Just last week I was lamenting the fact that I’d probably never complete this Justice League Movie wave because Cyborg and Flash are impossible to find at a reasonable price. Then a buddy of mine came through by finding me a Cyborg for a cool Andy Jackson and I found myself one step closer. And since my hopes of getting Flash are still pretty low, I’m just going to go ahead and check out this guy today so I can move on. I’ll preface this review by saying that I really liked the way they handled Cyborg in the movie, but I think his look needed a lot of work. Some elements of the design didn’t work for me, and the quality of CG in his full body shots were pretty embarrassing.

There’s nothing new for me to say about the packaging. You get a great look at the figure inside, and some cool pictures of Cyborg from the movie on the front and side panel. It’s collector friendly, but even if I was a stickler for keeping boxes, these are pretty bland, so there’s not much to motivate me here to keep this one. DC Multiverse did get a package design makeover for the most recent wave, and I think it’s a big improvement. Hopefully, I’ll be looking at some figures from the Clayface Collect & Connect Wave soon.

With Cyborg out of the package, the biggest surprise here for me is that I think the design works much better in plastic than it did on screen. I was not a fan of the crumpled tinfoil look in the CG, but I think it looks pretty cool here. It has a jagged and primitive look to it, which is a neat sort of proto-form, that could get more refined as Cyborg improved and advanced his new body. The sculpt really carries the day, with plenty of detail, particularly in the exposed skeletal structure of the abs and biceps. The curves and symmetry of the detail in his back really is quite beautiful. The paint is no slouch either. The combined deco of gray plastic with some very nice looking silver paint looks great, and the added hits of red paint makes for a pretty cool looking figure, despite the economy of colors.

The portrait is pretty solid too. The likeness isn’t astonishingly good, but there’s something of Ray Fisher in there. The paintwork on the remaining human face and hair is well done. In the closeups, I’ve noticed a fair amount of over-spray on the silver paint transferred onto the skin, and likewise some brown paint slopping over the silver. It’s not really apparent when I have the figure in hand, but suffice it to say the paint lines could have been better.

In addition to the Steppenwolf C&C parts, Cyborg comes with an arm attachment, which can be swapped out with either the left or right hand. It looks like it’s either a weapon, or maybe a hacking tool. It features the same great silver paint with a little blue to pick out some of the details in the sculpt. The tip has a few short appendages and there are two tubes visible inside. It reminds me of the Borg attachments seen in Star Trek. I love that they included this piece, and I’ll likely display it on him most of the time.

The articulation is pretty standard for what we’ve been getting in this lineup. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders, hinges in the elbows, swivels in the biceps, and swivels in the middle of the forearms where the hands detach. The legs have rotating hinges in the hips, hinges in the knees and ankles, and swivels in the lower thighs. There’s a swivel in the waist and a ball joint in the head. This is one of those rare occasions where I don’t mind the lack of chest articulation. I think an ab crunch hinge would have thrown off the sculpt a lot. Besides, I don’t need my Cyborg to be super articulated.

The Justice League movie wave has been a real mixed bag. We’ve had some great new figures like Aquaman and Mera, a pretty solid Batman, and some recycled figures that felt way to lazy for a major toy company working on a major motion picture license. Cyborg definitely fits into the better end of things, but the end result is still a real odd looking bunch when you display them all together. It’s a shame because it detracts from the better figures. And with that ringing endorsement of Mattel and the DC Multiverse line, I’m going to wrap up this wave for now. I’ll revisit it again if I ever do find that Flash figure, but otherwise I’m ready to move on to other things for the next DC Friday.

It’s the first DC Friday of 2018, but I’m still working on unfinished business from 2017. Remember that movie last year that was overall pretty fun, but everybody lost their shit over? No, not The Last Jedi. The other one. Yeah, Justice League! Well, at the tail end of 2017, I started reviewing the Justice League Wave of DC Multiverse, and now I’m picking up where I left off. Let’s double up today with Batman and Superman! Aw, hell, let’s throw Wonder Woman in there too and knock out the whole DC Trinity. Strap in kiddies, because like the movie, this is going to be a bumpy ride.

