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Packaging - *1/2
Zzzzzz...*snort*...Huh? Oh, sorry. Dozed off there looking at
the package. Yes, it's that boring. It does use the somewhat retro
logo from the books, and I do like that. But against the dull
background, all of the graphics and text seem too small. I do like the
unique photo of each character on the one side panel, but having actual art
from the books would have been great.
Boxes have good points over cardback/ bubble packages, and cardback/ bubble
packages have some good points over boxes. Somehow, they managed to
combine a box with a cardback/ bubble, and ended up with the worst features of
both.
This box is easy to damage, hard to display, and dull, but it is easy to
store. It isn't like most boxes that are collector friendly, since the
inside is like a cardback and bubble, where the bubble has to be torn off the
insert to get at the many twisty ties. Can you tell I really don't like
these, and I'm liking them less with every release?
Sculpting - Scarecrow ****; Batman, Ras, Gordon ***1/2; Alfred ***;
As much as I liked the Mattel Scarecrow that I reviewed earlier this week,
I have to admit that this version is now my all time favorite. He's not
perfect, and I still have a few nits to pick below, but the sculpt is simply
amazing. The head sculpt is the real stand out, with the teeth and eyes
set deeply behind the intricate bag mask, and the straw hair sticking out from
behind.
His body and clothing sculpts are no slouches though, both with a TON of
detail work and realistic wrinkling and flow. The thin, claw-like hands
and camel toed feet give him a slightly unique look amongst the many other
Scarecrow versions, but his scale might be a touch big for some folks.
He's larger in height than many of the other figures in the Hush line, but I
think that works to give him a leaner appearance, in line with the style of
the character.
Batman is not the most exciting variant, although he is wearing a very
intricate costume. The detail is great, but in general, the design
doesn't work particularly well with the articulation. The cape isn't
removable, which is too bad, since he has various additional gadgets in
back. The soft cape is nice though, and is very similar to the normal
Hush Batman.
Commissioner Gordon isn't as fat as some photos have made him appear.
In fact, I'm not sure he's fat at all, because his shirt is just pooching out
a bit. There's no sign of anything actually hanging over his belt, and
we all know that dress shirts don't fit like lycra.
The rest of his sculpt matches up with the comic well, and the soft rubber
is used again for his jacket and tie. There's a nice realistic flow to
the clothing, without it looking like he's standing in a wind tunnel.
His right hand is sculpted to hold his gun, and his left is sculpted in a
"you listen to me, punk" pose.
Alfred has a nice detailed sculpt, and the face matches the source material
extremely well, but I was disappointed in his stature. He is bent forward
slightly, with no ball jointed neck, so he's stuck looking down at Master
Bruce's boots. He also lacks any difference in texture between the
various pieces of clothing, which makes him look much more toy-like than we're
used to in a specialty market figure.
Finally, there's Ras Al Ghul. He's sculpted bare-chested, ready for
dueling. The musculature is comic booky, but not too over done, and the
stern head sculpt looks great. The right hand is sculpted to hold his
sword, but again, there's very little difference in texture between the pants
and his skin.
The scale on these figures is generally good, although as I already
mentioned, Scarecrow is a tad larger than I had expected.
Paint - Scarecrow, Batman ***1/2; Ras, Alfred ***; Gordon **
The paint ops across this line are extremely hit or miss, and I'm betting that
weak quality control means you might get a perfect Gordon when I did not, or
you might get a bad Scarecrow when mine was perfect.
Actually, he's not quite perfect. I love the use of color on the
figure, with various shades and patches used to really make him pop on the
shelf. The detail work is extremely well done, especially in the face
and stitches. But for some reason, he has a very small spotting across
his body, done in a rainbow of colors, so he looks a little like some sort of
ice cream treat. I definitely could have done without that one touch.
Batman might be a rather dull variant, but it's not the fault of the paint
ops. The colors are clean and consistent, with no slop or poor
definition.
Ras and Alfred don't fair quite as well, but they aren't awful. Ras
has some sloppiness around the face, especially on the facial hair where the
chops on either side of his mouth don't quite line up. His gray isn't
quite even either, and there's way too much wash used on his face. It
looks like the wash was slopped around a bit too much too, with some stray
marks on the body. His chest and arm hair looks great though, and it's
nice to see a man willing to look like a man, and not a hairless dog.
