Tag Archives: matty collector

Nov 27 2012

DC Universe Signature Collection: Uncle Sam with Doll Man by Mattel

I really love it when Mattel digs deep for their DC Universe figures. With so many of the final waves of DCUC populated by topical characters from recent comic events, it’s easy to forget that this line was always intended to draw from the vast corners and deep history of the DC Universe. That should be doubly the case now that the line doesn’t need to rely on casual retail shoppers and can be fueled strictly by the interests of niche collectors willing to seek out and subscribe to the figures online. And that’s why I love the fact that they’re releasing figures like Uncle Sam. He’s not only a pretty obscure piece of DCU history, but a masterful; some might say diabolical, kitbash of a figure. Let’s check him out!


Sam comes in a typical Signature Collection window box. As always, the character art featured on the back and side panel is excellent. Close your eyes and imagine what a character named Uncle Sam would look like, and you’re probably right on the money. Acquired by DC from the buyout of another imprint in the 1950s, Sam is not so much a character but the spiritual embodiment of American patriotism able to possess different corporeal hosts when needed. Wow, that’s awesome. The box is completely collector friendly, which is always a plus in my book.


Uncle Sam is one of the finest examples of Mattel’s deviously clever ability to reuse parts from older figures and have it turn out perfectly. Sam is an unlikely hybrid of Gentlemen Ghost and The Joker. When I look at the figure, it’s so blatantly obvious that he’s a kitbash, and yet the final result looks amazing. He has a sculpted shirt and vest with a separately sculpted jacket layered over it. Toss in the necktie and this figure has a wonderful sense of depth and complexity to the sculpt. The pants are cuffed around his ankles and he’s got spats on his shoes. If spats were socially acceptable, I would wear them every day. The only thing that really mars this figure in any way is the plug used in his back to cover up what I presume is a cape socket. Not a big deal, but just a little unsightly.

The coloring on Uncle Sam’s outfit is deliciously patriotic. There are two shades of blue for his jacket and vest and the white and red striping of his pants really make the figure pop. Alas, there are some paint flubs on his red striping.

Of course, the whole figure is really tied together by the superb head sculpt. He has an iconic and noble looking face that still manages to convey the fact that if you mess with America, he’s going to kick your ass off the hemisphere. The hair and beard sculpting is awesome and his hat really crowns (literally!) the whole piece. Wonderful!


Uncle Sam has pretty typical DCUC style articulation His head is ball jointed, although the sculpted hair restricts the movement of the head to a turning motion. The arms are ball jointed at the shoulders, hinged at the elbows and feature swivels in the biceps and wrists. The legs have the usual universal joints in the hips, hinges in the knees and ankles, and swivels in the thighs. While there’s no waist swivel, which is disappointing but understandable, Uncle Sam does still have an ab crunch hinge.

While his hands are sculpted to hold accessories, Uncle Sam sadly doesn’t come with any, that is, unless you count Doll Man. He’s similar to the shrunken down version of Rita Farr that we saw last month, only better sculpted and more substantial. He’s actually a pretty solid piece of plastic! I’m not a big fan of Doll Man so he’s kind of lost on me, but it was a nice way for Mattel to deliver a second member of the Freedom Force in this package.


Getting Uncle Sam in my DCUC collection is a real treat. He’s a wonderfully obscure character and while Mattel went the Frankenstein route in creating him, I certainly can’t quarrel with the results. Sam looks amazing and I am thrilled to have him represented on my DC shelf. Of course, November was a double figure month for Club Infinite Earths, and we’ll double back at the end of the week to check out John Constantine.

Oct 26 2012

Matty Collector: Club Lion Force Voltron by Mattel

Mega thrusters are go, Bitches!

It was a long wait, folks, and a unique and epic experience: A subscription that sends you a series of stand-alone toys, which in the end will piece together to form one ginormous robot. Throughout the course of my 30-some odd years of toy collecting, there hasn’t been anything quite like Matty Collector’s Club Lion Force: A year long journey, in which every couple of months brought me one step closer to something really damn cool. It was an idea that took the Collect & Connect concept to the extreme, and one that was perfectly suited to the Voltron property. When I came home to find my Black Lion sitting on my stoop, I was so relieved excited to know that the journey was finally complete.

Before moving on, let me throw out a little disclaimer. I realize for some people this ride was not a smooth one.  If you’re a toy company doing something like this, you really need to be able to get your shit together, and that’s something that Matty can’t always claim to be good at. I realize that some people had QC issues with individual lions, others had typical Digital River snafus, and when you’re dealing with parts of a whole, any one of these issues could be enough to ruin the entire experience. I’ve seen the horror stories from the people for whom one problem along the way stopped them from completing their Voltron. If you’re one of those people, I really feel for you. It’s not like you can take these back to the store for an exchange, and the prices of these damn things on Ebay are getting outrageous.