The figures come in the standard Multiverse packaging. It’s functional, it’s collector friendly, it has some nice shots of the characters from the movie on the front and side panel. It also notes that these are both part of the Steppenwolf Collect & Connect Wave, and I’ll have more to say about that at the end of the review! Let’s start with Superman…

Oh look, it’s 2013 all over again! I say that because I’m pretty sure this is just a re-dress of the Mattel’s Movie Masters Man of Steel figure that I reviewed almost five years ago! There are some obvious re-sculpted bits to update the costume, but it’s a real shame that Mattel couldn’t roll out a brand new figure for a huge summer blockbuster license. And while I didn’t buy any of the Batman V Superman figures, I wouldn’t be surprised if that Superman figure was the recycled connective tissue between these two. There’s some decent stuff here, like the texturing on the costume and the coloring is pretty good, but the real problem is that he looks like he’s pretty small and scrawny when lined up beside his fellow Justice League members. Yup, it’s almost like he’s from another line entirely. Funny how that works.

The old Movie Masters figure had a plastic cape, but here it’s been replaced with cloth. I’m generally in favor of soft-goods capes, but the execution here isn’t so great. For starters, there’s a huge disconnect between the sculpted plastic pieces of the cape that attach to his shoulders, and the actual cloth cape that cascades down his back. And like the figure, the cape feels rather undersized and a little cheap.

The head sculpt is different from the Movie Masters figure. I wouldn’t say it’s better or worse, but mainly just different. It’s not a bad sculpt in and of itself, but I can’t see much likeness to Cavill. At least they dumped the badly painted five-o-clock shadow from that older figure. The sculpt and paint here are both very basic, almost like it’s meant to be a comic version of Superman wearing the DCEU costume. Once again, Mattel needs to check out what Hasbro is doing with their MCU Marvel Legends figures and up their game accordingly.

The articulation is passable, but not great. The arms feature rotating hinges in the shoulders, swivels in the biceps and wrists, and hinges in the elbows. The legs have rotating hinges in the hips, swivels in the thighs, and hinges in both the knees and ankles. There’s a swivel in the waist and a ball joint in the neck. The lack of any kind of chest articulation is quite an oversight. I’d like to blame that on the fact that this is a recycled buck from five years ago, but Mattel was putting ab crunch hinges in their DC Universe Classics figures way before that.

Mattel, I know your’re capable of better than this. Your Justice League Aquaman and Mera figures were pretty damn good. But you’re licensing a major DC Comics summer blockbuster here. It’s f’cking Superman from a Justice League movie. Do you think you can at least try, instead of rummaging through a drawer to find an old figure you can dress up to save a couple of dollars? And Warner Brothers, why are you still licensing to these people when they clearly don’t give a shit half the time. I’m a bit angry now. Let’s move on to Batman…

Batman comes wearing his tactical bat suit and he looks pretty damn good. Is this another recycled figure? I honestly don’t know because I didn’t buy any of the BvS figures, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt here and say Bats here is new. The suit features some excellent texturing and some pretty good attention to detail. You get all the reinforced armor plates, serrated edges on his gauntlets, and some sculpted straps and buckles. The varied deco also makes for a more interesting figure than if he were just all black. Here you get a matte pale blue under-suit with some glossy black bits, as well as some silver and copper for the armor. Overall, I’m really happy with the sculpt here.

Like Superman, Batman features a soft-goods cape, but this one uses a more leather-like material. It doesn’t match the sculpted shoulder attachments perfectly, but it’s a lot closer than the stuff they used on Supes’ cape. In fact, my only issue here is that the bottom edge came out of the package creased, so you can’t see the scalloped pattern because it’s folded up on itself.

While the suit is excellent, the head sculpt here is a little bit of a letdown. The cowl looks OK, but the exposed face is pretty soft. Also, I thought it was an odd choice to have him wearing the goggles. This feels like a head they should have used on a figure packed in with a Batmobile, rather than the main representation of the character in the wave.

Articulation here is almost identical to Superman. The big difference is that Batman actually has an ab crunch hinge, which is what makes me think that this is probably at least a new figure. It’s not a fantastic figure, but it’s got a lot of good stuff going for it, and here’s one where I feel like Mattel at least tried with a decent sculpt and a pretty solid deco. Moving on to our last stop… Wonder Woman.

Hooray, back to recycling! I’m not sure what’s worse, recycling a figure that’s so old that some people might not notice, or one that just came out a year or so ago. Yes, Diana here is a straight repack of the Toys R Us Exclusive from the Wonder Woman movie, and a figure that I reviewed last month.  The only difference is that she comes with a new sword and no shield. The advantage here is that I think this was an excellent figure, so if you missed out on her, here’s a chance to pick her up again without having to hunt re-sellers or hopelessly out-of-date Toys R Us stores.

