The clock is running out on Matty’s Club Infinite Earth with Ocean Master being the first of the final three figures to be released in the Subscription and no new Sub going forward in 2014. These last figures are going to be a mixed bag for me, but of the three, Ocean Master here is definitely my most anticipated. The DCUC Aquaman on my shelf is getting pretty jealous of the other Justice League members and their expansive Rogue Galleries while all he has is Black Manta. Finally he can stop spending all of his time freeing dolphins from tuna nets and go fight somebody new. Besides, I’m fresh off of reading “Throne of Atlantis” and I gotta say, I really dig Ocean Master’s appearance in The New 52.

There’s the compact little window box I’ve come to know and love over the last couple of years. Of course, this is the Classic design of the character, which I’ve always been rather fond of and he sure looks nice in the box along with the excellent character art. If DC was all I collected I’d have these boxes all lined up on one of my shelves with the lovely character art showing on the side panels. <sigh> Unfortunately, I barely have enough room to display my DC figures loose, so these boxes have all been consigned to the landfill or possibly recycled into My Little Pony packages. Let’s get him out and take a look…

Last month we got a lot of new tooling with Huntress. This month, not so much. Ocean Master features a standard blue buck with a sculpted belt and sculpted fins on his bracers. I expected Matty to go with the fins on his calves too, but I’m glad they didn’t as it would have made him too similar to his nemesis Aquaman. Ocean Master does get a brand new head and it is a very cool sculpt. Matty went for something a little more subdued than what is depicted on the maniacal box art. He has a solemn, somewhat perturbed visage peeking out from his awesome finned mask. The new tooling is punctuated by a glorious cape with a ridiculously wide collar. I love it!

Ocean Master gets by with minimal paint apps. His buck is cast in blue plastic, with some metallic purple paint on his belt to match his purple cape. His bracers, mask fins, and cape clasp are all painted in metallic gold. His ray emblem is stamped on his chest and he’s got flesh tones for his hands and face. The coloring is understated, but he still sports a very pleasing deco.

Articulation is what we all expect out of the DCUC style. The arms have ball joints in the shoulders, hinges in the elbows, and swivels in the biceps and wrists. The legs have the usual DCUC style hips, hinges in the knees and ankles, and swivels in the thighs. The neck is ball jointed, there is a swivel in the waist, and he has the usual ab-crunch hinge in the torso.

Ocean Master comes with his aquatic staff. It’s a pretty simple sculpt finished with a gold metallic paint.

And so, Ocean Master is a solid figure and a welcome addition to my shelf. I’m always eager to expand my Rogue Galleries, particularly someone like Aquaman who is seriously lacking in foes. With only so many figure slots left in the line, it’s easy to start picking apart the character selection, but I think Ocean Master was a great choice. In fact, I’m rather surprised that in 20 waves of DC Universe Classics, he hasn’t made the cut a lot sooner.

Alas, I’m not terribly keen on the looks of R’as, so hopefully he’ll look better in hand, and I’ll confess to being morbidly curious about Batzarro. It’s worth pointing out that Mattel revealed at NY Comic Con that they will be producing the four figures that were shown off for Club Infinite Earth in 2014. These will include 90’s Aquaman, Ice (YES!!!), Black T-Shirt Superboy, and hell if I can remember who the other one was. If I can’t remember, I certainly wasn’t going to buy it. They are set to be sold quarterly on Matty Collector for $25 each. Had the price held firm at the already steep subscription prices, I would have likely bought the three I can remember. At $25 plus Matty shipping rates, only Ice is a sure thing, and possibly Aquaman. Containment Suit Doomsday will also be released as a Con Exclusive, but I’ve got no interest in that figure at all.

Yes, Club Infinite Earths is dead, but its animated corpse still shuffles on, at least for a few more months. August gave us Brazillian bombshell Fire, a character that many, including myself, were eager to see released in the DCUC style. Naturally, Matty took this opportunity to pull a really clever move (or douchebag move, depending on your point of view) and release only Fire this year and save her partner Ice for the 2014 Sub. Of course, now we know there will be no 2014 Sub so we can only hope that somewhere and somehow Matty will let us buy Ice for a lot more than she’s worth just so we can complete the duo.

Fire comes in the same compact little window box that we’ve been getting all year from CIE. The character art is quite good and there’s a little bio on the back. The box is totally collector friendly, but in the interest of space, I’ll be clipping off the back panel for keepsies and pitching the rest of it.