Then again, his nipples are rather...disturbing.
Alfred's paint stripes aren't quite as straight or clean as they could be,
and don't always follow the pant wrinkles in a realistic way. His wispy
hair on top of his head is well done, as are his eyes, but his eyebrows and
moustache are spotty at best. He also suffers from 'brown nose' to some
degree, and I have absolutely no idea what was up with this. His nose is
clearly a slightly darker color than the rest of his face, and it looks
intentional. I have no idea what they were going for, but it didn't
work.
My Gordon is the big disappointment though. You think Alfred is a
brown noser - Gordon is terrible! It almost looks like he's wearing some
weird Grouch disguise when he has the glasses on. His nose is much, much
darker than the rest of his face, and again, it actually looks
intentional. Am I forgetting something that happened in the books?
This really hurts the figure, and looks terrible and
out of place.
Ignoring that nose that Rudolph would laugh at, the rest of the ops are
okay. The moustache is sloppy, and he doesn't have the same level of detail as
some of the other figures.
The big problem with poor paint ops is that they're so inconsistent.
If a sculpt is bad, it will be bad no matter what. But the paint ops
could be great on your Gordon, but terrible on your Alfred, and completely
different for the next person. With these being bought sight unseen by
many people, poor QA in this area can become a huge concern.
Articulation - Scarecrow ***; the rest **
I'm not asking for much. Really, I'm not. I simply assume that if a
figure has several points of articulation in his legs, he ought to be able to
stand. Is it really that difficult?
Clearly, it is. The only figure in this series that I had no trouble
getting to stand initially, and who remained standing indefinitely was the
Scarecrow. He has neck, ball jointed shoulders, elbows, cut wrists,
hips, knees and cut ankles. His articulation works better than I
expected, although a neck similar to the Mattel version would have been nice,
and I'm not sure why he - and every other figure - lacks a waist joint.
Scarecrow stands in lots of poses, and his joints are plenty tight enough
to keep him there. Unfortunately, he was the only one.
The frustrating thing is that none of the stances on the other figures is
weird or strained in any way. They are just standing there, flat footed
on fairly large feet, and yet every one of them wants to fall over. I
ended up forced to use the stand with Alfred, and while I did finally find a
spot for Batman, Ras and Gordon where they could stand for short periods, they
still aren't as stable as you'd assume from the poses and photos.
Ras has a ball jointed neck, ball jointed shoulders, elbows, hips and
knees. Actually, several of the figures have the ball jointed shoulders,
but they work poorly on every one of them. Their range of movement is
very restricted, and don't give you much more than a basic cut joint would.
Alfred does better than Ras, but he lacks the ball joint at the neck. EDIT - after someone pointed out it is ball jointed, I played with it some more. Sure enough, it is - sort of. The range move movement is much less than you'd expect. Then again, so is Ras'. He also has cut shoulders, elbows, hips, knees and cut wrists. Like I said, I was forced to use the stand just to keep him standing, and he was always staring down at the ground. Seems kind of subservient, doesn't it?
Gordon has neck and shoulder joints as well, along with elbows, wrists, hips and knees. He stands slightly better than Alfred, but is otherwise very similar.
Batman has a ball jointed neck, ball jointed shoulders, elbows, knees, hips
and cut forearms. He's also articulated on his front breathing
apparatus, which turns right to left to move away from his mouth. It
looks a tad bizarre to me in the lower position though - it looks like he's
wearing a big heart pointing at his crotch. I'd feel a lot less weird
about that if a half nekkid Talia had been in this wave, instead of a half
nekkid Ras. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Some folks have said the breathing unit pops off for them, but mine was
firmly stuck. Still, why pop it off - he'll just have a hole in his
chest, front and center!
Accessories - Gordon, Ras **1/2; Scarecrow, Batman, Alfred *
Here's a pretty poor category for the entire wave, and for the entire line.
Every figure comes with a stand, shaped like the retro-symbol.
There's several pegs included to attach the figure to the base.
