Sculpt: This guy looks pretty bad, but in a good way. Bizarro's skin has rough cracked texture you would expect from this defective clone of Superman, but less of a fractured jigsaw appearance that the classic Bizarro had. He has much more of a zombie look to him. It looks really great and very accurate to the the way he has been depicted in the handful of comic book issues that he's been in.
As for his outfit, he is of course sporting his New 52 version of his costume. Gone is his purple and dark blue reversed Superman costume with tattered cape and #1 plaque around his neck. Instead we get something that is a bit of a combination between Superman's New 52 first appearance look and his current look. Bizarro's pants and boots are identical, including the color, to Superman's new armored look. The shirt he is wearing is meant to be a t-shirt like the one Superman would wear before he got his Kryptonian armor. The cape looks good and is in a fairly neutral position. The only thing is that they made a bit of an odd sculptural decision to make the logo a raised element. In the comic, Bizarro just happens to put the shirt on inside out, so what you are seeing is the inside print of the Superman logo. If anything, the logo should look a bit faded out like you are seeing it through the material of the shirt. In and industry that usually tries to get away with just printing a logo rather than sculpting it so they can reuse the part for other characters, this decision seems as backwards as Bizarro himself.
Verdict: 8/10 - Great looking sculpt with an odd choice for the logo.
Scale: The scale for this figure comes out to be somewhere around 6"(1:12) and 7"(1:10) scale. The figure is listed as being 6.75" tall which seems to be pretty accurate. He fits in 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. Bizarro almost fits in with the Mattel DC Universe figures, he is just about a half head taller than the standard figure. If you put him in a hunched position, it's not really that noticeable. For now, I think this is the collection I'll be displaying him in. At least until I get any other figures from DC Collectibles that he can fit in with.
Verdict: 8/10 - Fits in well with the other figures in his line and can even work with other lines.
Paint: I have to say that the look of the paint job on this is really pretty great. The color choices are spot on, from the paint wash that was used to bring out the texture of the skin to the metallic blues and reds used for the lower body. Right out of the box he was just about perfect. Maybe even a ten out of ten. After a while, things changed.
I'm not sure what the problem with the paint is, but it's not holding up well. Some of the metallic colors have started flaking in spots and the blue of the shirt is rubbing off at the arm joints. The ab joint was completely stuck because of the paint, but once I got it to work there was quit a bit of paint rub. This was really disappointing.
Verdict: 6/10 - The colors are great but, the quality, not so much.
Articulation: For a DC Collectibles figure, heck, for any action figure the articulation is pretty damn good. DCC has really stepped up their game lately which is perfect timing to fill the void left by Mattel's DC Universe line coming to and end. There are joins in the following locations; neck, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists, abs, waist, pelvis, upper thighs, double knees, and ankles. They all work very well (one the paint comes unstuck) and have a nice range of motion. I do wish the neck joint allowed him to look straight up so that you could put him in a nice flying position, but what he has isn't too bad.
Verdict: 9/10 - A better range of motion on the neck and some side to side articulation on the ankles would have made it a ten.
Accessories: Jack squat, nada, zilch.
Verdict: 0/10 - Nothing to judge here. A base and maybe some alternate hands would have been nice. Other than that, I'm not sure what they could have included.
Overall: I have to say, I really like this figure quite a bit. I when I saw him at a local comic book store that was having a buy one get one free sale on all action figures, I figured I'd pick him up. I'm glad I did and for the price I paid ($12.50) he was a steal. The lack of accessories didn't really sour my enjoyment of the figure, but the paint issues really hurt. I hope this is a QC issue that DCC has worked to correct, because if they make more figures like this one, then I'll be sure to add some to my collection.
- Brunpuppies
The opinions expressed by the HiddenLevel Bloggers and those providing comments are theirs alone, and do not reflect the opinions of HiddenLevel.org or anyone involved in the running of this site. HiddenLevel is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information supplied by the Bloggers of this site.
The HiddenLevel Blog was founded as site for contributors to be able to express their opinions and share news about the interest they enjoy. The main purpose is to have fun.
