It’s DC Friday again, and I’m almost to the point where I’m caught up on opening my backlog of DC figures. It’s possible that I might start switching up Friday content a bit in the future, but I’m hoping it won’t come to that. I’ve got the rest of August and part of September covered, and by then, I’m hoping some new stuff will start rolling in. Today, I’m looking at my last figure from the Justice League War animated film, Shazam!

Here’s the obligatory shot of the packaging, or at least the best one I could salvage after my cat hit the table while I was taking it and I didn’t realize the picture was wrecked before I tore open the package. Whoops! Again, it’s clean and simple, and it shows the figure off beautifully. There are some stills from the movie printed on the card behind the figure, and some shots of other figures in the series on the back of the card. It’s not at all collector friendly, so let’s rip this sucker open and see what we’ve got!

Because of the animated style, this line focuses more on paint than individual sculpts. Indeed, Shazam here is a repaint of the Superman body, and that’s a good choice that works well. The costume is mostly deep red with gold paint for the boots, belt, wrist bracers, and some gold and yellow for his chest emblem. Overall the paint is neatly applied, although there are some areas, particularly around the cape’s trim, which could have been sharper.
The cape is the only newly sculpted piece for the costume. It’s fairly light and very pliable, but it still makes him a little back heavy. The hood is sculpted down, which is the way I prefer it. I have passed on at least a couple of Shazam figures because the cape was permanently up.

The head sculpt is one of the better ones in this line. Yes, that’s a loaded compliment. Superman’s sculpt was a lumpy mess, Green Lantern’s was a painted nightmare, the rest have been OK. I think they did a pretty good job capturing the animated style in this portrait and the paint is fairly clean. There are, however, a couple of stray marks on his bottom lip that unfortunately look like cold sores. Hopefully them old wizards have a cure for herpes!

The articulation has been a standard in all the male bucks of this line. You get rotating hinges in the shoulders and elbows, swivels in the biceps and wrists, ball joints in the hips and neck, and hinges in the knees. There’s no articulation in the torso at all. These are not highly pose-able figures, but I’d still rank them as better than most of the releases from the dark days of DC Direct’s premier lines, where nothing but t-crotches and swivel cuts were the order of the day. Still, there’s only so much you can do with him, hence the limited number of shots I used for this Feature.

By now, you all know that this line has been hit and miss for me. Shazam was the last one I have to open, and seeing as he’s one of the better ones, so I’m happy to ending my look at this series on a positive note. If I ever stumble across The Flash at a decent price, I’d probably grab him to complete the Justice League War set, but otherwise it’s safe to say I’m finished with these. Even though I picked up all of these for ten bucks a pop, my hindsight is telling me I should have passed on them. At a time when I’m trying to tighten up my collecting habits, the amount I spent on these figures could have paid for a Cover Girls statue I needed, or even one of Mezco’s upcoming One:12 Collective releases.