It’s DC Friday again and time to wrap up my look at the DC Collectibles’ New 52 Justice League set with The Flash and Cyborg! If you missed out on the last two installments, you can check out the packaging along with Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman here and Green Lantern and Aquaman here. Let’s start with Barry Allen…

While The Flash is in no way a terrible figure, I’m sorry to say that I find him to be the weakest of the set. I guess someone had to come out on the bottom, but in this case the few issues I have with him are pretty specific. But first, I’ll say that I like this sculpt a lot. With the New 52 behind us, I can take this opportunity to say that I’ve been perfectly fine with all the Justice League costumes and that goes for Flash as well. Granted, it’s not a huge departure from previous looks. The main difference is the addition of the panel lines and these are all part of the sculpt, as are the lightning bolts on his waist and arms, and his chest insignia. I particularly like the sculpted lines in the boots.

The coloring on this figure is overall quite good. The plastic used for the bulk of his suit is rich and vibrant and it contrasts nicely with the bright glossy yellow used on the boots and lightning bolts.

The portrait is where I think this figure starts to falter. The mouth is just weird. I do like the sculpted detail in the hood and chin cup. God, everyone seems to have hated that chin cup. It wasn’t such a big deal to me. The wings on the hood are made of pretty hard plastic, so they won’t warp, but that also means they feel really fragile. It probably wouldn’t take much to snap them off. The paint around the mask and face is fairly straight and clean. I wish I could say the same for the emblem on his chest. It’s easily the weakest paint work in the entire set.

The articulation here is the same as we saw on the previous figures. That includes rotating hinges in the shoulders, swivels in the biceps, hinges in the elbows and knees, a T-crotch for the hips, and a ball joint in the neck. It’s nothing outrageous, but I can still get Barry into a decent running pose. I will note that the right bicep swivel on my figure has a little pull to it leaving a gap between the joints. Bummer. Let’s move on to Cyborg!

Cyborg is an appropriately large figure. He’s not only bulky, but stands almost a head taller than the rest of The League. The figure features a clean and somewhat simple sculpt with some deep cut panel lines as well as some segmented sections between the joints and on the sides of his torso. I really prefer this over-sized look for the character as opposed to the leaner and more human proportioned renditions.

The paint here is well done, but I’m surprised they didn’t go for a metallic finish. I mean, they did it for Green Lantern and Aquaman’s scalemail shirt, it seems like they could have ponied up for it here as well. Then again, it might have been an artistic choice and I’ll concede that the more satiny finish doesn’t look bad, by any means. From the neck down this is mostly a monochrome look with just the bright red domes in the chest, back, and hips to make the deco pop.

They did a really solid job with the portrait here. The high collar looks great and I like the exposed segmented part of the neck. You also get some more detailed panel lines in the cybernetic half of his face. The paintwork here is fairly good. The hairline could have been sharper, but it’s not too bad either.

Cyborg is the one figure that adds a bit of articulation over the rest and that’s additional swivels in his forearms. It’s odd that he should get extra points, as I consider him to be the least agile of the bunch. On the other hand, even with those extra swivels, there’s not a whole lot you can do with him when it comes to posing.

It was fun for me to give this set a once over now that the New 52 is behind us and even with a few disappointing things about The Flash, I’d say this is a fine collection of figures, so long as you aren’t in the market for anything super pose-able. Personally, I plan on keeping this set displayed in a box up on top of one of my display cases where it looks fantastic. Either way, I think it’s a fitting end tribute to the action figures from this era of DC Comics, and while a few New 52 appearances are bound to still turn up in DC Icons and maybe some statues, it’s probably safe to say that by next year it’ll be phased out for either ReBirth designs or more classic looks. While I drifted in and out of lots of different books across the New 52, The Justice League was one of the books where I never missed an issue. It wasn’t always great, but I think it was almost always good. Although, I’d still rank Wonder Woman as my favorite New 52 title. With that having been said, next week I’ll be checking out another one of the Cover Girls statue, which will land us right back in this era.

It’s been another killer of a week for me at work, folks, but the show must go on here at FFZ. Fortunately the figures I have on tap for today won’t require a lot of time from me, so I can crawl back into bed with a bottle of Jameson and some comic books. On the last DC Friday, I started checking out DC Collectibles’ New 52 Justice League set with Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman. Today, I’m pressing on with a look at Aquaman and Hal Jordan. If you want a refresher on the packaging, have a look back at Part 1, otherwise, let’s start with Aquaman…

It may be the New 52 look, but Aquaman’s costume still retained much of its classic and timeless design. The figure features the scale armor tunic with some gorgeous metallic golden-copper paint, a stylishly sculpted belt, green gauntlets, and the green leggings with sculpted fins on the backs of his calves. As far as the costume itself goes, there’s nothing really groundbreaking here, but when it comes to this costume, I always love the contrast between the dark matte hunter green and the glittery top and this figure showcases that perfectly.

