Hey everybody, Geddy here with the latest edition of the NWC Figure Fraction. I have smoothed out my SD card reader issues, so don't expect anymore weird filler columns in lieu of actual reviews. For the second NWC figure review, I decided to go with a really awesome two pack I acquired a few weeks back. Who's in the two pack? Well, you read the title, but still, I wanted to do this...
There's just one problem...
You're talkin' to the wrong Harvey...
Now, I absolutely adore Two-Face. He's my favorite comic book villain of all time, arguably the most compelling character in the Batman mythos, and his design is awesome if done correctly (Bad guys in suits are always cool). I've wanted a figure of him for a long time, but aside from the Batman TAS figures and the one DCUC figure that's impossible to find, there aren't many figures of ol' Harvey. On top of the fact that it included Two-Face, this two pack looked even more amazing to me because it came with a sweet Arkham City style Batman as well, and I absolutely love Batman's Arkham City/Asylum design. These figures looked awesome in the package when I first saw them, so I was expecting great things. Arkham City rules, and you should buy it if you haven't, by the way. This will sort of be a joint review, where I'll rank each figure seperately, and give an average for both of them at the end.
See if these figures lived up to my expectations after the jump!
Packaging: 8/10 (I can't really rank this category seperately, because they came on the same card, obviously)
Two-Face and Batman came on a larger than average card, because obviously more space is needed as there are two figures.
The card has a very "Arkham City" aesthetic to it, with dark colors, bold fonts, and some grainy effects on some of the words for good measure. It's also got a picture of the skyline in the background. At the top, it just says "Batman: Arkham City," displaying the game's logo and title, with a moon and the Bat Signal behind it.
In the bottom left-hand corner, in a rather plain font, the names of both characters are displayed. Nothing special about that part.
To the far right on the box, there's a picture of the figures, in case you couldn't see them right there in the plastic. In this picture, the figures seem to be a little bit more shiny and polished than the final figures you'll be receiving.
That's more or less it for the front of the package. It's got an alright look going for it. A little bit boring, but not necessarily bad. The back of this box is pretty cool, I think. You get a picture of Batman and Two-Face standing next to each other, as well as little bios for the two. However, these aren't really "Bios" per se... Two-Face's little box describes some of his backstory, and also what he's doing in Arkham City. Batman's merely describes why he's facing Two-Face, and sort of ends with a little "How will he stop him?" cliffhanger. I think it's kind of neat, if a little weird, but also pointless, because anyone buying this undoubtedly knows the backstories of both Two-Face and Arkham City. I still think it's a pretty cool touch though.
I do like the aesthetic more on the back of the package. It still shows the city, but it's a lot more specific looking, with the Two-Face Uncle Sam poster that I actually loathe but everybody seems to adore in the background. I think it just makes the figures look a lot cooler when they're juxtaposed against a cool background like that. Overall, the packaging is kind of meh. It's not horrible, it's actually pretty good. But it doesn't really pop, altough you could argue that a package for toys based on such a grim, gritty game shouldn't really pop at all, but it's my review, so it gets an 8/10.
Paint: Batman - 8/10
Two-Face - 9/10
The paint on my figures was actually pretty solid. In terms of issues, the Batman just has a small unpainted spot, that's barely even noticeable, on his cheek.
Again, you can't even totally see it unless you're looking close, but it's there. Two-Face had no paint issues that I could see. However, though the respective paint jobs aren't necessarily bad, I do have some qualms about them. As you can see, Batman is all one solid black color. That's alright in theory, but he has a lot of detail on his gloves and whatnot, and making it all one solid color kind of looks cartoonish and cheap. Also, Batman is a dark blue in Arkham City anyway, not black...
This don't look right...
As for Two-Face, I don't know that I took any photos of him for the paint section. It was largely decent overall. The left side of him is scarred realistically, so he looks like a burn victim. He's basically maroon/blood colored, which is alright in theory, but I think a blackwash or something would've made the burns look more realistic. Instead, he sort of looks cheap and cartoonish, sort of like the Batman. But it's not as noticeable on the Two-Face, because the Two-Face's paint job is realistic/decent overall. It actually might be an issue of the scarred side not being textured well enough or evenly, which causes the paint to look worse just because it's being put on something that isn't even really that realistic looking.
