Goodbye! This are not Bizarro, and he not best figure of the set! Him also not retool of Dark Knight Returns Superman! In all seriousness, this is the stronger part of the 2-pack, what with the figure he is a retool of needing few modifications to make him into Bizarro. Just flip the logo, make the blue purple, add a more maroon tint to the red, and make his skin grey. The body itself is fairly bulky as the artstyle depicts him, though that is perfectly fine for a character specifically like him. Some versions of Bizarro exaggerate the way he looks with the proportions in addition to making him appear more monstrous, so the reuse of the TDKR body works better than expected. Thankfully, the logo is a separate piece from the body, and having it be symmetrical in terms of shape makes mirroring the S into a backwards appearance is better than what Batzarro has as we'll get to. His cape flares to the left side of his body, though not to the same extent as the Hush version of Superman.
As for Batzarro, him are way better than Bizarro! And him not reuse of TDKR Batman! Him are totally new sculpt! Bizarro talk aside, this figure is, of course, a reuse of Batman as he appeared in The Dark Knight Returns. While he may not really feel all that different from the normal Batman from the neck down, there are plenty of a couple of key distinctions worth mentioning. Firstly the grey is closer to a chalky white than the more traditional greys used on Batman, whether it's like the shades used on the Knightfall bucks or Cowardly Lot. In addition, his utility belt is upside down with all of the pouches opened, meaning his gadgets all fell out and are scattered all over the place. One thing I do like is that the inside of the cape has some paint applied to give it a two-sided look, something I'm sure many wished their Batman's had to match the DCAU shading motif. Now what could be one thing that would be awful about this figure? Well, that would have to be the logo on the chest. Not that it's upside down, but that the original TDKR logo is filled in with barely any retooling to make the new logo placement seamless. Was it too much to at least make the figure's pecs a flat surface so the logo could be tampographed on? In a way, it's almost like a Bizarro McFarlanization that fits the character, but I doubt that it would be the intent. As a result of McFarlane not retooling the torso, this is also an issue where future versions of the mold matching the TDKR series cannot have the oval logo.
The head sculpts are great as always, and I love how the Ed McGuiness artstyle matches the characters perfectly than the characters they were cloned from. I love the bushy eyebrows on Bizarro and the Buzz Lightyear chin swirl, while Batzarro has no eyes a la the Xenomorph while his mouth matches that of the Joker.
Their articulation is mostly the same as with the standard McFarlane affair, though both have single jointed elbows with rotation at the elbows instead of the biceps, while Batzarro has thigh swivels found on most other action figures. This was likely a carryover from when the TDKR Batman needed to ride on the build-a-horse whose parts were included along with Superman, Carrie Kelly Robin, and the Joker. They both come with a display base that is decently painted and has a rocky texture to it, and it replaces the common display stands found on most McFarlane figures. While Bizarro comes with a sign to go over his neck as well as splayed open hands, Batzarro only comes with alternate fists. He could have come with the same chains that came with First Appearance Superman to match the box art. Otherwise, what is he going to hold?
Well, he can hold his trading card included if you want to do a picture like this. Though I barely go over the trading cards, I have to mention that the bios tend to be inconsistent between figures. Bizarro's is at least able to fill half of the white space, Batzarro gets a bio as short as the multilingual bios Hasbro uses in their packages. This is about as basic of a sentence as "Steve Rogers is a carbon-based lifeform". Yes, a Glenn Webb reference in a DC review, get me!
For anyone wondering what the prior uses were like, the TDKR version of Superman came either on his own with BAF parts or in a two-pack with Armored Batman. The exaggerated proportions are due to Frank Miller's take on the characters being larger than life caricatures in a grim story. Those proportions don't match the Return of Superman version, neither in baby blue or green skin. They work okay for Worlds at War because of the Ed McGuiness style, but how often would people buy that version?
The prior versions of Batman we got are the regular TDKR version, a Collector Edition with blue and a lighter gray, and a silhouette version meant to homage the cover to the graphic novel. Sadly, the blue and grey version only has painted battle damage. At least the cover version has a wired cape (or at least seems to have one).
For a size comparison, here we have a Bizarro sandwiched in-between the Godzilla Superman with the Action Comics 1000 head and the Mattel TDKR version made in 2016. I hadn't realized how much darker the Matty version got overtime even without being exposed under any light! Anyways, that figure is much chunkier than the McFarlane version, and that owes to the sculpt being made specifically for Superman whereas the prior version used the same base figure for both characters. It probably originated from the Masters of the Universe line.
And here we have Batzarro in-between Cowardly Lot Batman and Mattel's version of TDKR Batman. The funniest thing is how the bulkier body made more sense for Batman than it did for Superman when it comes to the reused bucks on Mattel, and that is where McFarlane did the Miller designs more justice. Ironically, going back to the mold history and comparing TDKR Batman to Cowardly Lot, the latter feels more like a comic version of Batfleck than the former did despite it being the inspiration for the Snyderverse design. So what do I think about this two-pack? If you can get it while it's discounted, I would recommend it. The biggest issue would have to be the torso on Batzarro having nothing but lazy tooling while he lacks an accessory of some kind to give him a different display option like with Bizarro's sign. While other Bizarro options exist like the Rebirth version from earlier in the line or the more recent retool of Action Comics 1000, this is all Batzarro has. So it's a case where the set as a whole is mostly neat, but there is room for improvement. Just know that any Superman figures using the Earth-2 body and any Batman figures using the Hush or Three Jokers bucks are going to tower over both figures. Though with my pictures, it doesn't take being the world's worst detective to know that.
Final ranking: ⭐⭐⭐ and a half out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
No comments:
Post a Comment