There are a couple of nice touches that make this figure rather distinctive. First, he has a pretty cool necklace hanging around his neck. Secondly, his trident is attached to his belt with a gold chain. The trident itself is nothing special, just a simple sculpt cast in gold plastic, but the chain is a cool addition, that is unless you want to display the figure without the trident, because it’s clearly not meant to be taken off.

The portrait here is fantastic, somewhat unconventional, and easily one of the best looks for the character I’ve seen in action figure form. I just love the scruffy beard and sideburns over his usual clean shaven look. He has a fairly pissed off expression. the paint used for the skin tone is excellent, and I really love what they did with his hair. Moving on to Hal…

Green Lantern features one of the simpler sculpts in this set. He does feature some cut panel lines in the shoulders as well as his chest emblem being sculpted. Other then that you mainly just get some nice muscle definition. The costume features a mix of matte black, metallic green, and some lovely pearlescent white for the gloves and face of the chest emblem. The metallic green paint on this guy is quite the eye catcher and it reminds me a lot of the finish Kotobukiya used on their excellent ArtFX+ Hal Jordan only not quite as brilliant.

They did a particularly nice job with his ring. It’s both well defined and neatly painted.

The head sculpt here doesn’t impress me as much as Aquaman’s, but it is very good. It features a rather stern expression, the mask is part of the sculpt, and the paint is all on point. I like the stray wisps of hair over his forehead and more of that lovely green paint on the mask.

The articulation is identical for both of these figures. You get rotating hinges in the shoulders, swivels in the biceps, hinges in the elbows and knees, ball joints in the necks, and t-crotches for the hips. These aren’t super pose-able by any means, but I can still have a little fun with them.

So, overall there aren’t a lot of surprises with this pair, but what’s here is exceptionally well done. The sculpts are solid, the portraits are excellent, and while they aren’t going to feature the play value of DC Icons or even Mattel’s 6-inch DC lines, they look fantastic up on my shelf, especially when displayed with the rest of the Justice League. I believe these are pretty much the same as the individually boxed releases, but I have yet to see those in person, so there may be some variations at work. On the next DC Friday, I’ll wrap up this set with a look at The Flash and Cyborg!

It’s DC Friday, I’m almost caught up on my DC backlog, and so it’s time to dig deep and go into the reserves. I’ve had this set sitting around for what seems like forever. It feels weird to be getting to it only now that the New 52 has been rebooted to ReBirth. Still, this set was a nice way to snatch up the entire New 52 Justice League in one shot and, if you managed to get the original “We Can Be Heroes” release of this set, you were not only getting the figures before they were released individually, but also helping the relief efforts against drought and famine in Africa. I’m going to go through this set in three parts. Now, while this was the first way to get these figures, I actually did a Feature on the later released, Trinity War box set, which included a variant version of this Superman along with straight repacks of Batman and Wonder Woman. So, today I’ll start out with a look at the package and a quick comparison of those figures to the later Trinity War releases, and then tackle the other figures, two at a time, in the following couple of weeks.

When you’re getting seven 7-inch scale figures in a single box, you know it’s going to be sizable. In this case DCC put the figures all in one epic lineup and into a long window box. The box’s deco is very simple and mostly white with a blue slash down the far right side showing some of the characters in silhouette. The set is also set apart from the original release by not having the “We Can Be Heroes” motto printed above the word “Justice.” This box is one of those cases where the packaging itself would be totally forgettable if the figures didn’t look so damn good all lined up like that. It’s a box that makes a statement and arguably displays the figures just as well as if they were lined up loose and on the shelf. Happily everything is collector friendly. You just slit the tape on the side flap and pull out the tray. There’s a clear plastic cover over the tray to keep the figures in place, but no pesky ties to worry about. I like that my set happens to have Wonder Woman looking at Superman, Superman discretely looking back at her, and all the while Batman looks off to the other side as if pretending not to notice. Anyway, this is most definitely a box that I’ll be keeping to display the figures in. I’m going to start with Superman, because he’s really the only one that’s different from the one in the Trinity War box.

