DCUC Batman, Robin, & Nightwing

NANANANANANANA BATMAN! And so on. Anyways, DCUC has already released the main male members of the Batfamily. And, seeing as Batman and his assorted companions are really the only DC characters I care about (Fuck Superman. Spidey could kick his ass. Seriously. I've got how he would do it all figured out in my head.) I've picked them up. This review is 50% ranting about Mattel.


First up is, of course, Bats himself. Batman was originally available in Series one of DCUC with a piece of the Metamorpho "Collect and Connect" figure (Mattel fails at names). I got that one when it first came out. It then disappeared. But, Mattel has started re-releasing the best DCUC figures as DCUC World's Greatest Superheroes subline (The full name is DC Universe Classics World's Greatest SuperHeroes. Quite a mouthful. Again, Mattel fails at names), which I got to replace the original Bats. The main point behind DCUC WGSH (Even when you abbreviate Mattel's names into acronyms, they still suck) is to re-release the most popular figures, and figures representing big name characters, so that people who didn't find them before have another chance. Because Mattel's distribution for DCUC has been HILARIOUSLY bad. And, of course, you still have to be damned lucky to find the DCUC WGSH figures. I somehow managed to find, and buy two Batmen (One is for repaint purposes).


Anyways, about the figure itself. Like the rest of the line, he's sculpted by the Four Horsemen, so the sculpt is obviously good. Batman shares most of his body with the DCUC figures of Red Tornado, Orion, Electric Superman and a bunch of others. Only his head, shins, forearms, belt, and cape are new. This body swapping has caused a lot of problems, which I'll discuss later. The figure's paint is good, without any of the numerous problems reported with DCUC (I know of at least one person, Poe Ghostal, who got a figure with an obvious fingerprint smeared into the chest emblem). He does however have the weird shadow thing on his face that's put on every recent silver age based Batman. Why the hell is that there? The only Batman I've ever seen with it is Adam West. I might remove it (CAREFULLY) with some paint cleaner. There is a dark wash on Bat's body that brings out some of the details, but it's more apparent on his limbs than his torso. He's got the standard DCUC articulation (Balljointed head, swivel-pin shoulders, post-hinge hips, hinged torso, elbows, knees, and ankles, rocker joints on the ankles as well, and swivel biceps, wrists, waist, and thighs), so he's poseable, but not as much as a Marvel Legends figure.


Batman gets a Batarang (Every Batman figure should have at least one), a grappling gun thing with rather large hook and a rather short string (I've replaced the string with a longer piece of thread), and a clear base. The base more or less replaces the CaC figure piece. You can also order these bases in bulk from Matty Collector.com, but that site seriously sucks.


Secondly is Batman's first apprentice, and the original Robin, Dick Grayson. He's now known as Nightwing. Basically, in the 70's they re-imagined Batman as a darker, more serious hero. Part of that was Dick Grayson quitting as Robin, becoming Nightwing, and finally becoming cool. How cool? So cool he boned Starfire. Lucky bastard.


Nightwing uses the medium male body, so he's slightly smaller than Batman, which is correct. Nightwing was a circus performer, so his fighting focuses more on agility, while Batman is more brute strength and gadgets. Nightwing gets a unique head (With the same hairstyle as me, which is slightly creepy.) and forearms and shins with the glove- and boot-top things his costume features. The paint is mostly good. The black with bright blue has always looked nice, so I'm glad they went with that instead of Nightwing's other (Disastrous) costume's. However, the paint on my Nightwing's mask sucks, and his left shoulder is particularly bad. His hair features a nice blue drybrushing.


Nightwing gets his two escrima fighting sticks. They're pretty simple, with a grip pattern in the middle. Unlike the others, he has clips on his back so they have a place to go when not in use. He also gets the torso to the Solomon Grundy "CaC" figure.


Robin. Yep. Robin. Yippee. They at least made Tim Drake, who is the closest Robin's come to being useful and cool. And, he's in his best costume. But, really, it's nearly impossible to get excited over Robin. Not that this is a bad figure. Quite the opposite, in fact. But it's still just Robin.


Robin is mostly based around the teenaged male body. He does get unique torso pieces (Along with the usual head, lower legs, and forearms, and his cape (Which is molded to go around his legs. Sweet!) and belt) because of his little R-logo and the clasps on his suit. I'm surprised Mattel didn't just paint those details on, so kudos to them. The proportions actually make him look like a teen, and not a short man, which is surprisingly tough. His paint is also good, with the only problem being a bit of his cape that should be black is yellow. He has the same articulation as everyone else, though the high collar on his cape greatly restricts his head movement. Also, the right elbow on mine was stuck. Luckily though, I haven't gotten any of the completely stuck joints, or limbs that fall off that others have with this line.


Robin's accessories are the same stand as Batman (This Robin also came from the DCUC WGSH sub line. Speaking of those bases, why do they only have one post? The other side just has a random hole. WTF?), his bo staff, and two Birdarangs. The second Birdarang is mostly useless though. Because his hands are meant to be used by other figures, he doesn't hold his accessories very well, though it is possible to get him to grip them well enough.

DCUC has been plagued with problems. Quality control has been shoddy. And the practice of using the same set of bodies for everyone has caused problems. Starfire is the best example of this. She's two short, has some weird monobreast thing, and is nowhere near busty enough. It's just plain stupid. If Mattel wants to re-use body parts, they should follow Hasbro's example with the GI Joe line: Have various body parts generic enough to switch, but create new parts when needed, and mix and match.

Anyways, these are some of the better figures in the line, and they represent iconic characters. If you can somehow find them, grab them.


DRAMATIC LIGHTING!!