McFarlane DC Multiverse The Penguin (Collector Edition) review

A few months ago, we got a Penguin show that is basically The Sopranos for comic book nerds. Usually, the Penguin is depicted as having a night club of some sort to hide his crimes behind the scenes, and his own criminal underworld stands out from his classy attire and mannerisms, even if he has a tendency to attack with his umbrella gadgets and make quacking noises. It's the way he acts in addition to how sane he remains compared to other villains in Batman's rogues gallery that makes him and the superhero see each other as equals in some regard. For anyone who doesn't like their Penguin a little too close to Sopranos territory, there is always a more mutated iteration as we've seen in Batman Returns. But with our Penguin being more Gold/Silver Age-related, we'll focus on the version of the character McFarlane Toys made for today's review.

Here we have The Penguin in hand, and the stumpy physique of the character is recreated perfectly. While the character's proportions vary from how short he's supposed to be, this figure makes the right balance between having him shorter than the average adult in DC while also not making him cartoonishly stumpy as one would expect in some older cartoons where characters had physiques similar to The Penguin's. The figure reuses parts from the Arkhamverse version, mostly the legs, hats, and arms. The torso's clothing and the coat are new for the figure, and there is a decent bit of dry-brushing overall. The orange vest does look a little brighter, and the shading, while appreciative, does look a bit like the paint is rubbing off. The arms could look a little shorter, but the proportions are otherwise good. I will take points off for the purple diaper piece not matching the legs.

The head sculpt is super fitting for the character, with a frumpy and wrinkly face, the squinty eye fitting for the time, and a monocle to fit his higher-end class, and the top hat fits with the purple band above the brim. The nose thankfully doesn't have its seam stand out too much than what I initially feared given how the figure was assembled. And we even have some of the remaining hair on the Penguin's head picked out. Sculpt limitations aside, his articulation consists of a double-ball neck joint, ball joints for front and back motion in addition to having them shift around with the rotator cuffs hiding said joint, hinges for outward arm movement, bicep rotation, double-jointed elbows, and double-purpose wrists that can rotate at two pegs, with the connection at the forearm allowing the hands to hinge either vertically or horizontally. The torso includes a diaphragm joint and dumbbell waist, hips can move front and back as well as in and out, slight thigh rotation is included, knees bend with double-joints, and the feet can rotate, hinge, and pivot. Finally, the toes can bend for natural walking poses. He holds his umbrella in his more open hands decently, though I do wish he has another version that is opened. 

The thing that makes him unique as part of the McFarlane Collector Edition is a display piece for the collector card, which has chrome foil for the text. Whether or not it's worth the added $10 is up for debate, but I got mine at a discount. There is a Super Powers variant with blue, lavender, and yellow for the costume, and I think I'll stick with the regular version given how much I prefer the more evil color combo. That being said, I still wish we had penguin accessories for him, either as actual penguins or exploding, wind up ones. Oh, and the pic on the left shows his alternate left hand.

For a size comparison, here he is next to Knightfall Batman in black and grey. Though he does look a little taller than some people are probably used to, this figure does scale well, and the top hat does add some needed height. While I'm happy with how the sculptwork and articulation generally turned out, I am disappointed that he doesn't have an alternate umbrella that is open or any penguins, regular or bomb ones. The added accessories would justify the price bump more than the card display piece.

Final ranking: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ out of ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