Out of the package and Fire is a pretty nice looking figure. I have some issues, but nothing terribly crippling. Her two-tone green costume consists of a pair of smooth and featureless pants, heeled boots, a pair of appropriately uneven gloves, and a boob wrap… for lack of a better term. She also has a gold and green belt that hangs from one hip. I dig the work Matty did on the costume. I think her top should have extended a little lower, like maybe just to the ab-crunch, but I’m picking nits on what is overall a solid effort.

The head sculpt, I’m not totally keen on. She looks a little less super model and a little more severe. The hair is full on 80’s, which makes her look like she would belong jamming with Jem and the Holograms as much as fighting in The JLI. Again, I’m nitpicking, but in truth the sculpt works ok for me. The paintwork on her face is crisp and sharp and I like the wash they did on her hair.

Running through the articulation, Fire does pretty well for a female DCUC buck. You get ball joints in the neck and shoulders. Her arms have swivels in the biceps and wrists, and hinged elbows. Her legs feature the usual DCUC style hip joints, swivels just above the knees, and hinges in the knees and ankles. She can swivel at the waist and has an ab-crunch hinge. No complaints here.

Fire does come with an effect part, which is a translucent green flame that can fit over either of her fists. As far as effect parts go, it’s not bad.

Yes, it’s a bitter time for Club Infinite Earths and Fire doesn’t help matters much. She’s a truly solid figure, and I am a big JLI fan, so I’m very happy to have her. But having her in hand makes me wonder how Ice will ever make it out and whether she’ll be difficult to get or expensive. It seems like the least Matty could have done was ship Ice to those who subbed as a consolation prize. I would have been totally fine with that in lieu of a refund, which still hasn’t shown up in my bank account. Anyway, I suppose it’s nice to know we have a few figures left to look forward to before Batzarro ships at the end of the year and makes me wonder whether the Sub dying wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

Ok, here’s where we separate the boys from the men, the dabblers from the collectors. It’s an action figure of Monsieur Mallah. Who ever thought it would come to this? I never dreamed Matty would ever have the balls to do a release like this one, but they upped the game. They said, “Oh? You like DC Comics? You like to get some action figures based on characters in some of those comics you read? Get a Superman or a Batman? Hmm? Maybe get some backbenchers? Some B-listers and C-listers. Hmm? Make you feel hardcore?” (If you didn’t read that in Stewie’s voice you’re doing it wrong) “Well how about this… we’re making Mallah and The Brain, muthf’ckers!  Are you hardcore enough to put that on yo’shelves?” Well, I guess I don’t have any choice, because they’re the Sub Exclusive. I’ll confess I am inexplicably delighted at this release, not for any overwhelming affection for these characters, but just because they’re such an unlikely release, I need them in my collection.

The occasional enemy of the Doom Patrol and Teen Titans, this pair comes in a large and wide window box, similar to the one that housed Metron and his Mobius Chair. I was actually surprised at how big the box was, mostly because The Brain is much bigger than I expected him to be. As always, the box shows off the figures quite nicely, with Mallah’s gun mounted behind his head, but still visible above The Brain. The character art is solid, but probably not among the best we’ve seen in this series. I guess when you’re drawing a gorilla wearing a beret and a bandoleer strap of ammo, and holding a brain in a cybernetic container, you don’t feel the need to go all out. I also noticed the bio didn’t mention anything about the romantic connection between these two. It’s possible that Mattel left that bit out because they didn’t want to be responsible for people’s heads exploding when they read the package.

Let’s face it, there’s no shortage of action figures of gun-toting gorillas wearing berets on the market today, and yet Mallah still manages to stand out. The realism of the sculpt is dead impressive. The stoic determined expression of the sculpt is only to be matched by the amazing paintwork on the eyes. You’d think the initial reaction to seeing an ape in a red beret would be comedy, but Mallah pulls it off with quiet dignity. No, my first reaction to seeing Mallah would not be to laugh, it would be to shit my pants and run. In any event, this figure is gorgeous.

Mallah’s body is recycled from the DCUC Collect & Connect Gorilla Grodd. What? You didn’t expect Mattel to churn out an entirely new gorilla body, did you? It’s a good reuse of that figure, and since I sadly don’t own a Grodd, it won’t be apparent when Mallah is displayed on my shelf. The body is big and powerful and the sculpted hair and feet and hands all match the convincing realism of the head fairly well. Mallah’s ensemble is rounded out with the belt of ammunition that hangs loose over one shoulder and a rather unique looking machine gun. Once again, I’m quite impressed with the work Mattel did on this guy.

