Unlike Ted Kord, who was just a costumed hero with only his wits and technology, Jamie dons an alien powered supersuit, which explains the huge difference in the look. Jaime’s suit has a really cool, and just a tad creepy, alien design, which is wonderfully translated into this figure. Although the head sculpt reminds me of Forager. I think it’s the diamond shaped eyes.The black and blue really look great and I love all the little sculpted segments and decos throughout the body of the suit. This is a very striking figure, even more so because it’s a 100 percent unique sculpt, and let’s face it, that’s something of a rarity in the DCUC line.

The wings are attached to his back in one solid, sculpted piece. They look fine and I particularly like the semi-translucent plastic that looks like a membrane. Alas, they do not feature any articulation. Blue Beetle’s body on the other hand, brings some new tricks to the old DCUC articulation in that he has double hinged elbows and knees, instead of the standard single hinge. It looks like Mattel has taken a page from Hasbro’s GI Joe/Marvel Universe book and it seems like we’ll be seeing this new body type in future waves, as it’s already in partial use in the just released Green Lantern Classics wave.
Blue Beetle comes with a clip-on sword, that is supposed to be an extension of his suit. I would have liked it better if this piece fit over the fist as with the Green Lantern constructs or the Metal Men weapons. The clip tends to be a little loose and the piece will fall off. Beetle also comes with the left leg piece for the Trigon C&C figure.

I think fans of the Jamie Reyes Blue Beetle should be very happy with this figure. It’s not only a fantastically unique addition to the DCUCroster, but it definitely does the character design justice. But even if you’re not willing to let Ted Kord (or Dan Garret for that matter) go in favor of the new blood, I think you’ll still have to agree this is an excellent figure.

Under the jacket, Superboy features a pretty standard DCUC body with a sculpted belt and strap around his right leg. The rest of the details are achieved through paint apps, including the Superman emblem, again beautifully painted, on his chest. The overall ensemble is a nice mix of iconic Superman with attitude-addled teen. It just works for me. The head sculpt adds to the look with the sculpted on shades and the flock of bangs over his forehead. Superboy features the standard DCUC articulation. Mattel was even able to make the ab crunch joint work with the jacket in place, which was a nice surprise.

You probably wouldn’t be expecting any accessories to be included with Superboy, so you won’t be disappointed. All he comes with his the Left Arm piece for the Collect & Connect Trigon figure.

As I’ve mentioned at least once before, Wave 13 is not an assortment that is bogged down with a lot of A-Listers and heavy hitters. Nonetheless, Superboy here definitely garners the most name recognition of the lot and his figure turned out absolutely gorgeous. Granted, a lot of collectors looking for a Superboy figure aren’t necessarily going to be seeking out this design, but I’m sure Mattel will grace us with a more modern, black shirted version. Perhaps when all this Green Lantern stuff starts to die down.

CLEVAGE!!! What? Sorry. I jumped the gun there a bit. There’s more to this figure than her huge bust and plunging neckline, but she sure does give Power Girl a run for her money in the “hey look at my boobs” department, and that’s saying quite a lot, so I guess it was only natural to start there. It’s just odd to see a villain that first appeared back in the 40’s showing off this much of her goodies. The head sculpt is excellent as she has a stern, yet attractive face and her little cat ear nubs are just great. The tail is made of soft rubber and curls at the end. There’s a swivel cut about halfway down the tail so you can have it curling up or down.

Apart from the head and the tail, most of Cheetah’s detail comes from the cheetah spot paint apps on her skin tight suit. The spots are plentiful and nice and cleanly applied, as are the paint apps on her face. Even her fingernails are painted red.

Next up is Barbara Minerva, who took the character in a totally new direction. She’s not just some fruitcake villain in a costume. She’s actually got some crazy African blood deity taking up residence in her bod. Naturally, the aesthetics are quite different. Now we’re into Thundercats territory. Minerva’s cat features are part of her body, complete with clawed hands and feet. Her headsculpt is absolutely fantastic. Not only does she have a pretty face, but the detail work on her hair is amazing. As good as the head and hair look, though, it does inhibit her neck articulation. Barbara’s tail is identical in sculpt to Priscilla’s, although she has some painted strips at the tip. This Cheetah’s spots are painted onto her skin and her costume is also painted on, which includes a mid-riff exposing halter top and a pair of pants that come down just below her knees.

Both Cheetah’s have the same level of articulation, and both share the same problem with their hip joints. The tendanacy is for their legs to default to a wide stance and they resist being together. [Insert your own “Cheetah is a slut” joke here. -FF] Now, considering the femaleDCUC figures often have enough problems standing up, it’s really an issue with these two. If you have any spare stands, I recommend you free them up for these ladies. You can try propping them up with their tails, but I’ve not had all that much luck with that strategy.

