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Packaging - **
When I'm picking my best and worst's of the year, I always have trouble
with the Packaging category. Not so much for the Best choice, as that's
usually pretty straight forward, but for the worst. Lots of folks do
mediocre, but worst? I have to thank Mattel for making it so much
easier on me this year with the truly dull, uninspired and lackluster
packaging on the Dark Knight line.
While the graphics and text are boring, at least the packages are small
and easy to store. Then again, that's only going to be something that
appeals to the MOCer out there, while a decent looking cardback can
actually help sell figures.
Sculpting - Batman ***;
Joker **
These figures are nothing more than the 5" kid's line scaled down. That
line is bad, so it should be no surprise that this line is bad too.
The sculpts are probably the one area where they remain pretty much the
same as the previous line. They are slightly softer in appearance of
course, but that's pretty common when shrinking down a sculpt. The
hands are sculpted to hold the accessories, and they both stand fine on
their own.
These are in a 3 3/4" or 4" scale, with Bats standing about 4 1/8
inches and Joker at 4 inches. They'll fit in fine with Star Wars or
even the new Hellboy line - I included a shot at the end for
comparison. The Batman sports a cloth cape, cut to a fairly decent size.
While I scored the Batman the same as his larger cousin, I dropped the
Joke score another half star. Rather than go with the actual look of
the character in the film, Mattel decided to cartoon it up for the
kid's line, creating a 'derived' Joker look, rather than an actual one.
Kid's may tolerate it (although they are certainly keen enough to point
out that it doesn't actually look like the Joker), but I had high hopes
for this line. I really would love a 4" scaled line of Batman movie
figures to display with other 4" series', and unfortunately, it looks
like this isn't going to be it.
Paint - **
While the sculpts are similar to the pair I previously reviewed, the
paint is not. The Joker is done up in his movie style colors, and the
work on Batman is much, much lower quality.
At this smaller scale, more slop is to be expected, but Hasbro has
shown with Star Wars that you can do a mass market line in this size
and still do good paint ops. Mattel has to still learn that lesson.
The black costume has a gloppy look, with either dirt or thickened
paint causing bumps and inconsistencies in the color. There's plenty of
slop around the face and eyes, and the finish is more consistent across
the whole figure, giving the costume less visual variety.
The Joker actually has less slop than Bats this time, but there's
enough to be annoying. The top and bottom sections of the coat don't
quite match either, and the hair line is a mess. To be fair,
these issues will be much more evident in macro photos, but even in
person it's clear that the quality here is not up to other mass market
lines. If other companies weren't able to do a better job
with mass market figures, I wouldn't be so picky, but even the recent
Prince Caspian figures from Play Along blow these entirely out of the
water.
Articulation - **
If you thought you couldn't get less articulation than you got with the
larger 5" figures, think again.
Both figures have what is supposed to be a ball jointed neck (I looked,
there's a ball joint under there!), but is just a cut joint due to
their design and sculpt. They also just have cut shoulders and hips,
with pin knees. And that's it.
That means the one pose you have is standing up straight with arms at
their sides. You can turn the head slightly to one side or the other,
but that's about it. Even with the pin knees, they don't sit
particularly well because the hips don't allow for quite enough range
of movement.
To add insult to injury, the pins in the knees of both figures are
large and very soft, making them easy to tear and break. In fact, the
right knee on my Batman came out of the package already damaged.
Accessories - Bupkis
Yep, not a thing for either figure. No weapons, no gadgets, zippo,
zero, nada, zilch.
Fun Factor - **1/2
Without accessories, the fun goes down. Without decent articulation
(and cheap knee pegs on top of it), the fun goes down even further.
It's nice to have a Batman to pose with other 4" scale figures like
Star Wars, but this Dark Knight is going to get his butt handed to him
by even the Stormtroopers.
Value - ***
For all the flaws though, these are a good value. That's because OF the
flaws, of course. Going cheap means poorer quality paint operations,
less articulation, no accessories, and re-using the 5" sculpts. As is
often the case, you get what you pay for, and that's exactly what's
happening here.
Things to Watch Out For
-
As I mentioned, the pegs are weak at the knees, and the right one on my
Bats is already separated on one side. Look carefully in the package to
make sure you get one that doesn't look damaged from the get go.
Overall - **
If my Batman didn't have the damaged right knee, I would have given him
another half star here. You can stick him with your other 3 3/4" or 4"
figures and he'll fit in nicely, but he's only going to be in one pose
- standing up straight, arms at his sides.
The Joker is just a sad little figure no matter how you slice it. I was
hoping for a lot more in this scale, and if these are an indication of
what's to come with the DC line in this scale, I'm not excited.
For folks looking to get their kids some reasonably priced figures
though, these are an alternative. With Star Wars, Prince Caspian and
Indiana Jones all costing $6 - $7 each, some folks may find the
shortcomings of these figures acceptable considering the lower per
figure cost.
Score Recap:
Packaging - **
Sculpting - Batman ***; Joker **
Paint - **
Articulation - **
Accessories - Bupkis
Fun Factor - **1/2
Value - ***
Overall - **
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