Review of Joker, Harley Quinn action figures
Multiverse Suicide Squad Toys R Us Exclusives

Introduction

The next big superhero movie of the summer is coming from DC - Suicide Squad. This movie appears to be quite the mixed bag with fans, with some thrilled by what the trailers have shown, and others leery of a tatted up Joker.  I have to admit that I have some serious reservations - in some ways, it looks more like a video game to me than Warcraft did. But I'll be there opening weekend, and I have my fingers crossed. God knows DC could use a hit movie right about now.

Mattel is cranking out the action figures based on the film as part of their Multiverse series.  There are six figures in the basic assortment, and you buy all six to build a Killer Croc. Seems easy, right? That would be a big 'no'. There is also an exclusive Joker and Harley to Toys R Us stores which contain a different torso and arms, so you can have your Croc wearing a hoodie. There's a couple additional Walmart exclusives - Diablo and Flagg - as well as an Amazon.com exclusive version of Harley. And don't forget the SDCC two pack of Joker and PandaMan! If that's all quite confusing, Action Figure Insider has a nice write up detailing the whole shebang.

Tonight I'm looking at the Toys R Us exclusive versions of the Joker and Harley.  This Harley is much like the regular, but comes wearing a jacket. The Joker comes in a silver dinner jacket. These appear to be shipping with at least the Deadshot figure, and possible more of the regular release. I picked them up late last week at the local Toys R Us for $20 each.

Packaging - ***1/2
The Multiverse line has collector friendly packaging, something quite unusual for a mass market release.  Just cut the tape on one side, slide the cardboard and plastic trays out, and you can easily free the figure and accessories.  Unfortunately, both figures do have at least one annoying rubber band strapping them in, but once you cut it you're good, and it's not necessary to hold the figure in the tray should you decide to repack them for sale or storage.

The back of the cards show off the various figures necessary to build Croc, although the back on the regular release figures is different than the exclusive releases - obviously, the latter shows the exclusives.

Sculpting - Harley **; Joker ***
If you bought Movie Masters figures a few years ago, then the look and feel of the Joker isn't going to be anything new to you.  Dressed up in a silver tux jacket, red shirt, and black pants, he's clearly ready for a night on the town. This is film accurate, as we've seen this outfit in early on set photos. The sculpted clothing is decent enough, but the likeness is pretty far off, even for 1/12th scale. For me, it's something about the shape of the head, particularly around the back of the jawline. His hands are sculpted to hold the accessories, and the sculpt and articulation work fairly well together, allowing him to stand easily on his own. He needs some more detail - the hair is practically flat, and even details on the clothing, like the breast pocket of the jacket, are barely there - and overall he's average work.

Harley is something...different. At first glance, she's not terrible, dressed in her shorts, shirt and jacket. Again, this is very much an outfit we've seen in promo shots, and the addition of the jacket (and gun) matches with her on screen look.

This is a head sculpt that suffers from poor paint and the smaller scale. This figure is also done in the 12" wave, and looks MUCH better there.  In this smaller size, they've widened the distance between the eyes, which is probably 80% a paint problem, but is hard to distinguish from the sculpted features of the face. Margot Robbie is a beautiful woman and great actress (she was one of the highlights of the recent Legend of Tarzan), and certainly deserves better than this.

The body work is not a lot better, although I have to give Mattel credit for trying to capture an actual human female and not some weird, gangly stick figure. The legs are actually proper scale until you get to the feet, and the arms and chest are much more realistic. There are two areas that bug me, and with one I can't quite put my finger on the problem. There's something about the abs and lower torso that just seems off to me, perhaps they are just too wide, making her look proportionally odd. It's hard to put my finger on, but it's not quite right to the eye.

The other problem is easier to spot - it's with the boots. It looks like they sculpted them as one piece and then figured out the ankle is supposed to show through, and fixed it by simply adding the skin color and texture to the outside of the boot. It definitely doesn't work, and ends up looking like she has two huge cankles stuffed into tiny little boots.

This exclusive version is wearing the jacket, and stuffed into it is a gun with the grip sticking out. It's fairly unrealistic and clunky looking, and is not removable.

Harley stands about 6" tall, with the Joker just a smidge bigger. They'll fit in fine with other 1/12th lines.

Paint - **1/2
For mass market toys, these are pretty average in the paint category. But these are intended as 'collector' figures, costing $20 each. While I don't expect perfection, I do expect a little better than what we got here.

The best feature on both is the tattoos, done tampo style. They have plenty of them, and they are all clear, legible, and neatly centered.  I have to admit that I'm not sold on the inked look for either of these characters, but I'm willing to wait and see how it's handled on screen.

