Dunno if you have plans for the Returns duck or the final suit Riddler in mostly white.
This may be surprising (it is to me) but I think I'm passing on those. They look great, but representation of Riddler and Penguin with one figure each might be all I need/want.
I haven’t collected these but it is surprising they exist in a mass market toy line and the likenesses also don’t suck.
The likenesses are surprisingly good and I think it's one area where Todd has shown actual growth over the last 5 years. Plus, a lot of these figures are first-time releases, meaning no company has ever done them movie-accurate before (at least in this scale). The only 90's B&R figure to be completely movie accurate was one Mr. Freeze who came in a two pack late in the line. Kenner's Batman Returns line famously repainted a Super Powers Penguin for their line because DeVito's movie version was too gross for the kids, they never did Shreck and never did a Returns-accurate Batman.
I do feel like the smart move for Mattel is to do something kind of like marvel legends.
I think Mattel is more like ML than we realize. Both take the cookie-cutter approach, using the hell out of a buck to get the maximum amount of figures. Before loosing the license, Mattel's articulation was just about on par with ML....not completely, but they were close. The were even doing pinless joints. That was six or seven years ago now...Hasbro still wants you do believe pinless is still a brand new revolutionary technology that they are giving us.
In general I don't spend too much time worrying about Mattel at this point. Right now everyone is poo pooing the idea of the license changing hands yet again and given that Marvel has stayed in one house for 15+ years, the DC fans have valid complaint in that regard. But like someone said, Mattel is likely going to show a shinny new Batman that looks awesome and we'll be balls-deep in 200 Mattel DC figures after that. McFarlane is riddled with faults, Mattel has faults all their own. Yeah, starting over (if you don't just jump ship) sucks, but it's over a year later than we initially thought it would be. I'll worry more about this next year, or at least when Mattel drops their first reveal. That's a long ways off.
Tbh, Jada clears them all,
I'd unload all my Toybiz and Hasbro MLs and all my Mattel and McFarlane DC if Jada took over either of those properties. Well.....almost all.
I will say in general, I think I prefer my action figures made by the smaller company that is more willing to take chances and do things for the fans (Toybiz, McFarlane*) than the large mega corporation that is more cookie-cutter and will cut every corner and squeeze the fans for every penny (Hasbro, Mattel). Unfortunately, Todd, while a smaller company, is an egomaniac and more interested in doing things "his way" than in a way that will please fans. Toybiz was owned by Marvel so that kind of value-for-dollar and putting the most effort into every release may have been a weird one-off anomaly that the action figure fan will never see again.
They gave Penguin a normal left hand. That shit is lazy and inexcusable.
It's such a weird, f-ed up thing. At the knuckles it looks like there are five sculpted fingers, but when it wraps around towards the tips it morphs into flippers. In-hand it's not really noticeable. I could take some sculpy and mess with it, but honestly I don't think it's worth it. That's the only aesthetic hiccup between four figures that look great otherwise.
DC fans will be lucky if Mattel doesn't launch into some sort of DC / MOTU crossover figures, or Ninja Turtle hybrid agreement when it comes to the experimental stuff.
When I see these mash-up figures in the toy aisles I shake my head and keep walking. When I see them I don't think, "Oh that's neat". I think corporate suits at the three major toy companies (Hasbro, Mattel, Playmates), fresh out of ideas and no willingness/creativity to think of anything new, so they decide to sell the 40 year olds ANOTHER He-Man, ANOTHER Optimus Prime, ANOTHER Leonardo. But they've reissued everything multiple times over. What do they do? New ideas are hard and might (**gasp***) cost money. No....no, we can't have that. I know! Mattel suit quick calls Hasbro suit who then quick calls Playmates suit.......we'll mash all of our decades-old characters into NEW* characters and the 40 year olds will say, "Oh that's neat!" and buy them again!