I may like the Priscilla Rich best, but both Cheetah figures are absolutely fantastic. The sculpting and paint apps come together really well to produce two fine additions to both the DCUC’s roster of villains and female figures. They are definitely two of the strongest figures in this wave and I highly recommend picking up both of them.

Cyclotron has all the potential to have been a great Masters of the Universe figure. Seriously, a little adjustment to his proportions and I could see him hanging out with He-Man and punching Skeletor right in the face. The best surprise for me about this figure is his removable head and face plate. Early production shots of this figure were really confusing and I was totally convinced that he would be one of the variants (like Negative Man) and that you either got him with his robot parts showing or his human bits. But nope you can just flick off his face and chest piece to reveal his robot nature.

In his human form he’s a pretty distinctive looking figure, and the inspiration from the original Kenner toy is certainly there. The green and yellow deco is nice, and there’s a lot of detail sculpted into his outfit, particularly in his torso and boots. His head sculpt features a fairly blank expression and a pair of red shades capped off by a helmet to match his outfit. The red tab on the front of his chest is there to help pop off his chest piece. Both the face and the chestpiece lock on very tightly so there’s no fear of them popping off. Unfortunately, Cyclotron is a bit of a bobblehead. Popping off his human parts reveals the android underneith. It’s silver with some sculpted detail. The android face is recessed quite a bit under the helmet, so you really have to get in close to see it well.

Unless you count his removable skin pieces, Cyclontron doesn’t come with any accessories. And since he’s a Superpowers figure, he also doesn’t include any of the Trigon Collect & Connect pieces. He does, however come with a nice Superpowers figure stand.

Ok, so Cyclotron’s backstory isn’t the greatest, or even the most plausible for that matter, but he still makes for an awesome figure. He’s also a great bit of nostalgia for anyone who has fond memories of the old Kenner figures. As already mentioned, these Superpowers figures tend to be among my favorites in each wave and Cyclotron is no exception.

Unlike Negative Man, I actually really dig this figure. It’s hardly a fair comparison since Negative Man is just a dude wrapped in bandages and Blue Devil here is, um, a blue devil. Either way, this is a great looking figure with a lot more unique sculpting than Negative Man. Just check out his head sculpt. Sure he’s got all the devil trappings going on, the horns, the double goatee, the ears, but he still looks like somebody you could go have a beer with and maybe play some Xbox Live afterwards. I’m also imaging he says “dude” a lot, and if you’ve read his books and he doesn’t, I don’t want you breaking my misconception. The color scheme is pretty simple, but the two-tone blue and yellow is certainly pleasing on the eye.

Blue Devil comes with a staff, so he can join my Aquaman, Jack Knight, and Golden Pharaoh in their childish, “Ha-Ha, We Have A Staff And You Don’t” DCUC Clique. [Seriously, they all taunt the other figures on the shelf all day long, Batman gets good and pissed about it, too. -FF] He also comes with the torso and cape pieces for the C&C Trigon figure.

It’s not uncommon for me to get into reading a character’s funny books solely because I liked their action figure. I don’t think that’s going to be the case with Blue Devil, though. I’ll give his back story some points for being original, but there’s nothing about it that really makes me want to rush out to the used comic shop and pick up a stack of them. Besides, I’ve got enough back issues of comics that I am genuinely interested in as it is. Nonetheless, if you’re a fan, I think you’ll probably dig this figure a lot. If you’re like me and picked him up just for Trigon’s parts, well, you could do a lot worse. He really is pretty cool.

The packaging is… oh hell with it. You know what the packaging looks like. It’s the same packaging we’ve seen in the last wave and the wave before that. I’m done talking about the packaging for the rest of the week. I’m also done talking about those crappy little buttons that come with the figures. I’ve got a cigar box with three dozen of those things rattling around in it.

Negative Man features a pretty standard DCUC body sculpt with standard DCUC articulation. With the exception of his belt, hands and head, there’s no special tooling or sculpted detail, just the paint apps to make him look distinctive. His head and hands are sculpted with bandages and he has a nice simple look to him, but there’s not a lot more I can say about this figure. At least the paint apps on mine are crisp and clean.

Negative Man doesn’t come with any accessories, although he does come with the right leg piece to build the Trigon C&C figure, as well as Trigon’s staff. I would have much rather he just come with a stand, so I could have skipped him all together.

