DC Designer Series: Batman Action Figure Review

Welcome to another HiddenLevel Action Figure Review!  The subject of today's review is DC COMICS DESIGNER SERIES: BATMAN ACTION FIGURE from DC Collectibles.  This action figure is based on a design by the best-selling artist, Greg Capullo.  It was an April-May release and is retail priced at $24.95US.  Other figures from this line include Nightwing, The Riddler, and Talon.  

Batman is a fictional character, a comic book superhero appearing in comic books published by DC Comics. Batman was created by artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger, and first appeared in Detective Comics #27 (May 1939). Originally referred to as "the Bat-Man" and still referred to at times as "the Batman", the character is additionally known as "the Caped Crusader", "the Dark Knight", and "the World's Greatest Detective", among other titles.

Batman is the secret identity of Bruce Wayne, an American billionaire, industrialist, and philanthropist. Having witnessed the murder of his parents as a child, he swore revenge on criminals, an oath tempered with the greater ideal of justice. Wayne trains himself both physically and intellectually and dons a bat-themed costume in order to fight crime. Batman operates in the fictional Gotham City, assisted by various supporting characters including his crime-fighting partner, Robin, his butler Alfred Pennyworth, the police commissioner Jim Gordon, and occasionally the heroine Batgirl. He fights an assortment of villains, often referred to as the "rogues gallery", which includes the Joker, the Penguin, theRiddler, Two-Face, Ra's al Ghul, Scarecrow, Poison Ivy, and Catwoman, among many others. Unlike most superheroes, he does not possess any superpowers; he makes use of intellect, detective skills, science and technology, wealth, physical prowess, martial arts skills, an indomitable will, fear, and intimidation in his continuous war on crime.

I included the above information about Batman from his Wikipedia page, because there may be someone in the world that's reading this review that has never heard of Batman.  I assume it's possible.  Maybe.

Sculpt:  This Batman figure looks like he came right off a Greg Capullo drawn page.  The sculpt of the head and cape are probably what go the farthest towards capturing that style.  The head is square jawed and  has very short ears,  It's also not very detailed and leans more towards cartoony than realistic which is just fine.  The cape flails out into points at different heights rather than the more traditional scalloped end.

The suit itself has the details specific to the New 52 version of the costume.  It is a light to medium gray suit with lots of sculpted seams and a big glossy black bat logo on the chest.  The gloves gauntlets and boots look to be armored with the bottom of each forearm of the gauntlets having 3 blades and the boots having heavy treaded soles.

Verdict: 9/10 - Great looking artist specific sculpt.

Scale:  The scale for this figure comes out to be somewhere around 6"(1:12) and 7"(1:10) scale.  The figure is 6.5" to the tip of the ears.  He fits in just fine with a lot of the newer DC Collectibles figures.  Many of the older series including the the ones from DC Direct, had a sliding scale that varied from one figure to the next.  Batman doesn't really fit in with the Mattel DC Universe figures, he is just about a 1/2" taller than the standard figure although he looks pretty good with the Bane Build-A-Figure (Collect and Connect).  With the growing amount of awesome looking and well articulated figures coming from DC Collectibles, there is no shortage of figures for him to be displayed with.  I will most likely have him displayed fighting Talon.

Verdict: 9/10 - Fits in perfectly with the other figures in his line.

Paint:  The paint on this figure had some issues.  Think DC Collectibles biggest stumbling block right now is their paint work.  Overall, the color choices are great.  Everything seems to be the color it should be.  My issue is with the application of the paint.  The cape on mine is missing black paint in spots, revealing the white of the plastic.  It's really odd that they didn't just go with a black base plastic which would have hid this problem.  The gray of the suit is clumpy in a few spots and made the joints stick at first.  The orange wash on the yellow belt is also much clumpier than it should be. It may seem like I think the paint is horrible, which is not the case.  I actually think that overall the paint isn't that bad, just compared to everything else about the figure, it's not at the same level of excellence.

Verdict: 7/10 - The colors are spot-on but, the quality just needs a little improvement.

Articulation:  I am really loving the DCC articulation.  It feels a bit like a blend of the Marvel Legends and DC Universe Classics articulation.  If DC Direct had been making figures like this, I would have been a collector of there stuff from the start.
Batman has joints in the following locations:

Ball-jointed neck

Ball-jointed shoulders

Swivel Biceps

Hinged elbows

Swivel at top of gloves

Hinge and swivel wrists

Hinged torso

Swivel waist

Double hinged hips

Swivel thighs

Double-jointed knees

Ball-Jointed ankles

Verdict: 9/10 - Batman has  articulation and range of motion to put him to the poses that you want.

Accessories:  Three little tiny batarangs…that will probably get lost in a very short amount of time.  It's really great that you can use all three at once by placing them between the fingers of his left hand, but the slightest bump and they fall right out.  Don't get too attached to them is you plan on displaying Batman holding them.

Verdict: 4/10 - A base and maybe some alternate hands would have been nice.  Some other gadgets for Batman to use would have gone a long way towards upping that score.

Overall:  DC Collectibles action figures officially have my attention.  They have shot right up to my top 5 action figure lines right now.  With Mattel no longer making any DC figures that I'm interested in, this is perfect timing.  With just a little more attention to the quality control of the paint, they could replace NECA as my favorite toy company.

Verdict: 9/10 - A really great figure.  Go out and get one.

- Brunpuppies

Click Here for a review of Talon and other action figures.

Click Here for a review of the DC Collectibles Bizarro action figure.

Click Here for a review of Link from Legend of Zelda

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