It's only 8 days to go till the Green Lantern Movie hits the screens over in this part of the world! And that means I'm about to fail my objective of reviewing all my DCUC Green Lantern Wave figures. Hah! But look!--I got one more of 'em done over at Articulated Discussion.
So head on over there to check out what the Green Lantern Corps is offering on ts lunch menu--that's right, raw Broccoli and boiled fish! Bleargh! But I'm sure it's safe to say that this is one instance where the toy might taste better than the actual...uh...characters. What the hell am I talking about? I don't know either! So scoot!!! ;P
Most of fandom is kinda outraged at Wonder Woman's recent costume change from the classic look to the blue long johns. Well ok, mainly people dislike it, with a few fans lukewarm and even less saying it's a good look. But I know one thing's for sure--if Wonder Woman had ditched her old costume for the one she's wearing on this figure, all of you would've approved. Well, most of you anyway.
Yes, Star Sapphire Wonder Woman has even less on than when she isn't championing the pink light of passion. And while it may make some of us bleed from the nose and smoke from our ears, you can only get a good look at photos and read a review right now, because Wave 17 has another 2-3 months before it hits the stores.
But is scantily-clad-pink-Diana-Space-faring Wonder Woman worth the investment?
Let's find out!
Like: That they used the same head as classic WW but with a newly sculpted on mask. It's a great touch, because next to regular WW, you can tell it's Diana, and then Diana in a gold mask. There's more: this WW's hair sculpt is different from the original. I must say I'm impressed that they didn't just reuse the sculpt for it.
Like: That the new hair sculpt has great motion to it. It's almost the same as the classic Wonder Woman's with a litle less motion. Just a litle. Still, if she's just standing still it looks like there' wind in her hair. If she punching/flying/firing her ring it looks like she's doing it with real gusto. It's too bad her face doesn't follow suit...
Subtle but important differences. The classic's also got higlights. The SS doesn't
Dislike: Like Blue Lantern Flash from the same wave, her facial expression is a little bland. It's just too expressionless, maybe even a little sleepy. Her face doesn't look quite right punching, kicking, aiming her ring, or doing anything because she has this non-committal look on her face.
Wait, even non-committal has an expression--it's a little more committed than this? ;P So this is just...blank? If there's any consolation, she's slightly more determined-looking than Blue Flash.
Like: The new female buck. It's fleshier and less sinewy than the classics Wonder Woman. While the original is not actually bigger or taller than this version, it is well-muscled, especially in the biceps and shoulders. I don't mind the wiry look of the original and this one looks great too, providing a little variety even though it's supposed to look like she just had a costume change.
Dislike: That we lost the ab crunch and waist swivel, only to gain a chest pivot that doesn't really pivot, being reduced to mainly a swivel. I'm not even sure that is makes the figure better looking. Bottom line is that doesn't make the figure more playable. Bring back the old ab crunch and waist swivel!
Dislike: Shiny finish. My first thought was that this was the reason for the "failed" QC. But having looked at WW closer, she looks to have been intentionally done this way. All I can say is this--plastic sculpted in a certain color works only for some surfaces and flesh is not one of them. It may even work some of the time for skin tight costumes etc., but paint works for everything.
Bottom line? Go with the paint for the skin, especially the face! The older female figures from Classic WW to Power Girl, Black Canary, and all the way up till Green Lantern Wave 2 Carol Ferris are awesomely painted. Please don't buck the trend!
Like: Her Lasso. Granted, I'd like it better as an accessory rather than just a fixture, so it must be a good thing that mine fell off! Right? Lol. At least she now has something to hold in her one open hand.
RATINGS
Aesthetics: 7/10 - Wonder Woman looks good, but not great. The potential for great aesthetics is there. But instead of a nice, matte finish, most of her costume is painted a weird shiny pink. Her flesh is molded instead of painted and is also shiny. I guess that's the thing that bother me most about her--she's a Super Shiny Star Sapphire Wonder Woman (or SSSSWW for short)! SSSSWWW...That's the exact same sound our money makes as it leaves our pockets...
The figure is though, saved by her face sculpt, which is very nicely detailed with her mask and the star on her circlet. The hair, like the original, is great and even her costume on her torso is sculpted. Too bad they didn't sculpt costume on her limbs, though. It would've made her a lot more substantial and less like a Fembot. She'd still have a similar look to Green Lantern Wave 2's Star Sapphire Carol Ferris but wouldn't look like a cheap knockoff.