There’s nothing wrong with this figure. From the artwork that I was able to scare up, it looks pretty faithful to the source material. I just really wonder how many collectors out there are cheering at the fact that they finally have Negative Man in their collections. But that’s totally cool if you’re one of those people, see, because that’s what makes DCUC such an awesome line of figures. I mean, I doubt the streets weren’t awash with glee when Mister Miracle’s figure was released, but I remember that I was thrilled to get him because I read all his comics as a kid. Hell, I’m still waiting on Oberon. Not that Negative Man is really comparable to Scott Free in terms of importance to the DC Universe, but hopefully you get my drift. Oh yeah, if you are just crazy over Negative Man, he was also available as a variant unbandaged head version. Just saying, is all.

Back when Martian Manhunter was finally released in the DCUC line, many people were celebrating the final completion of their Justice League in this format. Many people, but not me, since I was still missing Hawkgirl. [Technically, I’m still missing John Stewart, but Hal Jordan is a perfectly fine stand-in for now. -FF] Hawkgirl is easy enough to find online, but finding her for a price that doesn’t constitute economic rape is another matter. That’s why I give Mattel huge kudos for finally re-releasing her in this two-pack. I bestow even further kudos for bundling her with the equally expensive Gentleman Ghost, a figure that has been going for insane prices on the secondary market. I do have to take back a few of those kudos for making this set a Walmart Exclusive, but I was ultimately able to get it, so it’s all good.

This set comes in what has become the standard fishtank style packaging for DCUC two-packs, that does a fine job replicating the stylings of the single carded figures. The window wraps around a bit on the sides and there’s an additional window on top, so the figures are displayed extremely well. There are only a few rubber bands holding the figures in, so theoretically, you can remove them and return them to the package for display, although between Hawkgirl’s wings and Gentleman Ghost’s cape, you may wind up mangling the tray trying to get them out. Both figures are packaged in a bit of an action pose, which worried me, but there doesn’t seem to be any warping to the joints on my figures. Also, don’t forget Hawkgirl’s spear taped to the bottom of the tray. I almost tossed the packaging with the spear still inside.

First off… Hawkgirl. This has been that one elusive DCUC figure I’ve been wanting to pick up since I started collecting the line a little over a year ago. I’m not really a fan of comic Hawkgirl, but man, did I love her in the Justice League cartoon. That bird lady can cuddle my bone any day. Because… um… cuddlebone… and birds… ‘kay. The sculpt is fantastic and I think the figure does a fine job straddling the traditional comic design with the more recent catoon style. I was also really happy to see that her sculpted hair doesn’t interfere too badly with her neck articulation going from side to side, although her head does tend to naturally look downward, and there’s not much you can do about it. The paint apps are overall pretty good, although there is a scratch in the yellow on my figure’s belt, which I may eventually touch up with some Testor’s flat enamel.

Hawkgirl’s wings are awesome, and I’d say almost perfect. The feathered sculpting looks fantastic and the articulation is great. The only problem here is that when she’s viewed from behind you’re treated to a pretty big unsightly hinge, but at least they appear to be durable. Amazingly, she is not overly backheavy and stands fine on her own. Hawkgirl is also one of the few figures that works really well with Mattel’s flight stands, since you can actually get the clip between the wings and around her waist.

And then, there’s Gentleman Ghost. Let me be honest here, I don’t really give two shits about Gentleman Ghost. I think I saw him once in an episode of Brave and the Bold, but apart from that the character doesn’t mean a lot to me. That having been said, he is one damn sweet looking figure, even more so when you factor in that he doesn’t have any paint apps whatsoever and severely fucks with my shitty camera’s white balance. He also has no head to speak of, and the figure is designed to use the high collar to suspend his hat and monicle is really genius, and the attention to detail in his tux really carries the figure well. The bottom part of his legs and cape are sort of translucent, which further drive’s home the ghost motif.

Wait, I’m forgetting something… accessories!!! No, getting accessories with our figures is not something we DCUC collectors are accustom to. That’s what happens when most of the characters in the line can kill you simply by punching you, or looking at you, or thinking about punching or looking at you. But this set really packs in the accessories. Hawkgirl comes with no less than three weapons. You get her trademark mace, a short sword, and her spear. I’m pretty sure the spear is different from the original release, but I’m not certain. Gentleman Ghost comes with a flintlock and a walking stick, both painted white, naturally. You’ll notice his walking stick isn’t in any of the out-of-package pictures. That’s because right after I opened the set, my cat ambushed me and ran off with it and won’t tell me where the hell he put it.

Retail on this set is about $29.99, which is typical for these two packs. In the end, I think the only collectors who aren’t going to see this set as a godsend are a) The ones patting themselves on the back for already owning these figures as their prices continued to climb and b) Those people who dropped a bundle for these figures on the secondary market shortly before this set was revealed. But then that’s always the problem with reissues. I’ve certainly had any number of figures in my collection devalued because of reissues, and I can’t say it’s ever bothered me. I do this for fun and not profit and if it helps a fellow collector get a figure they wanted, I give it my blessing.