Oh boy, is my DC Multiverse collection backing up with new arrivals! The stacks of boxes are continuing to pile higher and I think I’m just going to have to do another opening party one night this week. I may even have to double up on these guys in the weeks ahead just to try to get sort of current. At this point deciding which one to check out next is just down to random grabs and today that turned out to be Cyborg Superman from The New 52!

Everyone seems to loathe The New 52, but it came along for me at a time when I had been out of DC Comics for a little bit and I used the reboot as a point to jump back on, as it was intended. I enjoyed most of it, but I will admit that a lot of the books I liked the most met with early cancellations. Supergirl was one of the longer lived books that I read regularly, which also introduced us to Zor-El as Cyborg Superman. Certainly not the version that most people wanted to see hit the DC Multiverse, but that’s Todd for ya.

Straightaway, this is just an amazing sculpt. The lower half retains the blue suit, but the sculpt is still all borgified with some deep crevices and techno-organic contours. Some red bleeds into the lower legs and the feet are very robotic looking. The upper torso is all bare metal with a sculpted S-shield on the front in red and yellow and the cape attaching at the front of the shoulders. The exposed silver has a crumpled aluminum look to it with some more intricate detail in the neck. The arms have parts of the suit cut away to expose the mechanical body with some mechanized sinew in the shoulders and upper arms. The right arm has some spiked fins, and an exposed robotic elbow joint, and ends with an elongated claw, while the left hand ends in a crumpled fist. Finally, the red cape is tattered and torn. From the sculpt to the colors, this is great stuff!

The head sculpt is pretty grizzly with the upper head looking like business as usual and the flesh on the lower jaw completely gone. There’s a subtle bit of silver marking to the flesh around the forehead and brow region, which makes it look like the flesh is starting to wear off. The eyes are painted red and the coif is sculpted separately giving him an immaculate hair line.

The articulation is nearly identical to what we’re used to seeing in this line, which makes this Supe Borg a lot of fun to play with. The one deviation is the right arm, which only has a single hinge in the elbow. I’m guessing this was to accommodate the aesthetics of the big robot hinge. It would have been cool to get some articulation in the claw’s fingers, but they’re probably too thin to make that work. Instead, they have a bit of a bendy quality to them, making it still useful for grabbing other figures.

Zor-El doesn’t come with any traditional accessories, although you do get a flight stand, which is always a nice bonus, as well as the usual collector card. The flight stand also has a peg on the base, so you can detach the post and use it as a regular stand.

I was excited enough about this release to preorder him, and I’m certainly glad I did. It’s no secret that DC Multiverse gets by with its fair share of generic painted bucks to save on budget, so when we get a figure with this kind of intricate sculpting it really feels like a treat. It’s a damn cool figure, and I think it’s a worthy pick up even for collectors who weren’t into the New 52 Supergirl book. There was a Platinum variant of this figure offered, but I generally don’t chase those down. But, if we do get a Hank Henshaw version of Cyborg Supes released down the road, I will definitely pick him up.