If you keep any kind of track of what
goes on here at Needless Things then you know that I had said I was
going to discuss Matty screwing up my shipping in the Atrocitus
review and today I was supposed to talk about my knowledge of Jack
Kirby.
But then I went off on this whole other
tangent about how much DC has fucked up Atrocitus since the New 52,
and I can get the Kirby stuff out of the way pretty quick. So here’s
the deal with Matty’s idiot business partner, Digital River, and
how they screwed up. This time.
I’m not going to get into all of the
details of the various subs or how hilariously badly some of them
were handled. I’m also not going to delve into the multiple
deceptions Matty utilized to cajole “fans” (Matty’s word for
“customers”) into obligating themselves to a year’s worth of
toys; only a tiny percentage of which were disclosed.
No, I’m just going to hit on one of
the promises Matty made that they seem to have actually followed
through on. Sometimes.
We were told that any subscriptions we
purchased – regardless of when we purchased them – would ship
together in their second shared month, as long as they were paid for
with the same credit card and used the same shipping method. This was
a good move and quite frankly a surprising one. Matty – wisely –
is always hesitant to offer any kind of administrative promises that
rely on Digital River. But this time they did and it probably paid
off for them. I know it convinced me to buy a DC sub after I had
already bought my Club Eternia in July. And no – of course I
didn’t believe it would go off without a hitch. But it was enough
that they were trying, I guess.
So obviously my DC and MOTUC subs did
not ship together in June. Otherwise I wouldn’t be writing all of
this.
I have never had to call Digital
River’s customer service for any reason, though I have read an
endless number of horror stories about them. Scot Nietlich has been
telling us for several months that big, important things were being
done to improve DR’s processes and customer service. It was time to
put that to the test. I called and spoke to a lady who did not sound
like she was based in a call center in America (this was one of the
improvements that was promised). She was very nice, though, and did
not seem to have any trouble understanding what I wanted or how to
handle it. This was already a major improvement over almost any
other customer service I have ever dealt with. She told me that DR
would refund my shipping expense for the DC figures and that I should
expect an e-mail from the Escalations Department in five to seven
days.
Uh, oh. I’d heard that number before.
Many miserable stories of lost shipments, funds, and uninitiated
cancellations start with that number.
But three days later I received my
e-mail stating that my shipping had been refunded and it had. I’ll
have to wait until next month to find out if they have actually
combined my shipping now. I’m not even going to get into the fact
that I chose UPS when I subscribed and am getting everything via this
awful fucking Newgistics company.
So there’s that. I was also supposed
to mention Jack Kirby.
I first became aware of Jack Kirby
thanks to a one-off issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It
was the first issue penciled by Michael Dooney and it was in its
entirety a tribute to Jack “King” Kirby. In it, Donatello meets a
comic artist who is basically a struggling Jack Kirby, right down to
his style and his name – Kirby. Stuff happens and Kirby’s
drawings come to life and he and Donatello save the day. It’s a
good little read and one that I strongly recommend, along with all of
the other Mirage Turtles stories.
Of course, when I read that I didn’t
know anything about Jack Kirby. I just knew that there was a little
dedication to him at the end.
I wasn’t aware of Kirby’s
involvement in creating Captain America, the Fantastic Four, and half
of Marvel’s original superheroes. I certainly didn’t know that
Kirby had created so many of the bad guys from that old Super
Powers line I had when I was younger.
I think Kirby’s style and designs are
really cool and I certainly respect his contributions to the art of
comic books, but I haven’t really experienced a whole lot of his
work. Actually, most of what I’ve seen has come by way of the one
man who seems to have been more vilified than any other over Marvel
Comics’ supposed mistreatment of Kirby and his family – Jim
Shooter. If you follow Shooter’s blog – and you should – he
frequently uses Kirby’s artwork as examples of storytelling and how
to do it.
So anyway, Metron is a creation of Jack
Kirby. He’s a guy who flies around time and space in a chair and
observes. He’s like what Doctor Who would be if the Doctor
was totally boring. I guess that’s not fair – I haven’t ever
even read a story with Metron in it other than Final Crisis;
that’s just my take on the guy.
First Glance: The chair
looks fantastic. Metron’s head looks awesome.
Sculpt: How can I
express a sigh without typing “sigh”?
