There’s something so satisfying about snapping those last pieces together onto a DC Universe Collect & Connect figure. That’s especially true this time around since apart from Hawkman, I really didn’t have to buy any figures in Wave 19 that I didn’t actually want. But also because I really, really wanted STRIPE in my collection and this was really the only way Mattel could do him justice.

STRIPE’s parts came spread out over all six figures in Wave 19. This time there was no extra figure with a stand or any of that jazz. So when all was said and done, you needed the two arms, the two legs, the head and crotch piece, and the torso. He snaps together pretty easily, but his joints were a real bitch to get unstuck and loosened up. I was literally afraid I was going to snap the arms apart, while trying to get the shoulder joints to move for the first time. Luckily they eventually gave way, and now all the joints can be manipulated just fine. Once together, STRIPE is one seriously satisfying hunk of a figure.

The sculpt here is absolutely fantastic, although you may recognize a couple of the parts. The legs are both repainted from Stel, the C&C figure from Green Lantern Classics Wave 2. (We haven’t looked at him here yet on FigureFan, because I’m still two figures (ie two arms) away from completing that wave and figure) Some may cry foul at the reuse, but honestly I think it works just fine and they match the rest of the sculpt quite appropriately. There’s some really good tooling all around on this figure, particularly in the panel lining and the detail work in the arms and fists.

When I first saw pics of STRIPE, I was kind of leary about the coloring. It looked sort of cheap. The actual figure in hand is much better, largely thanks to the mother-of-pearl style finish used on the bulk of the figure. It has a nice subtle sheen to it that really contrasts beautifully with the red and blue. Granted, it is a little strange seeing a figure this big with so few paint apps, but it definitely jives with the character design and I’m really glad Mattel resisted the urge to put some kind of wash on him.

STRIPE’s articulation consists of ball joints in the shoulders, hips, and neck; Hinges in the elbows, knees, and ankles; And swivels in the biceps, wrists, and waist. His shoulder army is constructed to offer some pliability when articulating the shoulders, and while it does offer some restriction, you can still easily get STRIPE’s arms up to about 90-degrees at the shoulders. He’s certainly a very poseable figure.

I’m a huge fan of teams when it comes to my superhero funny books, so its no surprise that I like Stars and STRIPE. I mean, apart from the fact that its generally a damn good book. So, having a Stargirl and STRIPE on my DCUC shelf is pretty exciting, especially since the figures turned out so well. If I could come up with just one other duo that I would have liked to see hit the DCUC before it ends it would be Hawk and Dove and they’re actually in Wave 20, so I’m a pretty happy camper.

And that closes the book on Wave 19 of DC Universe Classics. I’m going to give this line a rest for a couple of days, look at some other things, and then I’ll come back to finish up looking at Wave 17, take another intermission, and then check out the rest of Green Lantern Classics 2, which I started a long time ago.

There have been plenty of times where DCUC has put out a figure that I loved despite not giving a crap about the character. Magog is one of those instances. Of course, the reason I don’t care about the character is because this is one of those rare instances where I have absolutely no idea who he is. I’ve certainly picked up an occasional figure in this line where I wasn’t entirely familiar with a character, but this is one of the first times that I swear I’ve never seen him before. According to his confusing little bio on the back, he’s relatively new, first appearing in JSA just a few years ago. Let’s see what he’s all about…

And there we go. Say goodbye to the Wave 19 packaging, for this is the last packaged figure in the assortment to look at. Of course, the Wave 20 will be the same, as will that of Wave 17, which we’ll start looking at next week, so there’s no reason to start tearing up and sobbing. Magog looks pretty cool in the package with a bit of a neutral stance, one fist clenched against his chest and his staff in hand. What’s with all the staffs lately, Mattel? Seems like we’re getting a disproportionate number of DCUC figures with staffs lately. Oh well.