Being a giant gorilla, Mallah’s articulation is a little different from your average DCUC style figure. He has no torso articulation at all, but I wouldn’t have expected it. I can’t imagine the engineering it would have taken to get an ab crunch into this beast. His neck is ball jointed, and offers a nice range of motion. His arms are ball jointed at the shoulders, have swivels in the biceps (suck on that, Larfleeze!), hinges in the elbows, and swivels and hinges in the wrists. His legs feature swivel cuts up at the hips and again at the ankles.

And then there’s The Brain. Obviously, this is more than an accessory than an actual figure. It’s just a silver tube with some sculpted detail, a skull like face, and a clear dome housing… well… the brain. It’s a nice looking piece, but it is greatly at odds with the artwork used for the packaging. It seems like Mattel neglected to get everyone on the same page for this one. Nonetheless, it’s fine for what it is and Mallah can certainly hold it fairly well.

I really think Mallah and The Brain was a great choice for a Sub Exclusive. If you didn’t Sub, you aren’t missing out on a crucial character, but you are missing out on a great figure. Sure, there are plenty of more important characters that need to be made, but Club Infinite Earth has been filling its share of holes, and I’d argue that this pair is exactly the sort of thing that the Club should be working on as well. Mallah represents a logical reuse of parts combined with some new sculpting that results in a truly fantastic looking figure that I’ll be happy to put up on my shelf.

Hells yeah! This is the kind of thing I joined Club Infinite Earths for! Finally, it’s the f’ing Elongated Man! Not to slight any of the excellent figures that have come from CIE before him, but I’ve had a certain DC Direct version of this guy chilling on my DCUC shelves as a place holder for a little too long now. Next to Jay Garrick Flash, this is the one CIE figure that scratches my itch the most. Sure, that DCD version is great and all, but getting an actual DCUC style figure of Dibny? Well, this has been a long time coming. Let’s check him out…

It’s the ever so slightly redesigned Signature Collection packaging. I think this is the third time we’ve seen it and it’s starting to grow on me. Or at the very least I’ve decided the changes are mostly harmless. Truth be told, I’m only hanging onto the boxes for the oversized quarterly figures now, so I’ll be taking a pair of scissors to this box to save the back and the rest will get trashed. Hey, space is precious and Dibney’s going right on my shelf anyway. Generally speaking, I’m usually blown away by the character art Mattel uses, but that’s not so much the case here. I appreciate that they are trying to show off Dibny’s elastic personality, but I’m just not feeling this character art. The bio on the back chronicles Dibny’s troubled life, but it does not explain why the DC writers like to mentally torture him so much. Let’s check out the figure…

Starting off with the head sculpt, I think the portrait here is excellent. I was very pleased with the DCD version’s head sculpt, but now that I’ve seen this one it’s a little hard to go back. This portrait is less harsh and angular than the DCD version and he’s not as sickly pale either. It makes sense, though, as the DCD version is from “Identity Crisis” and this one looks like Dibny from a less tragedy stricken time in his life. I’m not entirely sure the expression they were going for with this figure, but I do love it. It’s a little neutral with a bit of “gee-whiz” deduction thrown into it. I’ve always had a soft spot for Ralph and I think this portrait captures his personality extremely well. At least before he completely lost his shit over the tragedy with his wife, but I’m glad that Mattel didn’t try to sculpt angry-desperate-vengeful Dibny.

As expected, Ralph’s costume is achieved mostly through paintwork on a standard DCUC style buck, so there isn’t a lot of original sculpting here. He’s mostly red with black gloves, boots, and the “V” down the front and back of his torso. There are yellow borders around his boots and gloves, and he has a sculpted belt comprised of a simple black and yellow band. The paintwork is overall pretty good, although there are a few small spots on my figure’s chest where the black chipped.

In package, Elongated Man comes with his right arm stretched out, but you also get a regular fist that you can swap with it to make him normal. The DCD figure had a lot more stretchy gimmicks, with two bendable arms and an extending neck. I wouldn’t have minded two stretch arms for him, but I’m still happy with what they did here. It’s just enough to show him flexing his powers without going all nuts. He also comes with a very cool magnifying glass, which he can hold in his left hand.