Metron has a new head and hands. His
body is a regular DCUC average male. There are ball joints at the
neck and shoulders, though his head doesn’t have much up and down
motion. Metron has swivels at the biceps, wrists, waist, and thighs.
His abdomen, elbows, knees, and ankles pivot and he has the
swivel/pivot joints for hips.
All of the joints on mine are tight and
move well.
The new hands are pretty neat. His
sleeves go down to cover his hands slightly, so they look more
distinctive than a guy whose sleeves just happen to end at the wrist
joint. The fingers are in a sort of “resting on the controls”
pose that looks good but would work better on pivoting or
ball-jointed wrists. As it is Matron’s hands don’t sit quite
right on the armrests of his chair. It isn’t bad by any means,
but it could be better; which is how I would describe his interaction
with the chair overall. But I’ll get to that.
The head is tremendous. The detail in
the sculpt of his costume is awesome, with the signature Kirby
tube-things looking great as raised portions. Metron’s eyes seem
slightly larger than the average DCUC figure’s, making him a bit
otherworldly. In all, this is one of the better costumed heads I’ve
seen in the DCUC line. I like it an awful lot.
Which makes the rest of his body even
more of a tragedy. Rather than sculpt a costume for Metron so that it
matched his head, Matty (and I blame Matty, not the Horsemen – you
know this was a “budget” call) simply painted the costume on his
body. In my opinion, this is utter crap. I’ll discuss the quality
of the paint job below, but it is extremely jarring to have the same
costume elements – the white tube things - represented in different
ways on the same figure. Never mind the problem of the Yellow Lantern
Corps having different shades of yellow – this single figure
doesn’t even match.
Design: While I
completely and utterly disagree with the decision Matty made
regarding Metron’s costume, the quality of the paint applications
can’t be denied.
Metron’s head looks very good and all
of the various sculpted elements are defined further with tight and
clean paint. The alien look of his large eyes is enhanced by the
paint job, which has given them an intensity that suits the
character.
The details of his costume are captured
very well, if in a way that I find lazy and wrong. The various parts
are very clean and bright. There are no errors or drips or anything
and the colors are distinctive and accurate.
Accessories: Matron’s
chair was a obviously a critical piece of this figure.
The Four
Horsemen pulled it off very nicely. The top portion is a hard plastic
and the bottom is a softer, more pliable material. This works fine
and doesn’t present any continuity issues within the toy.
All of
the colors and textures match up and this makes it very easy to fit
the two pieces together.
The actual sculpt is very nicely
detailed and looks like it came straight out of an original Kirby
panel. The lines and patterns are done in Kirby’s inimitable
fashion, the control panels have a perfect amount of detail and are
placed well enough that Metron’s hands can rest on them. The large,
green dial on the back spins and looks like a Muppets storybook 45 I
had when I was a kid.
Metron can almost sit in the
chair very well. Don’t get me wrong – he looks fine. But he’s
just a tiny bit awkward. His feet can’t quite sit flat, his arms
don’t quite rest naturally on the armrests, and he kind of rattles
around in the chair if you move him.
I know it sounds like I’m
being nitpicky and I probably am, but the mismatched design elements
of the actual figure kind of set me off.
Packaging: It’s a
larger version of the DCSC window box. I have another problem, here.
Metron’s packaging has foil on the logo and the other figures I
have received do not. It’s just irritating.
Overall: Okay, here’s
my problem – Metron should have been all sculpt or all paint. My
issue isn’t so much with Matty being cheap bastards as it is with
the formats not matching. Now, obviously an ideal Metron would have
had a sculpted costume over his entire body. That’s how he should
have been, particularly in a premium “Signature” line aimed at
collectors. But if Matty had to be the way Matty is and restrict the
amount of sculpting that went into their “Deluxe” “Club
Exclusive” figure, then Metron’s head should have been painted as
well. I find the disparity unacceptable.
2
out of 5
I almost gave him a “3” because the
chair is so darn good, but the chair is an accessory. The figure and
the character that it represents is what really counts here and I
feel that Matty blew it on this one. Sorry, guys.
I haven't hung this thing from the ceiling yet because I'm not sure I want to keep it. So rather than a shelf picture, please accept some shots of guys who deserve that awesome chair way more than this blue suckass:
-Phantom
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