At this point, I’ll just refer you back to the review that I linked above. But before wrapping up, there’s a picture of the two figures together. I actually like the head sculpt and paint on the previous release a little better, but this one looks fine. She also comes with her golden lasso.

And there you have it… Mattel’s idea of making the most out of netting a huge license like Justice League is to recycle two out of three figures. It’s lazy, it sucks, and it’s pushing me back toward not wanting to collect Multiverse anymore. Need I remind you, that they also have a line of BASIC Justice League figures, so these are the $20 ones aimed at collectors. Oh, but wait… there’s more! The Flash and Cyborg appear to have been woefully short packed in this assortment and both figures have been impossible for me to find, outside of scalpers asking twice as much on Amazon and Ebay. I enjoyed the movie well enough, I sure as hell ain’t paying a premium for DC Multiverse figures. And so, my Collect & Connect Steppenwolf is destined to remain in pieces, and my DCEU Justice League incomplete, unless those figures start turning up at my local brick-and-mortars. And there ain’t much chance of that.

It seems like forever ago that I saw Justice League, but that’s probably because it quickly got pushed down by my multiple (FOUR!) viewings of Thor: Ragnarok and the recent release of The Last Jedi. For the record, I was one of the seemingly few who enjoyed Justice League, and I really enjoyed it for what it wasn’t: A sour and suicidal thought-inducing monochrome vision of despair like Batman V Superman or Man of Steel. As a result, you know I had to pick up the action figures and today I’m starting with a look at Aquaman and Mera. I had intended to review these figures as a pair, but the more time I spent with them, the more I decided to give each their own review. So let’s start with Aquaman this morning and come back to Mera later tonight.

There’s not much to say about the packaging. It’s typical Multiverse fare and it is collector friendly. Before I get started, I will say that I was not a big fan of the way they’ve chosen to portrait the character in the film. I wouldn’t say I’m the biggest fan of Arthur Curry, but I did really enjoy the New 52 Throne of Atlantis run, and I’m digging the hell out of his current run in the Rebirth comics. So, I have definitely become more of a fan in recent years. The DCEU version isn’t really recognizable to me as Aquaman, but it more or less fit in the context of the film and I wound up not hating him.

And I sure as hell do not hate this figure, because it looks pretty damn great. Arthur comes donning his full suit of Atlantean armor. The sculpt here is  intricate and consists of a network of organic, curved lines against a field of muted scales. There’s barely any space on this figure that doesn’t contain some kind of sculpted detail and it looks really solid. The shoulder pads are also cast in soft plastic and connected to the torso, giving them the ability to work well with the arm articulation.

As good as the armor looks, the real star of this figure is the portrait. And yes, I can’t believe I’m saying that about a Multiverse figure. Not only is the likeness for Mamoa certainly there, but it’s actually expressive too! The face is framed with a mighty beard and a copious mane of shaggy hair punctuated with a good looking paint wash. I particularly love the pale blue they used for his eyes. This is without a doubt the best head sculpt I’ve seen in this line, even if that isn’t really saying a lot.

Alas, the articulation does disappoint. It’s not terrible, but it’s not up to the standards that I expect from a twenty dollar 6-inch scale figure. The arms are fine, as they have rotating hinges in the shoulders and elbows, as well as swivels in the biceps and wrists. hinges in the wrists would have been nice, but it’s not a big deal. The legs are ball jointed at the hips and have hinges in the ankles. The knees look like rotating hinges, but all I can get out of mine is a straight bend. I’m not sure if that’s because of the armor sculpt, or by design. The lack of thigh swivels is disappointing. The neck is ball jointed, but because of the hair, I can’t get a lot of movement out of it. There’s a swivel in the waist. The biggest let down is the lack of ab crunch or ball joint in the chest, which is particularly egregious in a figure of a character that swims.

In addition to one of Steppenwolf’s legs, Aquaman comes with his trident. It’s a very simple sculpt, cast in gray plastic with no paint. It’s serviceable, but it’s so plain it feels like an accessory that would be bundled with a far more basic figure. Also, the fact that his left hand is sculpted in a fist is a bit of a bummer, as he can’t hold the trident in both hands.

So, Aquaman is far from a perfect figure, but I still think he’s a very good one, especially for a line that has more often than not been sub-par. The sculpt and paintwork here is excellent, but the articulation is lacking a few critical points. Considering how pleased I was with the Wonder Woman movie figures, I’m beginning to suspect Mattel is willing to put the effort in where the DCEU figures are concerned, even if they’re not so gung-ho over the comic figures. Either way, be sure to swing back here later tonight and we’ll have a look at Mera!