Yeah, I don’t know what to call these damn Digital Physical releases, so I just lump them in with DC Multiverse to help sooth my compulsion for order. The figures are indeed done in the DC Multiverse format, but they are branded under McFarlane Digital. It seems like a marketing nightmare just to cater to the handful of collectors who give a crap about getting an NFT digital code with their action figure. This wave consisted of Green Arrow and The Atom, which I’m checking out today, along with Superman from Our Worlds At War and a repaint of Rebirth Batman, both of which I will only pick up if they turn up on deep clearance.

I honestly believe that Todd and the boys have gotten the message that collectors want classic versions of legacy characters, because we have been getting more of them. A lot of them, unfortunately, have been released under the premium priced Collector Edition subset, but when I saw these classic versions of Oliver Queen and Ray Palmer, I was quick to drop those preorders. Of course, the added Digital Code brings the price of these to $25, in line with the figures that have Collect-To-Build parts, but at least it’s still below that $30 Collector Edition range. The boxes are nothing special, but at least they don’t have the ugly code card stuck up against the front of the window like the recent Superman statue. On the downside, the figure stands do have McFarlane Digital printed on them, which is an eyesore. Let’s start with Ollie!

Ollie hails from the absolute banger 1987 story arc, The Longbow Hunters. It was dark, gritty, and fifteen year old me found it to be deliciously adult in nature. It also saw some significant changes to Ollie’s costume. Lord knows, Todd has a way of taking liberties with character designs in DC Multiverse, but here’s an instance where they stuck the lading. Mostly. The sculpt is excellent and does a great job reflecting the suit in the comic. The tunic sculpt creates a nice illusion that it’s layered onto the figure and features a pebbled texture reminiscent of a coarse grain leather. There are sculpted laces securing it down the middle and the hood seamlessly glued to the tunic, making it look like all one garment. The belt and lower part of the tunic are separate to allow for the waist jointing, while the shoulder strap is sculpted into the upper tunic. Boots and gauntlets are painted to match the tunic, while the figure’s body is a lighter green to represent a top and leggings worn underneath. Finally, we get an angled brown quiver on his back, which is permanently attached, and there’s a cluster of arrows to stick into it. I think this figure looks great, but I think the colors could have been more muted to better match the comic art. I will note that he looks a lot brighter under the studio lights than he does in hand. Also, I wish they had painted all the lacings down the front of the tunic yellow. As it is, it’s like they did just the top two and said, “OK, that’s enough.”

The head sculpt under the hood is really solid. They did a fine job with Ollie’s beard and mustache and I dig the mix of golden yellow and pale yellow to give it some pizzazz. The domino mask is sculpted as well as painted and if you punch in close you can see a little variance between the sculpt lines and the paint lines, but nothing too bad. As mentioned, the hood is connected to the tunic, so it does not move with the head. I actually like this a lot and you can still get a good amount of range in the neck articulation. The hood features the same pebbled texture as the tunic and has some sculpted cross-stitching along the top.

Longbow Hunters saw Ollie return to traditional archery and that’s reflected in the simple longbow accessory. It looks good and I like the way the handle is sculpted to fit his hand so well. You’ll notice there’s no string and I’m a bit torn on that. On the one hand, I absolutely hate chunky plastic strings on bow accessories. On the other hand, would it have killed you to put an actual string on it, Todd? What’s worse is the bow is extremely soft and bendy and there are no notches on the end, so I’m not sure how well tying a string onto the bow will work. You also get a single arrow, and this is kind of useless. It’s even more soft and bendy than the bow and there’s no string to knock it, so he can pretty much just hold it. The right hand is sculpted so you can get it between his fingers and just pretend there’s a string there, but it’s still all wavy and warped.

I do like this figure quite a bit, but in fairness I was more excited about getting a classic style Green Arrow than I was a figure ripped from the pages of Longbow Hunters. The sculpt is certainly there, so maybe Todd’s evil plan is to re-release it as a Platinum with more muted colors. Either way, this is my favorite look for Ollie, with the costume leaning into the past, but the flippant feather cap traded in for a more menacing hood. The bow will get a pass if I can actually string it, but I wish the arrow were cast in harder plastic so it wasn’t so warped. OK, onward to The Atom!

Unlike Ollie, this Ray Palmer release isn’t tied to any specific story, but rather just advertised as Silver Age. I’m sure The Atom has had some different looks over the years, but this is the basic costume that I know and love best. Also unlike Ollie, this figure is 100% recycled buck from the neck down, using paint and colored plastic to achieve the design of the suit. It’s the same body we saw for Booster Gold and Blue Beetle and surely more than a dozen other figures by now. I don’t have a big problem with body recycling when it makes sense and works for the character and in this case I think it does. The blue and red deco looks absolutely gorgeous and you get a little silver paint for the belt buckle, along with a crisp Atom symbol.

The portrait is pretty good, with some nicely defined facial features. The lines between the cowl and his face are all sculpted as well as painted and his ears are exposed. The eye printing is fairly sharp, there’s a little color to the lips, and you get the Atom symbol printed on the forehead area of the cowl.

Ray comes with two sets of hands, which is nice because the left gun-hand that comes on the figure doesn’t make a lot of sense, while the right fist is a appropriate. The second set includes a right pointy finger and a left splayed-finger hand.

You also get a semi-shrunken version of The Atom as a static figure. This is a roughly half-sized version of Palmer and it’s a damn nice sculpt. They matched the colors perfectly and the only thing it’s really missing are the Atom symbols on the belt and cowl.

I may not get the whole Digital Physical thing, but I’m not going to quibble when I get more classic legacy characters to put on my DC Multiverse shelf. To be fair, I’d rather get these kinds of figures as part of this subset rather than have to pay five dollars more for the Collectors Edition just to get a stand for a collector card that I will never display. A few nitpicks aside, both of these figures turned out really well, although I’d love to see a properly strung longbow for Ollie turn up in an weapons pack down the road.