Poseability: 6.5/10 - SSSSWW's got a left open fist, but nothing to hold! Her lasso is glued on to her right hip, as I mentioned earlier. If not for it falling off due to my attempts to orientate it "correctly" (it was pointing every which way but down), she'd actually have nothing to hold in that open left hand. Imagine that, a weird hand in every pose. Thank goodness Mattel made the lasso detachab...Oh, wait! They didn't!
And needless to say, the loss of an ab crunch is annoyingly, well, annoying. She really loses a ton of poseability--no puffing up of the chest to stand proudly, no slight hunker to demonstrate the tension in combat readiness. It's a big deal.
Fun: 7/10 - Goes well with Carol Ferris! But other than that, she'd be be a whole lot more fun with more "usable" accessories. Where's the pink construct axe and shield? ;P That would've made up for the figure losing some PoAs and even give it a sense of continuity from the classic WW, who has both these items. And How about making a Wonder Woman who can actually remove and uncoil her lasso? Lots of pose value there. C'Mon, Matty!
Value: 7/10 - At S$12 she's a steal. Even if she came in packaging, it would be with just an Anti-Monitor part (which is too small for how huge the Anti-Monitor is) and a pink Lantern. It would definitely not be worthwhile to pay almost 3 times the price for that!
Looking at how they packed Classic Wonder Woman an awesome axe and a star-spangled shield, couldn't they do they same with this Wonder Woman? Even if they don't mold them in pink as constructs (which would've been the awesomest thing btw), they could've just given her the the exact same axe and shield and it would've even matched her Star Sapphire costume perfectly!
Overall: 6.9/10 - Star Sapphire Wonder Woman's just not that impressive. Between losing the ab crunch an waist swivel, the lack of paint apps, and the shortage of accessories, I'm not sure this figure is worth getting unless your either a big fan of hers or the Anti-Monitor's. We know that the sculpt will remain pretty much as is when Wave 17 is released in August, but here's hoping that the actual packaged version will at least have her flesh painted! (So she won;t lok like a Fembot.)
Boy that's gotta be the longest name for a toy I've reviewed yet!
So Brightest Day has just ended with the ***Spoiler Alert*** return of Swamp Thing and John Constantine to the mainstream DC Universe. ***End of Spoiler*** But the DCUC figures of Blackest Night Characters have only justhit the shelves last month.
Well, I just managed to get my hands on the complete Wave 2 of the GL 2 Seriesand what a wave it is! Pity it'll be the last totally Green Lantern themed wave. The great thing? We get some brand new characters for the DCUC line! And Carol Ferris is one of them.
Well, it just took me one animated movie, a Batman villain, a corp of intergalactic peacekeepers, and an action figure to learn my lesson for the day. And that is: DC Universe Classic figures have a standard 23 points of articulation, not 21! Yup, their ankles can move forward and back as well as inwards and out.
So I'd like to apologize to anyone out there who's been reading my reviews and either a)believing me, or b)realizing that I can't count. Silly me.
Well, it was really the DCSH Bane figure below that alerted me to inward and outward ankle articulation, but I'd somehow failed to notice them on all the DCUC figures I had, all them being so well articulated as such. Perhaps Bane's lack of thigh cut joints and double hip/leg joints prompted me to be a little more thourough in looking for articulation in his feet.
So what triggered this sudden discovery in DCUC figures?
Well, DC's been putting out some decent animated movies of late, and so the latest to hit the shelves was Green Lantern: First Flight. The great news for all of us here in Singapore is that these movies are also produced in the Southeast Asia region friendly Code 3 (as opposed to 1 in the US). And for those who don't already know, Code 3s here are much cheaper than Code 1s. So much like the Wonder Woman Animated movie, when I saw the GL:1st Flight DVD going for S$20 in a store, I grabbed it. And watched it. And loved it...And opened DCUC Hal Jordan!
And it was when I was posing him on the stand he comes with and taking shots of him to put up here that I realized he has more ankle movement than I thought. A quick check on my recently acquired Boy WonderRobin confirmed that I am definitely no Rain Man.
Apologies for misleading all 3(?) of you who read my posts. Let this be the first correct one in a new Emerald Dawn of DCUC reviews.
While the first 8 waves of DCUC action figures have flown into stores thick and fast here even in Southeast Asia, waves 9,10, and 11, have been a bit of a wait. A bit of a long wait, in fact.