No doubt, I was really lucky. I haven’t had a single QC issue with any of my Lions. Nonetheless, my heart was in my throat as I opened Black Lion in fear that something would be wrong with it, and my journey to form Voltron would crash and burn just inches from the finish line. In the end, he turned out fine. And now with Voltron standing in front of me, comes the inevitable question: Was he worth it? Was he worth the stress and the money? The answer in a word? Yes. The answer in a few more words? Hell fucking yeah, he was worth it! So let’s form Voltron!

Plugging the limbs into the Black Lion goes very smoothly and the connections hold very well. I was a little afraid of how difficult it would be to disconnect the limbs without forcing them, but they all separate again just fine. The arms pull out without any undue pressure and the legs eject just by pressing the buttons on the backs, very similar to the Toynami Voltron.  I’ll confess to not being a big fan of the spring-loaded transformation gimmicks, but I sure do love the way you press in the chest crest to make Voltron’s head snap open and into position. It’s awesome! Once assembled, Voltron’s proportions are excellent and he looks mighty goddamn majestic. I stood him on a table and went to get some work done on the computer, and I just found myself admiring him every couple of minutes. He’s certainly an attention getter.

I try to keep the majority of my toys in my display areas, so they don’t take over the whole house, but dammit if I don’t want to just stand him on an end table in my living room like a vase or something so that guests would say, “Hey FigureFan (because that’s what everyone always calls me), what’s that on your end table?” And I would just say, “That’s my goddamn huge Voltron, son.” And with that we would go back to sipping cognac and playing Scrabble. Let’s just drop in a shot of him standing behind my Toynami Voltron for the proper size perspective.

Obviously we’ve already seen a lot of Voltron’s sculpt when we looked at the individual lions, so I won’t go into a lot of detail there. I will say how much I adore the face. It’s beautifully sculpted and perfectly captures Voltron’s stoic portrait and the paintwork is excellent. The chest crest is really great looking too. I was a little worried about how it would come out since the individual lions were missing some of their finer details, but it has a nice, chunky animated look that makes me smile.

Easily the biggest complaint I’ve seen about Voltron is his inability to stand in action poses or with his weapons in hand. It’s not so much an inability as it is people deciding to come out of the gate bitching, rather than take the time to play around with him to see what he’s truly capable of. He is definitely top heavy, there’s no doubt about that, but in a way very similar to Toynami’s Masterpiece Voltron. Still, his ratcheting joints are strong and effective, and he balances perfectly fine when placed in a typical standing pose. When you put his sword and shield in his hands, you do need to work at it to get him to stand, but I’ve had tons of success posing him while brandishing his weapons. There’s plenty to tweak to get him to stand. Besides the fold down heel struts, you can also make some little adjustments to the Yellow and Blue Lions’ paws for a little added assistance. I generally find that he will stand in all sorts of great action poses on carpet, but he tends to slide real easy on tables or smooth surfaces.

Naturally, Voltron comes with his weapons. We’ve already looked at the Collect & Connect Blazing Sword, but I’ll admit I was surprised to see the extra Sword in with the Black Lion. I’m sure it was revealed during the course of the year, but I must have missed it because I genuinely thought the Collect & Connect sword that came with the figures was all we were getting. Both the sword and shield have huge pegs that go into the recessed sockets inside the Red and Green Lions’ mouths, holding them in place very well.

I was really dismayed by how much negativity there was on the Matty forums about the finished Voltron. Surprised? No. Only dismayed. I’m not talking about the people with QC issues, I’ve already empathized with them, and they have every right in the world to be royally pissed. No, I’m talking about the bunch of whiny fuckers who are bitching just to bitch. Ever since getting my hands on the Red Lion, I had a pretty good idea what the finished product was going to be like, and everything fell right into line just as I imagined it. I wasn’t expecting a super-articulated ninja robot, and there was no reason for anyone to expect that. What I was counting on was a big, heavy beast of a toy that would have been perfectly at home in the 80s. I wanted a showpiece reminiscent of a time when toy companies weren’t shackled by safety regulations and they could produce a giant robot that would crush a kid to death if it fell on them.  No, if the final Voltron held any surprise for me, it was just how majestic he looks fully assembled and standing there on display. I know, I’ve probably thrown the word majestic around a few times in this feature, but it’s honestly the word that best describes him. I adore this thing, and might I remind you all that I’m the guy that cannot stand the Voltron cartoon.

Oh yeah, and while I know it would never happen, Matty if you ever do decide to do a second sub with a similar scaled vehicle Voltron, I’ll be there on day one with my money to suffer through it all again.