From the neck down, the sculpt here is identical to what I showed off December of last year. The only difference in the costume is that the metallic paint has been replaced with a more appropriate flat matte look. Now, I really did dig the metallic version a lot. It felt like a cool callback to Kotobukiya’s ArtFX+ Supes. Of course, the deco was more about giving collectors who already owned the figure an excuse to buy the set, then it was about anything to do with Superman’s appearance in the Trinity War story arc. Here we have a more conventional paint and just a beautiful representation of Krypton’s Last Son in his New 52 outfit. And yes, I do really love this outfit. Every detail on the outfit is part of the actual sculpt, from the panel lines and edges of the boots, right down to the belt and S-Shield. The colors, which consist of rich and vibrant blue, red, and yellow are absolutely gorgeous. I’m just totally in love with the look of this figure.

The cape cascades over Superman’s shoulders and stops right about at the tops of his boots. It’s a fairly pliable plastic and doesn’t throw the figure off balance at all. The back of the cape features a black S-Shield stamped right in the middle.

The portrait is the only difference in sculpt between this release and the Trinity War figure, which had Superman offering up a goofy smile. I was pretty happy with the Trinity War portrait, but this one just blows it out of the water. It’s definitely a more stern look, but I think it’s a great 3D likeness of Jim Lee’s art from the book. The paint is very clean and the hair is more neatly sculpted on this version.

The articulation is pretty standard stuff when it comes to the earlier days of DC Collectibles’ figures. You get rotating hinges in the shoulders, swivels in the biceps, hinges in the elbows and knees, a ball joint in the head, and a simple T-crotch. You can tweak a few different poses out of him, but nothing too crazy. Moving on to Wonder Woman…

I loved this Wonder Woman figure when I got her in the other set, and I still do. This is a great look for her and the sculpt really brings out the details in the costume beautifully. Yes, for all the guff that the New 52 costumes got, and some of it was well deserved, this version of Diana’s digs is just fine with me. I still find it odd, however, that DCC never gave us the costume with the pants, but that’s a discussion for another time. Once again, every detail in the costume is part of the sculpt.

The paint here is nice and clean and pretty consistent with the later Trinity War release. The blue and red is darker than what we saw on Superman, but it has that silver and a little white to help lighten things up. Even the skin tone, which is achieved through bare flesh colored plastic, is smooth and warm. The articulation here is identical to that of Superman, so it’s not all that fantastic, but at least Diana got herself some swivel biceps. That’s not always a sure thing when it comes to the female figures.

Diana comes with her golden lasso sculpted on her right hip and her left hand is sculpted to hold the sword she doesn’t come with. Now, that surprised me, as it was also vacant from the Trinity War set. Apparently the only way to get her sword was to buy the individually boxed figure or the set that paired her with Katana. Now, it’s bad enough to buy the same figure twice, but three times? That would be crazy, right? Well, I’m not saying I did, but I may be getting around to looking at that Wonder Woman/Katana two-pack at some point. Just saying.

When I did my Trinity War Feature, I suggested that Wonder Woman was sporting a new head sculpt, but it turns out that isn’t the case. There are some natural variances in the paint, but they’re quite subtle and it is the very same portrait. I’d say I like this one a little more, just because the eyes are a wee bit straighter, but otherwise they’re both fine and very attractive. I really like the detail and paint on both the choker and the tiara. And oh, look! Bewbs!

And last but not least, we have Batman. Like Wonder Woman, this figure is exactly the same as the one released in the Trinity War set and I’m going to irk a lot of people by once again saying that I really like this costume a lot. Granted, it’s not a huge departure from some of Batman’s iconic looks. You get the same sculpted detail as the other figures, right down to the panel lines and mesh material at the joints, and some very spiffy high gloss black paint for the boots, gloves, and cowl. It makes for a striking contrast against the matte gray finish of the suit. Just lovely!

The cape falls beautifully behind the figure and the scalloped edges drag on the ground. It’s a bit heavier than Superman’s and I love the way the folds are sculpted up near the top. It looks as much like a shroud as it does a cape, and that’s certainly appropriate. The articulation here is identical to Superman and Wonder Woman, so there are options, but I really can’t get any super cool fight poses out of him.

Once again, a really solid head sculpt with a beautiful contrast between the skin tones of the face and the gloss black paint of the cowl. Batman sports a grim expression, which is quite fitting. Let’s check out some quick comparison shots of the figures with the Trinity War releases on the right and the figures from this set on the left…

I knew when I was going in that I was going to be double dipping on some of these figures, but that was OK by me, because I didn’t have any of the other members of the Justice League in this set. And besides, the Superman is different, so it was really just two figures that were already in my collection. And while the set was originally about a hundred bucks, I found mine for a ridiculous $45. And if you hunt around, the set can still be had for very close to that price. They aren’t the most articulated figures out there, but the sculpts and paint on these three are truly fantastic. On the next DC Friday, I’ll have a look at Aquaman and Green Lantern!