Saturday, March 20, 2010

Batty for Batgirl

One of the things (few things according to most Internet reviewers) in which DC Direct is better than Mattel's DCUC is the lack of a unique repainted body. Of course, DCD does an insanely amount of repaints, but the lack of one buck allows lines to have incredibly different characters of all shape and sizes (Kryb, Larfleeze and Atrocitus from the Blackest Night line are great examples of this). Of course the lack of one buck is the root of DCD's problems with scale, but with a little QC and some attention to detail that would be a minor issue.

Georg Brewer, the man in charge of DC Direct (that also has a PHD in Missing The Point) said several times that DCD needed a unique body to compete with Mattel. Wrong. Attempts to a unique body from DCD (namely, the History of the DC Universe line) were a complete failure. Also Gerog said that since they have the male and female bucks from the Superman/Batman line (based on the art of Ed McGuinness) that should be the buck used. Wrong. Again.

The over muscular buck based on McGuinness art is fun, and works almost as a caricature of a superhero. For some characters (like Captain Marvel) it works great, since that body and face expression would be exactly how a little boy like Billy Batson would imagine a superhero. But for some other characters that body just doesn't work.


"The Flash? more like The Fail..."

The female buck is also muscular and also goes good with some characters, and others, not so much (like Wonder Woman, that looked like the fifth member of KISS).



But I just bought my first DCD figure of 2010 and this time, the buck works very well:



Batgirl, Cassandra Cain, is a great addition to my Bat-Family display and she looks perfect in this sculpt. The muscles are the McGuinness style, but looks OK considering she trained all her life to be the best assassin in the world. The bright paint makes her mask, especially the eyes, pop in a figure that's almost all black.



And still, she's shorter than Barbara Gordon Batgirl (from Justice), as she should be. So they look great together. We'll see how the scale thing will look with Stephanie Brown later this year...



All things consider, I really like how Cassandra turned out. She looks like she can certainly kick Katma Tui's ass. I'd bet on it, but super-heroine fights are illegal in Argentina...

Until next time. Seriously, anyone wanna bet, I got 50 bucks here that say that Batgirl breaks one of Katma Tui's arms like she's Steven Seagal... No? OK, next time then...

1 comment:

chrismandesign said...

well, if a bunch (or the mayority) of DC figures collectors has that "serious" complain bout DCD female characters scale compared with male characters, they could cut their veins whenever they want, i don’t care bout that... i think that DCD (& some Mattel DCUC) figures r great by their own right... i must confese i didn’t like those comic figures, cuz i’m more from manga/anime universe, but since i meet personally some of them, i was enchanted... This Ed MacGinness Batgirl for me is beautifully savage, nicely sculpted & painted & i didn’t see it out there, congrats Freak... BTW i’m not in agreement with u bout Flash & Wonder Woman, they don’t look weird or ugly, just different...)