Out of the package, Magog is an interesting composite character indeed. He’s got a golden ram horned helmet that looks straight out of antiquity, but he’s also got what looks like cybernetics in his neck, a golden armored or mechanical arm, and an automatic pistol slung across his belt. I gotta say, I’m digging the look here. Seeing this amount of new tooling on a character I don’t even know is pretty surprising. But whatever the case, Mattel went all out on him. I think the only downside of the figure is that the pistol is sculpted as part of the holster and isn’t removable. Given the amount of new tooling here, a removable pistol probably just didn’t cost out, but he would have looked pretty damn sweet holding it. Magog’s paintwork is every bit as good as the sculpt. From his blue trousers to brown belts, bare chest and golden parts, he’s a strikingly beautiful figure.

How’s the articulation? Standard DCUC goodness. Magog has a ball jointed neck; His arms feature ball jointed shoulders, hinged elbows, and swivel cuts in the biceps and wrists; His legs have universal movement in the hips, swivel cuts in the thighs, and hinges in the ankles and knees. Magog can swivel at the waist and features the ubiquitous DCUC ab crunch hinge.

With only one wave of figures left, I’m guessing a lot of folks are sore about Magog here taking up a slot. That having been said, I think he’s a great looking figure and pretty distinctive looking, which says quite a lot in a line of figures based on a bunch of kooks in crazy costumes. The colors and sculpt should  impress, so long as you don’t mind the crazy character design. I’ll probably be tracking down some of those issues of JSA to find out more about him.

And that wraps it up for the regular figures in Wave 19. We do still have the C&C figure, STRIPE, to look at, and I’ll be back to check him out tomorrow.

I’ve already covered four of the six figures from the 19th Wave of DC Universe Classics, so let’s knock off the last two figures today and tomorrow and then we can check out the C&C figure, STRIPE. Today we’re looking at Hawkman and I’ve got some seriously mixed feelings about him turning up in this Wave. The running theme of this Wave has been the JSA and in fairness this is the Golden Age version of the character, but that doesn’t change the fact that we already got Hawkman all the way back in Wave 6, and if you already own that figure then all you’re really getting that’s new here are two new Golden Age heads and the C&C piece. Yep, except for one little change in the paint, this is a straight repack from the neck down. On the plus side… I actually don’t own the Wave 6 release of Hawkman, so…

There’s the DCUC packaging. I’m really anxious to see how the new All Stars packaging will stack up. I don’t know if its because its going away, but I continue to love the presentation of the DC Universe Classics more and more with each figure. Hawkman is carded holding his mace and he really fills out the card beautifully. Mine came packaged with his beaked mask, which I absolutely hate. I’m not sure if this guy was packaged as a variant or not (ie with the other head attached).

Out of the package Hawkman is a great looking figure. But then he was also a great looking figure when he was released 13 waves ago. As I already mentioned, he’s the exact same figure from the neck down save for the absense of the painted emblem on the red disc of his chest harness. The rest of the colors are all the same and the paintwork on my figure is all quite crisp and clean and free of slop. The wings have a nice feathered texture are are hinged on his back, and while the hinge is kind of big and ugly, its at least very sturdy and gives a nice amount of flapping articulation. The wings are also hinged at their peaks and they look quite majestic when spread out to their full span. I’m pretty sure the mace is the same one that came with the Wave 6 Hawkman as well.

I already let it slip that I hate the beaked version of Hawkman’s mask. It’s not any fault of the sculpt, I just think its a stupid looking design. The other head suits me a lot better, but I still don’t like it as much as the modern look. Maybe I can buy a trashed Wave 6 Hawkman for cheap and salvage the modern head, but more than likely I’ll wind up buying Mattel’s MOTUC/DCUC 2-pack with the Hawkman and Stratos, since I still don’t have Stratos. But, I digress…

Let’s run down the articulation. You get a ball jointed neck; The arms feature ball jointed shoulders, hinged elbows, and swivel cuts in the biceps and wrists; The legs have universal movement in the hips, swivel cuts in the thighs, and hinges in the ankles and knees. Hawkman swivels at the waist and features the ubiquitous DCUC ab crunch hinge.

