, but I don’t use them for the figures I display with my DCUC collection, and Light can actually stand just fine on his own.

So, I’m happy to say that DC Direct delivered in spades with Dr. Light. Not only is he a great looking figure in his own right, but his proportions and scale make him a perfect complement to my DCUC shelf. The articulation may not be all there, but he’s a good enough match, that I’m perfectly fine with crossing him off my DCUC Want List.

Tomorrow, we’ll check out Zatanna.