Oct 25 2012

DC Universe Signature Collection: Elasti-Girl by Mattel

This month Matty brought double the DC goodness to Club Infinite Earth subscribers with another oversized quarterly figure, and it is none other than Ms. Rita Farr aka. Elasti-Girl! Matty made a point of saying that they wanted to use CIE to finish up some teams, and they certainly are delivering. This year we’ll get the rest of The Metal Men and the figure we’re looking at today brings us one step closer to rounding out the Doom Patrol. Personally, I’ve yet to pick up Beast Boy or Robotman, so I only have Negative Man to keep her company. Either way, let’s take a look at the lovely lady and see how she turned out.

Signature Collection packaging! We just saw it on Monday with Poison Ivy, so I’m not going to spend a lot more time on it. It’s exactly the same as the regular monthly figure packaging, only bigger. The artists at Matty did another great job on the character art. I’m not so sure the sculptors had the same image in mind, but the art here is just gorgeous. I’m so glad these packages are collector friendly, because it gives me an excuse to keep all this stunning box art.

A lot of your personal mileage with Elasti-Girl is likely to vary based on how well you know or enjoy the character. Sure, that’s the case with a lot of DCUC figures, but in this case it’s even more so. If you’re not in the know, she is essentially just a really tall chick in a skirt, and unless she’s seen alongside other DCUC figures, she’s just a chick in a skirt. Nonetheless, fans of the character should find this figure to be a real treat, because it really does her justice. As already mentioned, the head sculpt isn’t quite in tune with the box art, but I still really like what we got. She’s pretty, I dig the slight upturn to her eyes and the face features some truly immaculate paintwork. The hair is sculpted with a band to hold it back, and the hair is short enough so as not to inhibit the head articulation too badly.

The rest of the figure’s body features sculpted gloves and boots, and a belt around her slender waist. The skirt is made of particularly flexible plastic, and it’s wide enough so that you can really get some good range of motion out of her hip joints. The top half of her outfit is painted, with some nice sharp lines between the red and white and the neckline. I would have preferred a paler shade of blue for the belt and boots, but now I’m really nitpicking. She’s also got some seriously nice muscle tone sculpted into her arms.

Elast-Girl’s articulation features that new torso joint that we first saw with Poison Ivy. I’m still on the fence over the new design. Is Matty only going to be using this with all the ladies? Time will tell. It doesn’t seem to have the same versatility as the waist swivel and ab crunch, but it is a lot better looking. The arms feature ball joints in the shoulders, hinges in the knees, and swivels at the wrists and biceps. The legs have the regular universal movement at the hips, swivels in the thighs, and hinges in the knees and ankles. Naturally, the head has the usual ball joint. I’m not sure if it’s just because of her size, but I really would have loved to see double hinges in her elbows.

Elasti-Girl comes with a tiny version of herself, which is a very cool bonus. She’s very similar to the Antman that Hasbro put out with their Marvel Universe Yellowjacket, or even the tiny Wasp that came in the Secret Wars comic pack. Just be careful not to sneeze while you’re holding it, or you may lose it forever. The resident FigureFan feline has already been scoping it out for his larder of trophies behind the sofa.

I was pretty delighted when Matty revealed this figure, as I truly believe we would have had no chance of getting her anywhere else. A while ago, maybe I could have seen her as a C&C in DC Universe Classics, but with the direction the line went toward the end, I don’t think it ever would have happened. So what’s the downside of Elasti-Girl? Well, besides now being motivated to go back and pick up the rest of the Doom Patrol, I’m really hankering to pull the trigger on the insanely pricey Giganta, just so I can have another huge chick for her to fight. Then again, I’ve got do some rearranging on my DCUC top shelf in order to fit another oversized figure. At the moment, even poor Rocket Red is still chilling in his box and waiting for some shelf time.

Okdoky, tomorrow we will round out this Matty Haul Week with a look at the Big Guy himself… Voltron! It will, however, likely be posted pretty late, as I’m pulling the graveyard shift tonight and I’ll likely be sleeping most of the day tomorrow.

Oct 24 2012

Voltron: Black Lion by Mattel

Yes, it was the final month for Matty’s Club Lion Force, and that meant that not only did we subbers get Keith, but we got the last and biggest Lion of the pack: Black Lion. Ever since the beginning of the month, I’ve been on pins and needles, worried about getting this thing safely into my collection. Was Digital River going to screw up? Would Black Lion be stricken with some horrible QC issues, like having four back legs and missing a head? Or would Matty just send me one of the Avatar beasts in a Voltron package. I was seriously stressing out. But it was all for naught in the end. Blackie arrived on my stoop with the rest of my October haul and now he’s safely in my clutches.