I’ve said plenty of times during my looks at Wave 19 that I’m not going to do a lot of nitpicking regarding what characters Mattel decided to put in these final slots before the line goes bye-bye. They were never going to please everyone with their choices, and quite frankly its a good bet they didn’t even know the line was going to be ending when they populated Wave 19. That all having been said, I’m going to break from that because there’s just no way that I wanted a rehash like this one with only two Waves left. I’d be extra pissed if I already owned the previous Hawkman, but then since I prefer the more modern look, this figure is still nothing more than a placeholder in my collection. He’s a fine figure, and I’m sure there’s plenty of JSA fans and completists who will disagree with me, but I seriously could think of dozens of characters who should have gotten this slot in the penultimate Wave.

See ya tomorrow with a look at Magog!

I should be trying to space out some of these posts so I don’t spend all my material at the beginning of the month, but truth be told, I have a shit ton of figures coming in over the next week or so. As a result, I’m back to look at the last of the Wave 19 DC Universe Classics figures I currently have and that’s Lord Naga the head of Kobra. He’s another one of the figures in this assortment that I was pretty excited to get and he’s definitely one of the more unique looking additions to the DCUC collection.

And… there we go again, the standard DCUC packaging. I’ve got to say Naga looks amazing inside that bubble. He really fills the card out well and the artwork on the cardback really frames this figure beautifully. I’m not sure about his icon on the bottom insert, though. It’s supposed to be the emblem on his hood, but what’s that supposed to be? A snake scale? Either way, this was one figure that made me a little sad to rip open because he looks so good packaged. Lord Naga comes with the torso for the C&C STRIPE figure, which is barely contained under the insert on the bottom of the bubble.

So, to the uninitiated Lord Naga kind of looks like Zartan cosplaying Serpentor at a Comic Con. But anyone familiar with the character should be pleased at how well the figure nails the character’s design. He may reuse some parts here and there, but the figure is so well put together that he looks one hundred percent new. The scaled green buck really meshes beautifully with the gold sash, gauntlets, boots and shoulder plates. The sculpted hood is a separate piece, which allows the head to take full advantage of the ball jointed neck.

Articulation roll call. Neck? Ball joint. Arms? Ball jointed shoulders, swivels in the biceps and wrists, and hinged elbows. Legs? Universal hip movement, swivels in the thighs, hinges in the ankles and knees. Torso? Standard funky DCUC ab crunch. Yep, even with all that awesome sculpting, Lord Naga doesn’t miss a beat of the standard DCUC poseability.

In addition to the Collect & Connect piece, Lord Naga comes with a golden cobra staff that would make Cobra Commander proud. Yep, the Joe references practically write themselves with this guy. Hell, he even feels everything his former conjoined twin brother feels. Crimson Guard Commander twins, anyone? His hands are sculpted so that he can hold it in either hand or wield it in both.

Lord Naga was an awesome surprise for this wave, as at this point I really didn’t expect him to show up in the line at all. Well, at least not until the early production shots started leaking out. Once again, I think he was a great choice for a figure and another reason why Wave 19 has been one of my favorites in a while. As far as villains go, Lord Naga didn’t really play favorites with any one hero, so he’s a great compliment to any number figures in your DCUC collection, and he just looks damn great on the shelf.

I’m going to take a little break from DCUC for a bit, but I have just put in an order for the last two figures I need in Wave 19: Hawkman and Magog. I’ll move on to some other goodies and probably be back to cover those figures and the C&C figure, STRIPE, toward the end of next week. Afterall, Wave 20 is now hitting retail, and I’m pretty anxious to get my hands on those figures too.

