A short while ago, McFarlane put up a Bizarro/Batzarro 2-pack for preorder and I went for it. But little by little the details has me rethinking that purchase for a number of reasons. Ultimately it was the very cartoonish portrait on Bizarro and the ham-fistedly reworked bat symbol on Batzarro that made me deep six that preorder before release. I was still hankering for a Bizarro, though, so I hunted down the Rebirth version that was released shortly before I fell into the delightfully bottomless pit of collecting this line.

Here he is in the packaging, just a regular release with no Collect-To-Build business to deal with. I also like that he’s from the Rebirth comics, because that happens to be one my favorite Superman figures on my shelf right now, so they’ll look good together duking it out. As usual, the packaging is mostly collector friendly, although you’ll have to tear the stand and the collector card off the cardboard backing to get them out. Also, there’s no flight stand included, which had me a little disappointed. The McFarlane flight stands aren’t great, but they are a fun way to display the flyers on the shelf and add a lot of value to the package.

As expected, the body is lifted directly from the regular Rebirth Superman, but using a darker blue for the suit. He also has a blue diamond panel in the middle of his belt buckle and the red trim at the tops of his boots actually match the sculpt, unlike the lazy-ass paint on the Superman figure where they tried to strongarm the right paint onto the wrong sculpt. The S-Shield is properly reversed, which was probably easy to do here since it was sculpted separately on Superman and attached to the figure. Reversed or not, the shape of the shield is the same, so they were able to pop the new one right in there. It’s not quite as polished as the shield on Superman, but it looks good.

The cape is completely different, and I’m almost certain it’s been lifted from another figure. It’s much longer than Supes’ cape, reaching down to Bizarro’s ankles, and it has various holes worn into it. There’s some subtle texturing to the surface and it’s a tad darker shade of red than what we saw on Superman.

The head sculpt is excellent. I realize that the highly stylized head on the newer two-pack is going for a very specific look, but this is definitely my preferred portrait for Bizarro. The enlarged jowls and smaller dome makes him into a bit of a pinhead and I love the shock of hair at the top of his head and the sides being clean shaven. The skin is gray with some subtle green bits of wash that make him look moldy and gross. There are some fissures sculpted into his skin, giving him a desiccated, zombie-like appearance and the hints of teeth in his downturned, parted mouth look great. All around, nice work!

Bizarro’s articulation conforms to the unswerving DC Multiverse standard, and that’s a pretty good thing. Everything here is serviceable and the joints work smoothly. I can’t recall having an issue with stuck joints on any of these figures and they are always lots of fun to play around with. I’d still love to see thigh swivels added, and you could argue that the pins are getting prehistoric, but I don’t mind. Bizarro also comes with an extra set of swappable hands, so you can replace his fists with graspy hands.

I’m glad I cancelled the Bizarro/Batzarro two-pack in favor of this guy. Sure, I would have preferred something more classic, but I do like the Rebirth designs and I am happy to have a Bizarro that pairs very well with one of my existing Superman figures. His price was a bit up there at a number of retailers and resellers, but a little patience netted him for about $20, which I believe was right around the original MSRP. All in all, another great addition to my DC Multiverse shelves!