Thankfully they're included, because you'll need them.
But that's it for most of the figures, and considering the possibilities
for Alfred and Scarecrow, that's just sad. Scarecrow does have one
strand of removable straw, in case you'd like to poke Bat's eyes out.
It's a cute touch, although one that you might lose awfully quick.
Ras does come with his sword, which fits in his right hand.
Unfortunately, his right hand is made from very hard plastic, and the hilt of
the sword is made from very soft plastic. You're going to have a heck of
a time getting this thing in his hand, but be careful - it's easy to damage
the sword. Get a hold of the thumb on his hand, and separate it from the
fingers slightly to work the hilt into the palm.
Gordon comes with two - count 'em, TWO - accessories, practically some sort
of record. One is his gun, which fits tightly in his right hand and
looks great. The second is his glasses, which don't fit well at all and
look terrible.
You'll find his glasses packed in the small bag of pegs. There's no
holes in his head, or sculpted accommodation for the frame, so getting the
glasses to stay on is a real trick. They are made from a pretty stiff
plastic too, so they tend to fly off his head rather than just drop off.
There's plastic lenses, and it was a nice idea, but overall it failed
completely. They don't fit well, they don't look right, and they don't
stay on. Considering how critical they are to the character, it was a
major disappointment.
Fun Factor - Scarecrow ***1/2; Batman, Ras, Gordon **1/2; Alfred **
Kids are unlikely to get too excited about Alfred, but the rest have
decent play value. The articulation is average, but they are very
sturdy, and would hold up to play just fine, even if they are intended for
collectors. And kids would love the Scarecrow, a great looking version
of a really scary character. Now if the Batman Begins version looked
this good.
Value - Scarecrow **1/2; the rest **
I'm going to assume you pay around $12 for these - pay $15 each and the
value isn't as good of course, but if you can get them around ten, you can add
to the score.
Scarecrow is an average value at this price, with a great sculpt and paint,
but lacking in accessories. The rest lack accessories as well, and don't
fair as well in some of the other categories. Most are really no better
than the average $8 mass market figure.
Things to watch out for -
Be careful pulling out Ras' sword from the package. It's taped in, and
can easily snap. Be careful sticking it in his hand as well.
Also, if you pick these out off the pegs, look at the paint jobs VERY
carefully before making your final selection.
Overall - Scarecrow ***1/2; Ras ***; Alfred, Batman **1/2; Gordon **
I was really looking forward to this series, and it was a big let down for
the most part. Alfred and Ras aren't God awful, but they aren't great
either, especially at the higher specialty market price point. Remember,
this is the same market that gives us figures like Hellboy, Street Fighter,
and Now Playing.
Scarecrow is clearly the winner, and he's now my all time favorite
Scarecrow, even though he didn't quite score as well overall as the Mattel
version. That's largely because at this price point it would have been nice to
get SOMETHING with him, and I really didn't like the odd brightly colored
spots all over his body. But the sculpt is just so amazing, and the rest
of the paint ops so eye catching, that he's jumped to the head of my list.
Batman is fairly average, but the costume really leaves me cold. So
cold, that I prefer some of the mass market variants over this. And
that's not good.
Gordon was the greatest disappointment though, largely due to the awful
glasses and funky nose. He's a character that we've only gotten in
plastic form once before, so it was all that much more of a bitter pill.
SCORE RECAP:
Packaging - *1/2
Sculpt - Scarecrow ****; Batman, Ras, Gordon * **1/2; Alfred ***;
Paint - Scarecrow, Batman ***1/2; Ras, Alfred ***; Gordon **
Articulation - Scarecrow ***; the rest **
Accessories - Gordon, Ras **1/2; Scarecrow, Batman, Alfred *
Fun Factor - Scarecrow ***1/2; Batman, Ras, Gordon **1/2; Alfred **
Value - Scarecrow **1/2; the rest **
Overall - Scarecrow ***1/2; Ras ***; Alfred, Batman **1/2; Gordon **
Where to Buy -
I picked up this set at my local comic shop, but you have plenty of online
options:
- Time and Space Toys has a
great price of just $50 for the full set of five!
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