Pushing forward on Wave 19 of DC Universe Classics, today I’m checking out another member of the Justice Society, Sandman. He’s a great character, but I’ve heard my share of grumblings about the way the figure turned out. Personally, I’m extremely happy with him. Once again, I’m a bit short on time, so this one is going to be another quickie. Let’s see what we got…

Yuppers. DCUC packaging. I dont’t have a lot left to say here, although I do really dig the gasmask logo they cooked up for him on the bottom insert. It looks cool and gives a nice personalized quality to the packaged figure. Sandman comes with one of C&C STRIPE’s legs, mostly concealed behind the insert.

                             

So, right out of the gate, its pretty easy to tell that Sandman features a fair amount of reused sculpting from The Question. The legs and arms are identical, as is the hat. The shirt and tie appear to be the same too, and while at first glance I thought the suit jacket was the same, there are significant differences. At the very least there’s been some resculpting, although I’m thinking it might be entirely new. Sandman’s costume includes a purple cape that clashes with the green suit enough to make The Joker envious. He also has a clever little hook on his jacket that you can use to hang his gas gun. It was pretty tough for me to get a good look at Sandman’s head sculpt, since most of the production pictures were smaller and his face just looked like a yellow blob. As it turns out I’m really happy with the way the gasmask came out. It’s just a little bit creepy.

Sandman shares the same articulation as The Question, which is pretty common with most DCUC figures. The neck is ball jointed; The arms feature ball joints in the shoulders, swivels in the wrists and biceps, and hinged elbows. The legs feature universal movement at the hips, swivels in the thighs, and hinged knees and ankles. The only common articulation missing is the ab crunch in the chest. It may be there, but its buried under all that sculpted clothing. Unfortunately, I’ve got a pretty loose joint on Sandman’s right bicep swivel.

                               

Sandman turned out to be one of my favorites of Wave 19. He’s a simple figure, and yes he borrows a lot from The Question, but both figures have a great pulp style to them and both are more than a little bit creepy, especially for heroes. Again, some collectors might argue whether he deserved a slot with only two waves left in the line, but I for one am glad Mattel produced him.

There’s more Doctor Who stuff to come next week, so I’m going to try to run through as much as I can of the 19th Wave of DC Universe Classics before then. We kicked off the Wave last week with a look at Stargirl. Today we’ll check out The Atom. He’s a pretty straight forward figure, so I’m going to go through this one real quick.

Same trusty old DCUC packaging, consisting of a huge bubble on a slab-o-cardback. Atom comes packaged in a fairly simple pose with a wide stance and arms up. He fills out the bubble nicely. It’s hard to tell from the package shot, but he does come with pieces for the C&C figure STRIPE. The head and pelvis are snugly concealed uner the insert at the bottom. Amazingly enough, even though The Atom is packaged in a fairly neutral position from the waist down, my figure still came out of the package with some joint issues. In this case the hinge on his left hip joint is all loosey-goosey. It’s the first time I’ve had that problem with a DCUC figure, but sadly not the last time I will have joint issues with figures in this wave.

                                                                        

Of all the figures in Wave 19, The Atom features the least amount of unique sculpting. He’s basically a standard buck with most of his detail achieved through paintwork. He does, however, sport some sculpted arm bracers and a simple blue cape, which is permanently anchored to his back between the shoulder blades. The paint apps are pretty good, with a little bit of grunge here and there. This version of The Atom’s design has an admittedly strange color ensemble with brown, yellow, red and blue, but it is certainly faithful to the comic art. Them JSA members had some odd ideas of fashion.                                                       

The Atom features standard DCUC articulation which includes: A ball jointed neck, ball jointed shoulders, swivels in the biceps and wrists, and hinged elbows. His legs feature universal movement in the hips, swivels in the thighs, and hinges in the knees and ankles. He has the standard ab crunch in the torso. Even with the bum hip hinge, my Atom can stand ok, but it doesn’t take much to send him toppling. Hopefully this is an isolated issue and not one that’s going to plague the entire run of Atomseses.