Once upon a time, I marveled at the size of the Yellow and Blue Lions. But damn, this guy is really big. He comes in the same style box, which has a cardboard base and back, and four clear plastic walls. The animated backdrop shows the Castle and all in all, this thing looks mighty impressive in the package. Matty probably should have mentioned somewhere on there that the Sword and Shield are concealed under the cardboard base, since none of the other lions have had any accessories packaged down there. I have to imagine someone, somewhere is going to pitch the packaging before realizing their horrible mistake.

As soon as I got Black Lion out of the box I gave him a good once over. It was like pulling someone out of combat and searching them for bullet wounds. There was a minor paint smudge on one of his red wings, but it came off with a little magic eraser treatment, and a tiny bit of black rubbing on one of his yellow shoulders. Other than that, this guy is fine.

 

As expected, Black Lion is the boxiest of the lions, but that goes with the territory of being the torso. On the other hand, he’s also the most complex looking of the bunch. The wings on his back stay folded up quite well, and you only need to lift them up to reveal the key slot for Black Lion’s cockpit. Push in the key, or any pointy object, and the hatch will release to reveal the cockpit compartment for your Keith figure. If you were wondering whether Black Lion’s huge size would give it a more roomy or complex cockpit, well, that isn’t the case. The inside of the cockpit is similar to the other lion interiors. There are some well-placed stickers to make up the instruments, and it’s just big enough to comfortably fit the figure.

In theory, Black Lion has about the same articulation as the others, but the fact that his shoulders form Voltron’s hips and shoulders actually give him a little more range of motion. I also really dig his tail a lot more than the other lions’ tails. He’s got three hinges in it, and it looks wavier, fluid and tail like, while the other lions’ tails look more like antenna.

In addition to the ubiquitous mouth blade weapon, Black Lion comes with the aforementioned Star Shield and Blazing Sword, but I’m actually going to cover those pieces when I look at Voltron on Friday.

I feel kind of bad for Black Lion. He’s easily the most impressive lion of the pack and yet he’s probably going to get overlooked by a lot of collectors who will be using him to form Voltron the moment he arrives and so he won’t spend nearly as much time in his Lion mode as the others. Still, he’s a great looking piece and makes for an awesome display when perched at the head of the group. In the end, I’m just so happy he arrived and in good condition so I can put an end to the rather trying, yet ultimately satisfying, ordeal of Club Lion Force .

Oct 23 2012

Voltron: Keith (Black Lion Pilot) by Mattel

It’s the final month for Club Lion Force and thank Christ for that! While I have been lucky enough to have a pretty good experience with Matty on this subscription, my stress over each release has been mounting, until finally reaching a fevered pitch with this final month. But we’ll get to that tomorrow when we discuss Black Lion. Today, we’re going to check out the final pilot figure, Keith, and I’ve looked at enough of these that I’m going to try to go through this one pretty quickly.

As expected, Keith comes in the exact same style window box that we’ve seen with all the figures, except Sven. The box is black to match his lion and features some decent character art on the front along with a little window that displays the figure, the alternate head, and the key stand. The back panel has a little blurb about Keith and his lion, photos of the completed Blazing Sword and a shot of the figure fitting into the Black Lion’s cockpit. As always, the box is totally collector friendly, which is awesome. On the downside, the Blazing Sword is designed to lock together, so once it’s assembled, it won’t be going back into the boxes.

Keith holds no surprises. He has a solid head sculpt, and appears to be built off of the same body as Lance and Sven. The paint on the figure is great, with no smudging or dirt on the white, and no bleeding around the red. The alternate helmeted head is overall pretty good, but there’s an annoying black spot of paint on his visor. This black spot is the first true defect I’ve had in any of my Club Lion Force toys, so in the Voltron Quality Control Lottery… A winner is me!

Articulation includes a ball jointed neck, ball jointed shoulders and elbows, universal movement in the hips, and ball joints in the knees. Once again, the fact that the pistol is sculpted into his holster and cannot be removed is a constant sticking point with me and these figures, but I take a small bit of solace in the fact that this is the last time I have to mention it. Speaking of repetitive criticisms, I still really wish the key stand had a sticker on each side.

In addition to the key stand, Keith comes with the tip of the Collect & Connect Blazing Sword and the last two pieces of the stand, so we can finally put this thing together. The sword consists of snapping together the hilt, guard, and three pieces of blade. The blade is painted with a faint swirly energy pattern and the edges are sculpted with translucent yellow plastic flames to make it appear to be pulsating with Ro-Beast killing power. In reality, it looks ok, but I tend to prefer the regular Blazing Sword that comes with the Black Lion. But more on that tomorrow!