Other sites are welcome to use the information found on this sit as long as credit and a link are provided. For and questions you may have or for further information about the site, please contact hiddenlevel.team@gmail.com
Back in 2007, Marvel Toys made an action figure of one of my favorite comic characters, The Savage Dragon. Right away I new I would have to pick up multiples of this figure. I ended up buying about 4 or 5. At first I just bought one with a tank top and one shirtless, but once these figures went on clearance I got a few more. The question was, what was I going to do with all these figures?
In June, Lego is releasing a Ghostbusters set that is exclusive to their Lego Stores and website (priced $49.99). This is coming to us courtesy of the Cuusoo design project which allowed fans to submit their own Lego designs and have other fans vote to have them become official Lego sets. Ghostbusters joins fellow 80's movie classic, Back to the Future, as a winning entry which consisted of each of the 4 Ghostbusters and their vehicle the Ecto-1. The set was submitted by Brent Waller, who recently received one of the first official sets of his design. He posted a whole series of photos of the new Legos along side his original submittal on his Facebook fan page Lego Ghostbusters and Flickr page. While there have been some changes, the end result is still very true to the characters and car. Here are just some of the pictures.
In "The New 52" (a reboot of the DC Comics universe), Bizarro is seen in the "Forever Evil" storyline. As a part of "Villains Month" in Superman 23.1, or Bizarro #1, Lex Luthor attempted to splice Superman's DNA with human DNA and decides to inject it into a teenage test subject named Bobby in order to create his personal army of Supermans. Instead, Bobby is transformed into a hulking white-skinned monster with cryonic vision, incendiary breath, and immunity to Kryptonite. Deducing his weakness, Lex kills him with concentrated solar radiation that over saturates the Kryptonian cells causing him to explode. Lex then takes samples of the creature to continue his experiment. This time, Lex Luthor tries to clone a purely Kryptonian body. Five years later, a capsule labeled B-0 is shown. After the Crime Syndicate of America takes over the world, Luthor releases his new clone. Though his transformation has not yet been completed (Luthor comments it needed another five years), he kills a security guard named Otis on Luthor's orders. Luthor is pleased and uses Bizarro in his plan to take the Syndicate down.
Erik Larsen, creator of Savage Dragon and long time artist and writer on Spider-Man in the 80's and 90's, gave a quick review of the Amazing Spider-Man on his Facebook page today. He also has quite a bit to say about the Sam Rami directed films. Here is what he had to say:
My wife always has a succinct and often hilariously uninformed post-movie review in the car. She thought it was corny and too silly but her two quibbles just amused me enough: "They don't serve dim sum at night" and "Jamie Foxx had a gap in his teeth but after he became Electro he didn't have a gap in his teeth" --it seems weird to me that with all of the crazy shit going on--Max Dillon turning into an electrical man--that his teeth getting slightly altered after the change seemed an odd place to draw a line in the sand in regard to her suspension of disbelief. She also said, "So, Harry Osborn becomes the Silver Surfer?" which cracked me up. 
You are about to enter spoiler country, proceed with caution.
And there lies the problem with this movie, the damn villains. The problem is not exclusive to this movie. All the villains in the Spider-Man movie franchise suffer from not being very good. I don't really blame the actors in most cases; Willem Dafoe, Alfred Molina, Jamie Foxx, these are people that have proven they can act. They just get put in these roles that involve poor choices. Usually the motivations behind the villains are really weak. Electro goes from loving Spider-Man to hating him because he forgot his name. The guy wants to murder people because a guy he met for 2 seconds forgot his friggin' name!? If I was him I'd be amazed that Spidey remembered as much about him as he does!
Then there are are the other "bad guys." Alistair Smythe is just a dochie jerk, Dr. Ashley Kafka seems like he came out of a Schumacher Batman movie, and Aleksei Sytseviche (the Rhino) seems like a corny cartoon character. To be clear, I have no problem with the Rhino mech suit, I just think Paul Giamatti hams it up way too much. Plus, for a movie with some great special effects, Giamatti looks poorly Photoshopped into that Rhino suit. It's pretty bad. I do love the scene at the end with the kid though. That's how Spidey makes the kid in me feel. Inspired to be strong.