Accessories: N/A
The Arkham City sector of the Batman Legacy line doesn't do anything in the area of accessories. Can't score 'em on it when there's nothing to evaluate.
Articulation: Batman: 10/10
Two-Face: 6/10
These figures could not be more different, in terms of articulation. Batman is absolutely stacked. He's essentially got the standard DCUC articulation, even though he's not a DCUC figure. I was very pleased with this. Bats has got:
A ball jointed neck, allowing for turning and 360 degree rotation...
An ab-crunch, allowing his torso to be bent forward and backward...
Hinged shoulders with a peg, that allow 360 degree rotation of the shoulders, as well as up and down movement...
A peg in his arm that allows everything under the shoulder to be rotated fully...
His elbows are hinged, allowing them to be bent...
A cut at his wrist, allowing his fist to be rotated...
His legs are cut, allowing up and down movement, but also have a peg and a hinge, allowing them to be spread apart, and increasing the number of poses you can put Batman in drastically...
He's got a cut right below his thigh, which allows everything below it to be rotated...
A hinged knee, allowing the knee to be bent...
Finally, Batman has hinged ankles, allowing the feet to be moved slightly up and down. A warning though: The ankles are deplorably loose on my Batman, to the point where after this review, I couldn't get him to stand up by himself anymore, because I had used them too much. They were loose to begin with, but moving them too much evidently makes it worse. The cape helps him stand a bit, but I have him posed in a battle like stance in order to rectify the issue and not put as much weight on the ankles/cape. Just a warning that if you want to just pose your Batman standing should you choose to purchase this, don't mess with the ankles too much.
Batman's articulation is awesome. He's fun to play around with, and it's cool that they gave him the DCUC articulation treatment despite him not being a DCUC figure, as I said earlier. As for Two-Face... Well... His articulation is pretty weak... Big Bad Harv features:
A ball jointed neck, allowing 360 degree head rotation. Though a ball joint usually allows up and down movement as well, there's something wrong with mine. Two-Face can't move his head up and down. I'm not sure if it's an error specific to mine, or if they're all like this, but it can get annoying...
A cut at the shoulder, allowing his arms to be moved up and down. This bugs me, because it would've been really easy to just go with a hinged shoulder. I have no idea why they didn't. By only including the cut, they've severely limited the range of motion and reduced the amount of poses you can put this figure in. It's aggravating...
There's a cut right below Two-Face's shoulder that allows the whole arm to be rotated. This would be nice, but as you can see, if you do utilize the cut and turn the arm, it looks unnatural and ugly. Kind of a pointless inclusion; It's almost as if they were trying to increase the poseability of the figure, but they failed miserably, because nobody's going to pose him with his arms like that when it looks so ugly...
He's got a hinged elbow, that allows bending. No problems here...
A cut wrist that allows 360 degree hand rotation...
A cut leg, allowing the legs to be moved up and down. I, again, feel that Dent's articulation should've been more like Batman's here. A hinge and ball joint in the legs would've been a lot better and increased the posing capabilities of this figure...
A cut right below his thigh... I have the same issues with this as the cut below his shoulder...
And a hinged knee. No issues with that.
To review, here are both figures, more or less posed to the full extent of their respective abilities:
Notice how Batman looks cool, and natural, and Two-Face looks ridiculous? I understand that giving large amounts of articulation to figures with suits is difficult - If you put a bunch of articulation points on it, the suit gradually gets broken up and ends up looking very toy-like. But you know what... It's a toy. I don't care if it looks toy-like. I'd rather have a toy-like looking toy that I can get into multiple poses than a realistic looking toy that I can't do shit with. All in all, the Batman's articulation is amazing, but it makes the Two-Face look even worse by comparison.