So, let’s take a moment to ruminate on the pilot figures. Remember when the first Lion Force sub details came out and Matty was going to sell the pilots and lions separately? Well, I think grouping them together was one of the better decisions. Sure, it meant that collectors couldn’t order extras, but I would have been plenty peeved paying $15 plus shipping for these things had Mattel shipped them separately on non-Lion months. A few of my friends maintain that I’m discounting the cost of the Blazing Sword pieces, and yeah it was a nice bonus, but I would have been fine without it. I still like the pilot figures, Keith and his teammates are plenty cool, but there’s no doubt Mattel took shortcuts with them, making them in no way worth the price.

Tomorrow, we’ll look at the grand daddy of all the Lions!

Oct 22 2012

DC Universe Signature Collection: Poison Ivy by Mattel

I think it’s probably safe to say that Poison Ivy was a predominant name on many DCUC collectors’ wish lists. It’s kind of hard to believe that the line lasted 20 waves without her showing up. Even I, someone who only bothers with Batman when he’s part of the Justice League, was pretty excited to finally get the character in my collection. Of course, Matty was well aware of her popularity and wound up pimping her out as a threat to get people to subscribe to Club Infinite Earths. They even went so far as to warn collectors that if the sub didn’t go through, Poison Ivy would never be made. Pretty classy stuff, Matty.  Instead of a thermometer, they should have had a live cam of the prototype being slowly lowered into a bucket of acid and a tagline, “Only your subs could stop the descent!” Well, all the threats and recriminations are behind us now because the sub did go through and I’m holding in my hands, the DCUC version of Poison Ivy.

I’m always glad to see the Signature Collection package. It looks awesome, it’s collector friendly, and what’s inside seldom disappoints. I’ve been a big admirer of the character art that Mattel has been using for these packages and Poison Ivy’s continues to raise the bar. It was actually a pretty ambitious and risky piece of art to go with, because it’s a lot more detailed than the actual figure, particularly where the vines are concerned, but we’re going to come back to that in a second. You get the usual little bio blurb on the back and as always, the box is totally collector friendly.

A lot of the early criticisms of this figure have been that she looks too plain, and I think those are valid complaints. Just look at the character art on the box and all of those little vines and tendrils. That kind of detail is tough to create in an action figure at this price point, and so compromises have been made. Mattel went with using some simple, sculpted plastic vines, which are molded in spirals so that they snake around her arms and her left leg. They add some depth to the figure, they don’t inhibit her articulation, and generally they look good, but they don’t convey the beauty and complexity of what’s seen in the art. I think the figure would have been much better served with the vines sculpted into her arms and legs and then painted in, but remember, Mattel’s game is to create versatile sculpts that will serve them again later. In the DCUC line, they can often get away with it without compromising the figure, but that’s not the case with Poison Ivy. Her torso suffers from a similar problem. There’s foliage sculpted along the edges, but the rest is plain. In this case, however, it’s less forgivable. The entire one-piece should have been sculpted with vegetation. It would have helped the figure look less spartan. I’m actually surprised that Mattel went with bare feet instead of boots, but I’m glad they did, as it adds some individuality to the figure.

That all having been said, I’m very happy with the way the head sculpt turned out. Ivy’s face is beautiful with a slightly stern expression. The hair is absolutely amazing. It’s intricately sculpted and peppered with leaves here and there. The same effort that went into the hair sculpt should have been vested into her one-piece. That would have helped the figure along quite a bit.

Poison Ivy’s coloring is quite good. Mattel went with a minty colored, unpainted plastic for Ivy’s flesh tone and it looks very cool. A darker green was used for her one-piece and vines, the paintwork on her face is immaculate, and even her toenails are painted. But, again, it’s the hair that really shines here. The deep red paint is gorgeous and really brings out the details in that sculpt.

Ivy features most of the same articulation we’ve been seeing all along in DCUC. Her arms are ball jointed at the shoulders, hinged at the elbows, and feature swivels in the biceps and wrists. Her legs have the usual DCUC universal hip joints, swivels in the thighs, and hinges in the knees and ankles. Her head is ball jointed, but her sculpted hair does inhibit the head movement quite a bit. It’s in the torso where things get a bit kooky. Instead of the usual waist swivel and ab crunch, Ivy has a swivel just under her breasts. It’s admittedly a lot less unsightly than the traditional DCUC articulation, but it’s not as versatile either.

Poison Ivy was a long time coming, so it’s natural she’s going to be subjected to a lot of extra scrutiny. I’m actually fairly happy with what we got, although I will concede that, unlike most DCUC figures, she doesn’t hold up to her character art. From a business standpoint, I understand why Mattel did what they did, but then I shouldn’t have to look at a figure and justify its production from a financial standpoint. On the other hand, despite this line being billed as a “collector club” it’s still essentially a mass market line and for a more complex looking sculpt, we have to look elsewhere. One of these days, I’ll pull out my Bishoujo Poison Ivy statue and we’ll see how great this gal can really look in plastic form.