Wave 10 was announced for Fall of this year and 11 after that, but wave 9 has been slow to come in here in Singapore mainly because of a 30% wholesale price hike. That means the average retail of a DCUC figure from now on is expected to be S$40-45, and that's scared away most of the smaller stores/retaliers who bring DCUC in on their own. And the big stores here like Toys 'R' Us, Metro, and Robinsons still have stock of previous waves, making them reluctant to bring in new stock while old stuff is still on shelves. (TRU especially, since they even have tons of DC Superhereos Bizarro, Mongul, Darksaid, Black S/skirt Supergirl, and Kal-El going for the low, low price of $9.80.) We can only pray that stores will bring in they new stuff, price be damned! :P
So it's back to Wave 3 for one of the original Maginificent Seven: Hal Jordan as Green Lantern, Protector of Sector 3814 (Known to us civilians as Earth).
I have to admit that Hal never really seemed like an interesting guy to me. I mean, Bats has his Daddy/Mommy issues and Supes has his save the world or love the woman/want to be human dilemma. Hal just never seemed to have the problems these guys had. But watching Green Lantern First Flight changed my view of him a whole lot. And I bet watching this trailer will make you wanna watch the movie!
We're now on the right road to Hal worship!
So how could I resist the action fig after the movie?
He's got all 23 points of articulation for a standard DCUC fig--that's Ball joint head, swivel n hinge shoulders, hinge elbows, swivel wrists, ab crunch joint, swivel waist, swivel n hinge leg joints, hinge knees, swivel thigh cut joints, and double hinge ankles. Phew!
Oh, and he also comes with a standard issue Green Lantern accessory of, well, a power battery that looks like a green lantern.
What I like about characters with flying powers in this line is that if they come with the base, you get to pose them in ways that you couldn't for grounded heroes. So you get a whole range of taking off/landing/flight combat poses you can put them in that, let's say, Robin would look weird in. And most of the time flying dudes don't do no kung fu, which grounded heroes do (but call martial arts, just to be more sophisticated :P). So it works conversely in that you get a whole diffrent range of poses for the kung fu groundies too.
So we've got on the flying side of the Magnificaent 7 Superman, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, and Hal here.
And the Martial Artists/Grounded guys would be Batman, The Flash, and also Wonder Woman (She knows some kickass moves, all right. Just check out that animated movie of her's. ;])
Then we've got Aquaman. Hmm.
For some reason our friendly neighbourhood seahorse rider the hardest to find of the Mag 7 here on our sunny island in the sea. And I'm pretty sure he ain't in the waters around us.
But the King if the Seven Seas stands pretty much alone when compared to our good Hal. Jordan's a definite must have for any Green Lantern fan. He's a must have to complete the Magnificent Seven, and he's a must have to lead the members of the Corp when Wave 11 comes a knockin' with the likes of John Stewart, Katma Tui, and Collect n Connect Kilowog in there. Heck, even Cyborg Superman, who's also part of the currently ongoing Blackest Night storyline, is in there.
Then all we would need is a decent sized Sinestro (Oh, I love his character in the animated movie btw! :P).
Ratings!
Character Accuracy: 9.5/10 - Hard to go wrong here. I definitely prefer this uniform to the Abin Sur two-pack "sleeveless" version. Some might like that he's got the white hair at the temples but I think that would just make him look old. (And add to that near-pedophile rep he's somehow gotten. Hah!)
Aesthetics: 9.5/10 - His insignia is very well painted and outlined, his head on the whole is brilliant. The face has a slight frown of concentration, and you can see just the right amount of nostril flare to match. And just look at that hair! Makes one wonder if all pilots have such nice, vibrant, healthy looking locks... He does lose some points for his green being rather flat, and his ring kinda fudged (ok, at least they got paint on it right). His lantern accessory is also just molded green plastic.
Poseability: 9.5/10 - I have to say I'm impressed. It's funny, I've not actually had a flying hero who doesn't have a cape. This is great cos he can kneel, crouch, or be put in a pose where his waist is turned and he doesn't look awkward, and it's a right sight better than I ever thought. :)
Overall: 9.6/10 - The extra tenth on his score is just solely cos of the lack of a cape. (He can kneel! He can kneel! On one knee!) I know, it's strange, but Hal the figure turned out to be as much as a surprise as Green Lantern: First Flight. Get him while you still can!
It's only 8 days to go till the Green Lantern Movie hits the screens over in this part of the world! And that means I'm about to fail my objective of reviewing all my DCUC Green Lantern Wave figures. Hah! But look!--I got one more of 'em done over at Articulated Discussion.
