It’s no secret, I’m a big fan of DCTV. Well, not so much Arrow, because after pushing through two seasons, I still just couldn’t quite click with it, but the rest I really enjoy a lot. Legends of Tomorrow isn’t my favorite of the bunch, I think I’d rank The Flash or Supergirl a little higher, but it is the most ambitious, and overall it does a pretty good job of delivering the adventure each week and has had a great ensemble cast. Naturally, I’ve been picking up some of the figures here and there and today I’m finally opening one of the ones I was most looking forward to… Ray Palmer aka The Atom!

The package is pretty standard for what DC Collectibles is using these days. You get a mostly white window box, with a really weird blurred shot of the figure on the side panel and the name running up the opposing diagonal panel. The back shows other DCTV figures available, including The Flash and White Canary. The box is collector friendly, and while I’d love to keep it to store all the extras in, I don’t have the space, so this baby is about to get shredded.

So, I’ve got him out and I’ve spent some time playing around with him and there’s definitely some good and bad here. I suppose I should start off by saying that I happen to really dig Palmer’s A.T.O.M. Exo-suit design, as it’s like a cross between Iron Man and Ant-Man. Maybe not what comic purists were looking for, but the show has done a nice job making the character its own. And it’s damn cool to see Brandon Routh donning a super suit again. The tech-heavy suit certainly gave DC Collectibles a lot to work with, and as usual, and from the neck down, I think sculptor Paul Harding really knocked it out of the park.

The buck features an underlying black body suit with the red and blue armor pieces sculpted on, along with a web of silver rods connecting them all together. It’s a beautifully complex sculpt and there are so many little details to drink in. There are little clips and catches here and there, as well as some tiny sculpted rivets meant to be securing some of the pieces in place. The paint compliments the sculpt very well with some vibrant red and metallic blue, along with all that silver. Yup, when it comes to the look of the suit, I’ve got nothing but love for this figure.

Now, the portrait? Well, that’s another matter. I don’t know what happened here, but the best thing I can say is that it’s partially obscured behind the blue face shield. What you want to do here is display him so that you’ve got a light shining right on the shield and the glare will stave off what is otherwise a really unfortunate attempt at a likeness. The paint on the head is also a lot rougher than the rest of the body, and mine has a major stroke of blue slop carrying over from the chin strap to the skin. As I already mentioned, Paul Harding sculpted this figure, I own several of his pieces, and he’s an extremely talented artist. I think that’s reflected in the body, but, the head feels like it was done by someone else.

And then we hit articulation, and things continue to take a bit of a downward slide. The arms feature rotating hinges in the shoulders, hinges in the elbows, and the wrists are on hinged pegs. The lack of bicep swivels really hurts, but in this case I’m going to assume they thought it would break up the sculpt too much. The hips appear to be a standard T-crotch, but there’s also just enough lateral play in them to make me think there are some hinges in there. But I’m not willing to snap the legs off of him to find out. Below that, you get double hinges in the knees, and both hinges and lateral rockers in the ankles. Again, no swivels in the thighs. There appears to be a ball joint under the chest armor, but I can’t get any movement out of it, and I’m afraid to try. The neck is ball jointed. Yes, there’s some useful articulation here, but some of it is a mystery and in the end the figure still comes off feeling very stiff. Not an uncommon thing for DC Collectibles, but here it just seemed to bug me a little more.

Mr. Palmer comes with an impressive four sets of hands. Two are fists and two are relaxed hands, and both are welcome. He also comes with a pair of accessory holding hands, but nothing to hold in them, so they’re kind of useless. He also comes with a pair of effect part hands, firing off his energy blasts. All of the hands are very nicely painted to match the suit, and I dig the energy blast effects a lot.

You also get translucent blue thruster effect parts, which clip into the back of the suit and in the lower legs. Again, these look fantastic and they stay in pretty well. The only downside is that with his limited articulation, there aren’t a lot of great flight poses to get him into.

I had really high hopes for this figure, and why shouldn’t I? I love the suit design, I love the character, and DC Collectibles has been doing a bang up job with their DCTV figures as of late. And don’t get me wrong, there is a lot to love here. The suit looks great and the effect parts are all really well done. But with a rough likeness and stiff articulation, the end result was rather disappointing. He’ll look fine lined up on my DCTV shelf, but I was hoping for something a little better than what we got.