If your an old school Justice Society fan than you are probably already sold on picking up Atom here. I am not so much, but I certainly didn’t mind having to buy him in order to get the C&C parts for STRIPE. He’s a solid treatment of the character and a nice addition to my DC shelves. I’ll keep the DCUC train rolling along tomorrow with a looksy at The Sandman.

I’m really trying to get caught up with my DC Universe Classics figures before the line goes away and Matty starts shipping me the Infinite Earths subscription figures later this year. Sure, it seems like plenty of time, but I’ve got about three Waves to catch up on, and that’s not counting the forthcoming Wave 20 and some older figures that I missed along the way. Since I’m still kind of lukewarm on some of the figures in Wave 17 and 18, I thought I’d jump ahead to Wave 19. It’s one of those uncommon assortments where I’m actually excited to own each and every figure, (well, maybe not so much Golden Age Hawkman, but definitely all the rest) as well as building the Collect & Connect STRIPE. Normally, I would just grab a whole case to complete the Wave in one shot, but Tis the Season to be short on money, so I started out by just buying Stargirl and Kobra. Today we’ll check out Stargirl.

Standard DCUC packaging. The last figure in this line I looked at was from Wave 17, but the packaging hasn’t really changed much. I chose to buy Stargirl first because I really dig the Ted and Jack Knight Starman figures. Plus, I decided that having Stargirl in my collection would make me extra anxious to finish the Wave and build STRIPE. Uh oh… look at that action pose! Amazingly, my Stargirl came out of the package with no warping or mangling to the joints, which is more than can be said for many of my female DCUC figures.

Stargirl uses a pretty standard version of the DCUC female buck, which seems to irk some collectors to no end. Me? I’m fine with it. The arms are admittedly very skinny, but I still think they look appropriately scaled and they don’t appear fragile or prone to warpage. Mattel nailed Stargirl’s look pretty well here, with new sculpting for her calf-high boots and mid-riff exposing top and those wonderful boxing shorts. Most of the deco for her star-spangled top are executed with paint apps, as with the striping on her shorts, but the belt is actually sculpted. I’ve got no complaints about the paintwork on the figure. Even the red laces on her boots are executed without much slop and I really dig the slightly metallic sheen to the blue for her costume.

And then there’s the head sculpt. Courtney here is obviously brainwashed by the same cult as Mary Batson, because both figures have that same vacant, maniacal grin that just creeps me the hell out. Still, the cheese factor kind of works with the costume and the character, so I won’t go so far as to say I’m hating on it. It’s a solid sculpt and the hair is maneuvered a bit away from the shoulders to allow some functionality to her neck joint.

And speaking of joints, Stargirl provides the usual points of articulation we come to expect from the DCUC line. You get a ball jointed neck; The arms feature ball joints in the shoulders, swivels in the biceps and wrists, and hinged elbows. The legs feature universal hip movment, swivel cuts in both the thighs and just above the boots, and hinges in the ankles and knees. The torso features the ab crunch hinge and a swivel at the waist.

Stargirl comes with the Cosmic Rod. It’s the same sculpt used for the Rod that was included with Jack Knight Starman back in Wave 15, but this time its cast in a yellow translucent plastic. I’m not terribly keen on the translucent plastic used, but I’ll concede that its better than getting a straight repack of the older accessory. She also comes with the torso piece for the C&C STRIPE figure. The huge torso was an obvious choice, since Stargirl is a lot smaller than the rest of Wave 19’s roster, leaving plenty of room for all that extra plastic in the bubble.

With only two Waves left, there’s bound to be some nitpicking about which characters are filling those precious last slots. There’s no doubt I’ll be taking issue with a figure or two, but Stargirl here isn’t one of them. Getting her in just before the curtain fell was a good idea and getting her out in a Wave with a C&C STRIPE figure was an even better one.