Sep 29 2012

DC Universe Signature Collection: Black Mask by Mattel

It’s time for another Matty Collector release! My Voltron and Club Infinite Earth subs didn’t synch up this month, so I’ve just got the DC figure to look at. I was a little tempted by the He-Man offerings this month, but I kept my resolve and didn’t go for them. Anyway, this month’s CIE figure is Black Mask, and he is one of the very few figures getting released by the Club this year that I wasn’t really looking forward to. Batman’s funnybooks have always ranked pretty far down on my reading list. On the other hand, that hasn’t stopped me from picking up most of the other Batman related figures that Mattel has put out, so I wasn’t exactly sorry to be getting him either. Let’s see if Black Mask can win me over…

Ahh, I still love this packaging. As usual, the figure comes in a very cool and very collector friendly window box. The package displays the figure very nicely, with his accessories (Yes! Accessories!!!) mounted in the tray all around him. The back panel of the box has some excellent character art and the token short biography. A few of Black Mask’s accessories were a little loose in the package, but I care not for I am taking them all out.

Riddle me this, Batman, where have we seen this body before? Yuppers, it’s the Riddler from one of the early waves of DCUC. I want to say Wave 5 or 6. I have no issues with Mattel making use of the suited body again. It’s quite a good sculpt and as we’ll see in a little bit it retains a surprising amount of the core DCUC torso articulation. The suit jacket is layered on the figure, which gives the sculpt a lot of realistic depth, and you can even reach in and pull his stylish tie right out from inside his jacket. Black Mask is a pretty monochrome character, so there’s little coloring to get excited about here. The suit is matte black and the arms and legs match the jacket petty well. The high gloss paint on the shoes is a nice touch. All in all, I’m pleased with how the body turned out.

What about the head sculpt? Alas, I’m really not so happy about how it turned out. I’ve been overjoyed with all of the head sculpts in the Signature Collection thus far, and while Black Mask’s should have been a slam dunk, it just doesn’t work for me at all. The head looks funny on his big trunk of a neck and the details in the sculpt are really soft, particularly around the teeth. The paintwork on the teeth, which is ironically some of the only paint on the figure is kind of sloppy and uneven too. C’mon, Matty. It’s a skull mask! The Horsemen should have really had some fun with this one. Instead, it feels like they phoned it in.

Black Mask retains all the usual articulation found in the DCUC line. That means the head is ball jointed, the arms feature ball jointed shoulders, hinged elbows, and swivels in the biceps and wrists. The legs have the usual DCUC hip joints, hinged knees and ankles, and swivels in the thighs. What I wasn’t expecting was to get a waist swivel and ab crunch built under the sculpted jacket. Very cool!

One usually doesn’t get a lot of accessories with a DCUC figure, but Black Mask comes with some goodies. You get a double-bladed fork weapon, a knife, and Batman’s cowl. That’s all well and good, but you know what would have been cool, Mattel? Giving us the gun that’s pictured in the character art on the package. I was actually surprised to find that I don’t have a decent black .45 automatic in this scale, so he’ll have to go without.

Black Mask gets a resounding Meh from me. He’s not terrible. I don’t mind standing him in the corner of my display that houses Batman’s rogue gallery. However, he’s the first figure of the Signature line that really disappoints me, and I wasn’t expecting much to begin with. Considering the recycled body and the figure’s meager need for paintwork, I think Mattel should have put in a better effort with the head. I’m fine with having him in my collection, but considering I didn’t get any other figures from Matty this month, Black Mask shipped alone, and that means he cost me about $25. That’s twenty-five bucks worth of Meh!

Aug 29 2012

DC Universe Signature Collection: Mirror Master by Mattel

I didn’t mention it during my Voltron features, but Matty did another great job handling my subscriptions this month. Once again, I was billed the correct amount, everything was processed about five days before the Day of Sale and the package was shipped out about two days ahead of the Sale Day. I realize it’s kind of crazy to have to be praising a company for getting it right, but with how screwed up Matty Collector has been in the past, it’s worth giving credit where credit is due, and I haven’t had any difficulties with Matty for quite a few months. I was really looking forward to this month’s Club Infinite Earths figure, as I really love me some Flash and I’m always happy to add more villains to my collection. Put the two together and it’s no wonder I was happy to get Mirror Master.

