Tag Archives: justice league dark

Sep 12 2015

Justice League Dark: Constantine by DC Collectibles

Since Force Awakens took up a lot of the week, I thought I’d toss out a bonus feature today. Last week I checked out Zatanna from the Justice League Dark comic and as promised I’m back now to check out Constantine. I’m really pushing through the “To Read” comic stacks on my nightstand, and I’m going to be getting back to this one soon enough, but based on the dozen or so issues that I’ve read so far, it’s a book that I really dig. I’m a big fan of Mattel’s Signature Collection Constantine figure, so I’m interested to see how this one will stack up.

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I still think that DCC’s packaging for these figures is pretty “meh.” It’s a simple window box with an extended back equipped with a J-hook. It’s bland and not very exciting, but at the very least it does show the figure off quite well and it is totally collector friendly. I guess that’s something. Also, I don’t feel obligated to keep it.

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While I’ve had some differences with Zatanna’s wardrobe in this book, Constantine’s classic look survived the transition to the New 52. He’s still wearing his trusty long brown duster, collared shirt and disheveled necktie, all of which is wonderfully reproduced here for the figure. The coat is the usual vest with sculpted sleeves trick and I think this is one of the better executed examples of that.

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The coat is sculpted to splay out at the bottom and it’s cast in very pliable plastic, so it doesn’t impede leg articulation at all. The sleeve on his watch arm is rolled up and the other extends to his wrist. I really dig how the ends of the belt hang off the coat. It adds a lot of credibility to the sculpt. The same goes for the collar, lapels, and the necktie. I can’t come up with a single quibble about Constantine’s outfit. It’s just perfect.

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The portrait, on the other hand, gives me mixed feelings. It reminds me of a young, anime-style David Bowie and considering the design history of the character, that’s right on target. This is, of course, the New 52 version, and the characters are supposed to be younger and that’s definitely reflected here, although even in the comic he tends to have some stubble, which is the main place where this portrait is at odds with the character art. The crazy eyes also make him look like a crank junkie. All in all, I prefer the Mattel portrait, but this one is certainly interesting.

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Articulation here is serviceable, but there are a couple things missing that I would have liked to see. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders and elbows, but sadly there are no wrists swivels. That was a gripe I had with the Zatanna figure too. The legs are ball jointed at the hips and knees, but there’s no ankle articulation. There’s no articulation at all in the torso, not even a waist swivel, but the neck is ball jointed. In hand, the figure is still fun to play with, but it could have been better with just a few added points. At least the joints all feel good, with nothing stuck or fragile.

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No acccessories, but that’s understandable. What were they going to give him, a cigarette? Actually, now that I mention it, two of the fingers on his right hand are individually sculpted and rather flexible. I imagine I could make a ciggy out of some rolled up paper and tuck it in there. He does at least have a nicely sculpted wrist watch.

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I like this figure a lot. It nails the outfit perfectly and while the portrait is a bit weird, it’s certainly got a lot of personality that lends itself to the character. Somewhere between the Signature Collection version and this one, there’s probably a perfect figure to be had. Either way, it’s nice to have a current version of Hellblazer to stand beside my Zatanna. Sadly, DCC didn’t venture much further into Justice League Dark when it comes to figures. There’s no Deadman or Madam Xanadu. They did, however, produce figures of Pandora and Swamp Thing, both of which I’ll be getting to eventually.

Sep 4 2015

Justice League Dark: Zatanna by DC Collectibles

I’m pretty bummed about how little time I make for reading comics these days. Case in point, deep within the sizeable pile of TPBs I need to get through are a couple dozen issues of Justice League Dark. I started reading this book entirely for Constantine and Zatanna and I’ve been pretty pleased with it, at least with as far as I’ve gotten, so it was a no brainer that I would go in for some of the figures when DCC released them.

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We’ve seen this packaging before. Zatanna comes in a window box with an extended J-hook back so that it’s right at home hanging on a peg or sitting on a shelf. You get that same dull, white package that one would not expect from a company that butters its bread through the graphic arts. That’s fine, because despite being collector friendly, I’m going to shred the hell out of it to get to my figure.

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I’ve been up and down on my feelings for Zatanna’s New 52 costume. I hated her look when the comic started, especially when other characters got to more or less keep their iconic appearance. Eventually they settled on the look that we got with this figure and while it will never replace the old style costumes, I’m OK with it because it hits enough familiar points. Yeah, the top hat is gone, but she’s still got the little one-piece with the coat tails, you get a little bit of fishnets and the super high over the knee boots. The whole package is roundedo ut by a nice pliable plastic cape.

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Everything about Zatanna’s outfit is executed splendidly. Maybe there’s a little bleed through under the white paint, but it’s nothing too bad. The fishnets are simply printed onto the plastic, and I’m perfectly fine with that considering some of the f’ugly attempts we’ve seen at DC characters wearing fishnet stockings in this scale before. Her hands are sculpted into pretty typical hocus-pocus kind of poses. My only real complaint here is that while her high heeled boots look great, there are no peg holes in the bottoms of her feet and she is extremely difficult to stand. Hey, DCC. You just sold me a pack of figure stands for this line. Why would you not put holes in the feet of the one figure that refuses to stand up? Sheesh!

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The portrait is excellent. DCC has been doing a bang up job with their head sculpts in this line, especially the ladies, and Zatanna is no different. She’s pretty and she matches the character art from the book quite nicely. What’s more the paint is all crisp and clean and the bare plastic they used for her flesh tone looks great.

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Articulation is one area where DCC has been constantly improving. I’ve been overall impressed with what I’ve seen lately, especially with the Suicide Squad figures. Alas, Zatanna here takes a bunch of steps back. Here’s what you get… The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders and hinges in the elbows. That’s it! The lack of swivels in the shoulders is bad enough, but the lack of swivels in the wrists is unacceptable to me, especially given the way they’re sculpted. If you want them palms down, you have to turn the arm at the shoulder socket, which is awkward.

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The legs are much better with ball joints at the hips, hinges in the knees and ankles, and swivels at the tops of the boots. There’s no torso articulation, which was probably sacrificed for the sculpt, and the neck is ball jointed, but severly impeded by the hair sculpt. I didn’t have any problems with stock joints, which was a pleasant surprise as I’m still mourning the loss of my Starfire, who’s arm snapped right at the shoulder.

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I picked up Zatanna at a pretty deep discount and only paid $13.99 for her versus the regular twenty bucks or so. As a result, I’m willing to be a bit more forgiving. She’s a fantastic looking figure that manages to sell me even a little more on this costume, but seemingly little things like the lack of wrist swivels and no peg holes in the feet take their toll on my enjoyment of this piece. I’ll probably revisit this series next week to look at Constantine, but until then come on back tomorrow and I’ll throw out some more Zatanna loving from the likes of DC Direct and Mattel.