Elongated Man features your standard DCUC articulation. That means a ball joints in the neck and shoulders, the arms feature swivels in the biceps and wrists, and hinges in the elbows. The legs have the classic DCUC hip joints, which allow for lateral movement, swivels in the thighs, and hinges in the knees and ankles. You also get an ab-crunch hinge and a swivel at the waist.

And so, finally I can retire my DCD version of Ralph Dibny to my DC Direct drawer and represent the character on my shelf in proper DCUC style. In this case, however, I’m still happy to own both versions, as the DCD figure does offer a lot more display options, but each figure brings its own charms to the table. On the other hand, I really am thrilled with this figure’s head sculpt. Sure, he’s a simple enough figure, but Mattel really did a wonderful job with it. Now I really need to double back and pick up Firestorm and Red Tornado.

Last month’s Club Infinite Earths figure, Saint Walker, wasn’t exactly high on my want list. This month’s release was not only on my list, but I never thought Mattel would ever actually get around to creating and releasing him. He’s Phantom Stranger and he is exactly the kind of character that this line should be all about. Finishing teams is great, I certainly approve of that, but I can’t believe Phantom Stranger would ever have wound up on the pegs in the DCUC line. And if he did, you can bet it would he would come with a part for one hell of an essential C&C figure to make sure he sold to the masses. Sure, he’s already been available as a DC Direct release… but now he can feel right at home on my DCUC shelves… let’s take a look!

This figure is the second release in this year’s tweaked packaging. Since last month, I’ve been forced to ditch all the packages, except for the quarterly oversized figures, so the change doesn’t bother me as much. I am, still clipping out the backs so I can save the character art and bios. Speaking of bios, I was really curious to see how Mattel would approach Phantom Stranger’s, since the true nature of the character has never been decided. I often vacillate on which of his intriguing backstories I like the most. If I were in charge, I probably would have left the bio area for him blank, because he really is that much of an enigma. But at least they didn’t suggest he was Superman and Wonder Woman’s son from the future, so I’m happy.

Phantom Stranger is a pretty obvious kitbash. I don’t mean, if you’ve been collecting DCUC for years you’ll probably recognize some parts. No, I mean, if you subbed Club Infinite Earths last year, you will easily recognize the entire body of this figure. It would be one thing to say Phantom Stranger reuses the repainted lower half of John Constantine, but it’s another to say he uses the exact same body as Black Mask, with only a re-sculpted turtleneck to stand out as new. Of course, if you’ve also been collecting DCUC for years than you’ll take note of the fedora used for Sandman and The Question, Martian Manhunter’s cape, and a pair of hands cribbed from The Spectre. In theory, everything should work well, but when I look at him, I can’t help but see all the individual components. I think I know why, so let’s talk…

Coloring! I think the reason the kitbash elements stand out so much has a lot to do with the figure’s coloring. While character art for Phantom Stranger varies, I think it’s the fact that the blue cape and hat clash with the black suit, which makes the reuse on this figure stand out. I’ve seen plenty of art where his ensemble matches, and I think a more uniform appearance would make the borrowed parts look more cohesive. It doesn’t help that the cape is the same color as Manhunter’s and the fedora is the same color as The Question’s. I dare say, I think I would have liked the figure more in a suit that matched the hat and cape. Sure, all the parts suit the character, but as it stands, it still looks like the figure was cobbled together in someone’s basement.

As for the new stuff… The head sculpt is good. I had my doubts about the wash used on the face for shadow effect, but it does look good on the figure in hand. Likewise, the chain used for his medallion looks less clunky and more appropriate in person. Oddly enough, the hands, while still recycled, garner special attention as really tying the figure together. It’s the hocus-pocus aspect of the fingers, which are really expressive and really suit the character beautifully. It probably helps that Spectre was released quite a while ago and so cribbing his hands doesn’t feel so much like double dipping.

All things being equal, Phantom Stranger is a decent enough figure. He’s a character I wanted represented on my shelf, and in fairness the figure matches the source material quite well. As a kitbash released by the biggest toy company in the world, however, he just barely manages to scrape by. I’m usually perfectly fine with Mattel sharing parts. In fact, I usually enjoy seeing how they do it and I’m often impressed by how well they pull it off. Not so much here. A straight re-use of this much of a figure that we just got last year seems like it’s going just a bit too far and there’s not enough new here to justify a $30 figure. Is it just me? Maybe the prices on these guys are starting to get to me. Oh well. Chances are I will be subbing Matty’s Filmation line, so at least that will help defray some of the shipping costs. Either way, I have a feeling that next month’s CIE release will remedy the malaise of the last two months.