There’s that Signature Collection packaging that I love so much. It’s a simple window box with some really kick ass character art on the side and back panels. The package is totally collector friendly and includes a little blurb on Mirror Master on the back, pointing out that this is indeed the Evan McCulloch incarnation of the character. Until I can reorganize my DCUC display, I’ve been keeping all my Signature Collection figures in the boxes and they sure look great lined up on the shelf.

Out of the package and we see that Mirror Master gets by with a very simple sculpt. What we have here is a very basic buck with sculpted boots and wrist bracers. There’s a sculpted belt with two functional holsters, each with fastening flaps and there’s a sculpted neckerchief draped above the figure’s shoulders. The body is cast in brown plastic with green paintwork on the bracers and boots. Both hands are sculpted to hold his weapons.

Mirror Master’s head sculpt is well executed, but I don’t think it’s one of the more remarkable ones we’ve seen from the Club to date. That’s not meant to be critical. Truth is there’s nothing wrong with McCulloch’s head, it just doesn’t pack that extra wow factor that I’ve experienced with figures like Jay Garrick or the unmasked Thom Kallor head. A bit more character in the expression might have helped, because as it is, it’s just rather neutral and flat. The paint work on the head is overall pretty good, although there are a few orange smudges on his chin.

Naturally, we get the standard DCUC points of articulation. The head is ball jointed. The arms are ball jointed at the shoulders, hinged at the elbows, and have swivels at the biceps and wrists. The legs have universal movement at the hips, hinges at the knees and ankles, and swivels in the thighs. The torso swivels at the waist and features the standard ab crunch hinge.

Mirror Master comes with his rather distinctive looking pistols, both of which fit snugly into his holsters. They also each include swappable barrels that feature them deployed in firing mode as well as the standard configuration.

No, Mirror Master isn’t the flashiest of figures (har har) but he is a great representation of a really great character. This figure has gone through some major improvements since it was first revealed. Original images suggested the figure wouldn’t be able to hold his guns, let alone hint at the guns having dual configurations. It’s likely that the improvements were planned from the beginning and what we were seeing was just an early prototype, but you never quite know with Mattel, and fans were pretty vocal about the changes they wanted to see. Whether those changes were always planned or the result of a response to fan feedback, it’s nice that Matty put the extra effort into the figure.

Aug 28 2012

Voltron: Blue Lion by Mattel

Today we’re checking out the latest release from Matty’s Club Lion Force and it’s the Blue Lion, number four. Blue is the second of the robo-cats that make up Voltron’s legs and that makes him the same size as Yellow, in other words, he’s one of the big ones. He arrives in a white mailer with the Allura figure bundled inside. At this point, there aren’t a lot of surprises, so let’s dig right in…

Ah, the packaging. It looks so good when it first arrives. As with the other lions the package consists of a cardboard base and backer and the rest is clear plastic. The box is color coded to coordinate with the Blue Lion theme and the back of the box shows off some pictures of the toy’s features as well as a little blurb about Princess Allura. You also get a tantalizing shot of Voltron showing where the Blue Lion fits in. The lion is posed inside with the help of a tray and heavy duty clear plastic straps and his weapon is rubber banded to the back. It takes some deft scissor work to get him out without tearing the hell out of the package. This whole ensemble is just collector friendly enough so that you can get the lion back inside, but it’s not very durable and once unstrapped, the lion just rattles around inside the package. I really would have preferred a straight up box with some artwork to store the lions in. I’ve saved all the packages so far, but chances are once I can build Voltron, I’ll be pitching these to reclaim some space in one of my toy closets.

When Yellow Lion arrived, I was blown away by his size and the same was true when I got Blue in hand. As expected, Yellow and Blue are both built on the same basic body, but there are plenty of resculpted parts to make Blue distinctive. He has a flat back, minus the grey half cylinder on Yellow. His head is also more squared off and less organic looking than Yellow’s. The legs are identical to Yellow’s, giving the toy the same nagging articulation limits. As with all the lions, I really wanted mid joints in the legs that could move both ways. Sure, there are still some good poses available here, but not as good as it could have been.

There have been a number of reported QC issues with the coloring on the lions. I know more than a few people have received lions composed of two shades of plastic. I’ve been really nervous since then about having a similar issue, but so far I’ve had no problems and I’m happy to say that the coloring on my Blue is spot on. In fact, the color here is pretty spectacular. I love the shade of blue used for the body and it contrasts beautifully with the white and yellow. All the paintwork on the head is bright and sharp. About the only flaw I can find is a little uneven application around the edges of the cockpit, but that’s only visible with the cockpit open and even still, I have to get pretty nitpicky to find anything to complain about.

As with Yellow Lion, Blue’s cockpit is hinged at the back and is opened by pressing the key (or key or any pointed object) into the button to release the catch. Once open you get a simple sculpted seat and stickers to add the details of the controls. It’s a roomy cockpit and little Allura has no trouble fitting inside.