Sculpt: Batman - 9/10
Two-Face - 9/10
This is honestly the most important category when it comes to ranking figures, in my opionion. I know I just said I'd rather have a toy-like toy that I can play with than a realistic looking toy, but toy-like toys don't necessarily look bad. A sculpt makes or breaks a toy, I think. I love toys that I can get into multiple poses, but if that toy is ugly, I don't care how articulated it is, I don't want it. It's gotta look nice on my shelf, or what's the point in spending a ton of money on a piece of plastic? Luckily, both Batman and Two-Face look absolutely fantastic, aside from some VERY miniscule flaws. These figures were not sculpted by the Four Horseman, Mattel's normal go-to guys for sculpts. Allegedly, Mattel simply scanned the in-game character models of Bats and Two-Face, and then made casts of them. That's not a negative; These things still look pretty great.
I'll start with Batman's sculpt... It's pretty solid. As it's scanned directly from the in-game model, there wasn't a ton of room for error. The head is cool, and looks exactly like Batman from the game. However, it sits kind of oddly on his neck, giving him a weird giraffe-neck look...
Batman's body is pretty great too. There's a lot of textures and stuff to it, giving it a very realistic look. My only issue with the body is that it's a bit too thin. Batman's a buff guy, and I don't think that his muscles have been adequately captured here. Regardless, the lack of buffness does not detract too much from what is a largely impressive sculpt.
I really like the textures on the suit and Bat-Symbol...
A bit skinny for Batman...
Two-Face's sculpt is more or less on the same level of quality. The head is sculpted well. as is the suit. I like how his color scheme is reminiscent of TAS, but in a realistic way (The black half of his suit is burned black). I'm a sucker for anything related to TAS' Two-Face, so I really like the aesthetic of this figure. Harvey's normal half looks good; I like how they sculpted his coin into his unscarred hand. I'm somewhat divided over his deformed half... It looks really cool, but I feel it lack detail. It's kind of just smooth and colored. I think perhaps it would've benefited from some more texture and detail. It's a minor thing, because the deformed half does look really cool regardless. The suit is highly detailed as well. My big issue with Two-Face is his messed up hand. It would've been cool if he had been holding a gun, whether it be sculpted on, or an accessory. Instead, he has this weird, open hand that you can't really do anything with. It's nice looking, but something else would've been better. Again, great sculpt overall, but those two flaws hold it back from perfection.
Overall/Value: Batman - 9/10
Two-Face - 8/10
Overall, these two figures are both solid. Nice aesthetics, sweet sculpt, decent articulation (For Batman). I personally prefer the Two-Face figure overall, but according to my rating system he's "worse" than Batman, mostly due to the weak articulation. As for whether or not you should purchase these figures... That's a toughie. The set was 29.95. I was a little wary at paying that. I wouldn't get it unless I could find it for that price or cheaper. Anything over 30 is too much, I think. There are also obviously some flaws with the figures. I feel like I didn't stress them enough, because I'm biased towards Two-Face but whatever. Just be warned that these things are of a somewhat cheap quality for 30 dollars... They would be disappointing if I hadn't so desperately wanted a Two-Face figure. I adore Two-Face, and am obviously even more of a sucker for his Animated Series incarnation. Also, Arkham City fucking rules, so this set was a no-brainer for me. I'd say, only get this if you're REALLY into Two-Face or Arkham City. If you just like Batman, I'd say look elsewhere. DC Direct has an AMAZING Arkham Asylum Batman figure. This Batman is certainly good, but Batman figures are a dime a dozen. You could probably find other, better ones if you looked. Also be warned, if you do buy this, if you have a large collection of DCUC figures, these figures are bigger than DCUCs, so do with that information what you will. As I said, this set is a tough sell unless you love Harvey or the game. I'd definitely recommend skipping it otherwise.
Well, that's pretty much it peeps! Let me know what you thought about this review and NWC in general by emailing me (hahahahawhy@Yahoo.com or motuman14@yahoo.com), or leaving a comment! My camera issues are smoothed out, so don't expect another Figure Fraction delay. The next episode of the NWC Podcast should be up tomorrow, so look out for that as well! I'll close with some extra "action" pictures I took...
"Harvey..."
"....."
"DENT! Turn around!"
"You're talkin' to the wrong Harvey..."
"Come with me, Dent."
"......"
"Heads... I'll come with you..."
"Don't do this Harvey..."
"Tails, on the other hand, I'll-"
(Yes, that is my hand... It was a tough shot to take, don't make fun!)
"......"
Thanks for reading, and Welcome to Your Doom!
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