The face paint on the Joker is quite good, with darker eyes, neat lips, and an even gaze. Unfortunately, his hair is awful, with a heavy green over the darker base coat.  I understand what they were going for, but they didn't get there.

His costume is also quite sloppy, with weak cut lines between the various colors, and even a fair amount of difference between the silver of the arms and jacket.

Harley has the aforementioned issues with the wide set eyes, although they are clean at least. Her lipstick is very sloppy, as is the red color in most of her costume. While there's a fair number of paint operations on both figures, the overall quality needs to be slightly better to meet expectations.

Articulation - ***
As I said earlier, if you've bought Movie Masters before, you'll have an idea of what you're getting here. Harley has a ball jointed neck, rotating hinge shoulders, pin elbows, cut biceps, cut wrists, cut waist, ab-crunch, rotating hinge hips, cut thighs, pin knees, and pin ankles. While that sounds like a lot, many of the joints (like the ankles, knees, and neck) are quite restricted by the costume and sculpt. She can take reasonable poses though, and you should have no trouble keeping her upright.

The Joker has a ball neck, rotating hinge shoulders, cut biceps, pin elbows, cut wrists, rotating hinge hips, cut thighs, pin knees, and pin elbows. He lacks any of the torso articulation thanks to the jacket. Again, he can take some decent standing poses and can generally maintain them. Neither of these figures can take super dynamic stances that don't look goofy or weird, but you should be able to find one or two ways to display them on the shelf that looks good.

Accessories - ***
There's not a ton of extras here, but there's more than the BAF piece for both of them. Regular readers know that the BAF piece gets you **1/2 in this category, and Harley has the Croc hoodie (you still need the Batman figure to get the underlying Croc torso), while the Joker has the covered arms to go with it.

Harley adds in her large mallet, with the diamond shaped emblems sculpted on one face. This is a nice call out to the comics and cartoon. The regular release includes the bat that is more her style in the new film.

The Joker includes two weapons - a gun and a knife. Both are a little soft, and you'll notice my gun came out of the package slightly warped.  They'll return to proper shape with some time however, and he can hold both quite easily.

Fun Factor - ***
While neither of these figures is perfect by any stretch of the imagination, they have enough articulation and enough accessories to be fun toys.  Paradoxically, they'll be more fun for kids than adults, while they are clearly aimed at adult collectors to buy. I'm waiting for the first nut job Florida mom to complain about either a) Harley's outfit or b) the term 'suicide' on the package.

Value - **1/2
Most 1/12th scale collector themed figures are running $20 right now, so that price tag here is no surprise.  I'd like to see a little better quality for that price, but I'm going with an average value rating.

Things to Watch Out For -
Not a thing. Everything was sturdy, no joints were problematic, and the accessories should hold up to normal handling and/or play.

Overall - Harley **1/2; Joker ***
This version of the Joker isn't awful, but I'm having a tough time getting too excited about him. The sculpting and articulation are reasonable considering the scale and price point, but I would like to see them improve the paint quality.  This is one of those figures that you buy, you open up, and you feel very 'meh'. At least he has the Croc BAF piece, which I'm looking forward to completing. And who knows - maybe this outfit is critical to a scene in which he really stands out in the film.

Harley is a little below that, due to an overall dislike of the sculpt and paint.  I've seen this exact same figure done in a 12" version by Mattel - same sculpt, same outfit - and it's much better, so I'm betting a lot of this has to do with downsizing the figure to the 1/12th scale for production.

I've only seen the Suicide Squad stuff at Toys R Us so far, but I expect to see it hit pretty hard at other retailers in the coming weeks.

Score Recap (out of ****):
Packaging - ***1/2
Sculpting - Harley **; Joker ***
Paint - **1/2
Articulation - ***
Accessories - ***
Fun Factor - ***
Value - **1/2
Overall - Harley **1/2; Joker ***

Where to Buy 
This pair is from Toys R Us, the only place to get the jacketed Croc pieces with them. Or you can always search ebay for a deal.

Related Links -
Other recent 6" Multiverse releases include Lex Luthor, the Toys R Us exclusive unmasked Batman, as well as the Knightmare Batman.. Other Multiverse figures in this scale that are related included the recent Dark Knight Returns set from Walmart, and I did a Batman comparison and a Wonder Woman comparison between the Multiverse figure and the regular movie figure.

You should also hit the Search Reviews page, in case any other applicable reviews were done after this one was published.

Discussion:
Want to chat about this review?  Try out one of these terrific forums where I'll be discussing it!

Enjoyed this review? Be sure to head back to the main page to find thousands more just like it!