Blue comes with a spikey dagger that he can hold in his teeth. There aren’t any little dimples in this one to match up with the teeth, but Blue’s jaws close up pretty tight so he can hold it very securely. I’m not a big fan of these weapons, but I suppose it’s nice to have them.

As it stands, I think Blue here is my favorite of all the lions. He’s beautifully colored and I love the sculpt. There are certainly some things that could have used more attention, particularly the featureless black plate on the top of his head. Either way, I really like this guy and I’m still digging the 80’s retro vibe I get from these toys. I’m also officially starting to get really excited about finishing off my BFV* and quite frankly having all the limbs and no Black Lion is driving me crazy. I’m still having trouble fathoming just how huge Black Lion is going to be, not to mention the Voltron figure itself. What I do know is that I’ll be lining all the lions up at least a week before Black Lion is shipping, just so I’m all ready to go when he gets here.

 *Big Fucking Voltron

Aug 27 2012

Voltron: Princess Allura (Blue Lion Pilot) by Mattel

Yep, it’s Voltron time again… if you’re keeping score, we’re up Lion and Pilot #4 (ok, Pilot #5 if you count Sven) this month. Today we’re going to check out the Blue Lion pilot and sole girly-girl of Team Lion Force: It’s Princess Allura. As usual, she comes in a white mailer box tucked away in the larger white mailer that contains her Lion. We’ll be checking out Blue Lion tomorrow and throwing all our attention behind the pilot figure today. The pilot figures have been pretty formulaic, so if you’ve been with me from my first look at Lance back at the beginning of the year, a lot of this will seem awfully familiar…

…like the packaging! Allura comes in the same collector friendly box as all of the other pilots (minus Sven, of course!).  And like the others, Allura’s box is color coded to match her lion, so in this case it’s blue. The front of the box has a decent piece of artwork showing off the figure’s animated counterpart. There’s also a window to show the figure itself. The back of the box has a blurb about Allura and Blue Lion and some shots of the figure and her accessories. Take note, the photo on the back erroneously shows the key-stand being pink, while the one you actually get is appropriately blue.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it one more time in a few months, this package design is nearly perfect. The only thing I would have preferred is having the figure’s name printed on the side for when I store them on the shelves lined up like books. Oh well, at least they’re color coded.

Open up the box and slide out the tray, we get a great look at everything that comes inside. You get the figure with the swappable head, the key style figure stand, the piece of the Blazing Sword, in this case it’s the top of the hilt and the base of the blade, and you also get one of the two clear stands for the Blazing Sword. I’m still resisting the temptation to start assembling the sword until I get everything.

Some early pictures had me a little worried about Allura’s body sculpt. She looked a little too chunky, but with the figure in hand it looks like those were probably just from unflattering angles. The proportions and build of the final figure look really good. Once again, Mattel has done a decent job of using different builds for each of the figures making them look as diverse in size and shape as the characters were in the cartoon. I am, however, a little iffy on Allura’s heads. The sculpts seems ok, I like the shape of the face and the sculpting on the hair, the helmeted head looks great, but I think it’s the eyes that just seem a little weird or creepy to me. It may just be conveying the animation style, but there’s just something about those eyes that doesn’t gel right with me. Once again, the figure’s gun is sculpted into the holster and once again, I’ll point out that at $15 each, these figures should have had removable guns.

The paintwork on this figure is excellent. The aforementioned eyes are a style choice, and not caused by sloppy paint. I’m particularly impressed by the paint on her thin, silver tiara. The pink on her uniform is great, and while some of these figures have been prone to some smudging on the white uniform, Allura has none of that.

Articulation here is exactly what we got with all the other figures. In this case, that’s a bit of a relief because sometimes female figures get a few points of articulation cut out. That’s not the case here. Allura has ball joints in her neck, shoulders, elbows and knees, and universal movement at the hips.

As usual, the figure comes with the key that can be used to open the accompanying Lion’s cockpit and it doubles as a stand. It’s a good thing, too, because Allura’s tiny feet make it difficult for her to stand on her own. One of my running gripe’s with this line is that Matty couldn’t pony up for an extra sticker on both sides of the key and yes, that still irks me a bit.

So, there are no big surprises here. Overall, Allura is a solid figure. We deserved better at this price point, but by now we all know what to expect and we’re either comfortable with that or we’re not. I still haven’t decided whether I’m going to be displaying these figures in front of my completed Voltron, leaving them in the cockpits, or just keeping them in the boxes. I suppose that’ll be determined by how much space I have. Tomorrow, I’ll be back to check out Allura’s lion.