UPDATE: I contacted DC about the figures from this series that I had problems with and they are very conciliatory and interested in making things right. If you have any of these with issues, I strongly recommend you compose an informational non-bitchy e-mail and send it along. Don't be a dick. Remember - these folks didn't set out to make flawed toys. Things happen between design and the factory. And so far it seems like they are very aware of the problems and looking to fix them.
As
with all things, the animated Batman shows did a better job than most
of dealing with Harvey. First of all, they actually featured Dent as
a character and established his relationships with Jim Gordon and
Bruce Wayne. That made his tragic disfigurement all the more
impactful. This was another example of The
Animated Series
going far beyond the storytelling conventions of your average cartoon
of the era. Two-Face didn’t just pop up out of nowhere, accompanied
by a throwaway insert about his origin (no, that was Batman
Forever).
He emerged from a character that the audience was led to care about.
I
also can’t overlook the incredible voice acting that Richard Moll
did as Harvey Dent and Two-Face. The
Animated Series
had possibly the greatest voice cast ever assembled, but Moll’s
performance in particular was incredible. As pre-accident Dent he was
smooth, warm, and likeable; but prone to a scary intensity when
angered. After the explosion, Moll portrayed Dent as someone tortured
and struggling, while Two-Face was pure rage and sinister intent.
Moll essentially had three entirely different characterizations of
the same person and he handled them beautifully.
Personally,
I love Two-Face as both his tragic modern incarnation and the older
version that was mostly obsessed with things that came in twos. He’s
not a character that you can just throw out there all the time, but
writers have done great things with him over the years and I’ve
seen more good stories than bad ones.
This
is Two-Face from New
Adventures.
He’s sleeker and trimmer than the version from Animated
Series.
And the disfigured half of his face is a bit less ghoulish. I
certainly wouldn’t mind getting a figure of the original version
down the road, but first I’d like a regular Harvey Dent.
FIRST
GLANCE
Look
at his tiny little feet! They’re precious!
Seriously,
though – as with the other figures in this line, DCC has done an
outstanding job of capturing the look and feel of this character. The
proportions are fantastic and all of the angles and details look
great.
Unfortunately,
it looks like my figure has a paint scrape on the top of its head.
There’s a little jag of black where only white should be. This
might be a rare case where I’ll put a dab of paint on a figure
because I don’t know how long it will be before DCC gets around to
reproducing and reissuing higher quality versions of this first wave.
PACKAGING
Ah,
the wonderful blister card. There’s nothing I don’t like about
this. Since I will –hopefully – be reviewing tons of these
figures for many years to come, this is going to be the stock
paragraph I use in this section from here on out.
The
cardback is simple, with clean graphics and a number on the blister
insert. This insert identifies the figure and which show the design
comes from. It also gives credit to the sculptor, which in this case
is toy legend Gentle Giant.
LOOKS
The
proportions are the first thing about this figure that jumped out at
me. DC Collectibles didn’t cheat on the top-heavy design. Or at
least, if they did they did it so subtly that it isn’t noticeable.
Harvey has that great V shape that the male characters of the show
tended to have. His feet are impossibly small and his shoulders are
crazy wide.
The
head has a very strong and pronounced sculpt. I like how the
simplicity and smoothness of the Harvey half are contrasted by the
details and angles of the Two-Face half. It’s easier to notice with
this stationary, 3D model how skull-like the disfigured half really
is. Gentle Giant produced a very clean sculpt here.
The
paint on the head is mostly good. The Harvey half is near perfect.
The Two-Face half has fantastic detail around the eye and the mouth –
the teeth, lips, and gums are particularly striking – but that
black mark in the white hair is pretty rough. I can’t tell if it’s
a scrape or an error, but I’m definitely going to have to do
something about it. Mrs. Troublemaker picked this one up for me and
said it was the best sample at the store, but that they all looked
rough.
Side
Note: Mrs. Troublemaker is not a fan of this line. She holds the DC
Animated Universe in as much regard as I do, but she thinks the paint
on all of these first wave figures looks bad. Or, in her words, “like
shit”. I don’t think it looks that bad, but I am questioning
whether or not my love of the franchise is taking away some of my
objectivity. As you guys might have noticed over the years, that does
happen sometimes.
There’s
not much to say about the body. It’s a suit. It’s the right
shape. This is where even my Kiss From A Rose-colored glasses detect
some questionable paint, though. The line between the white plastic
and the painted black is a little fuzzy. It isn’t terrible and
certainly isn’t a deal-breaker, but it’s not as clean as I’d
like. There’s also some unpainted white at the top of the black
shirt collar that is a definite eyesore. I’m going to have to do
something about that, as well. Otherwise it looks good. It’s odd to
me that the line on the tie is so much cleaner.
The
figure’s default hands are Harvey’s holding a dollar coin and
Two-Face’s in a fist. They look fantastic sculpt-wise, with a lot
of definition and as much detail on the disfigured hand as there was
on the face. The paint around the dollar coin is a little sketchy –
it kind of edges out onto the hand. But, like the line on the suit,
it isn’t terrible. The sculpted detail on the dollar isn’t great.
ACCESSORIES
Two-Face
comes with a veritable jackpot of stuff – a stand, four extra
hands, a pistol, a tommy gun, a stopwatch, a gas mask, two
cannisters, and a satchel.
Two-Face’s
hands are not jointed like the hands of the other figures in this
line, so you don’t have to worry about breaking them. The extras
are Harvey’s as a fist and a trigger finger and Two-Face’s with a
trigger finger and relaxed. They look great and switch out easily. I
didn’t mention it above, but the skin tone on the Harvey half looks
really good. It’s a vibrant color that contrasts the flat, dead
look of Two-Face’s skin quite nicely.
The
tommy gun and pistol have wonderful, simple shapes that perfectly
reflect what was seen on the show. They fit perfectly into the
figure’s trigger finger hands. My only issue is that Two-Face’s
arms don’t pose in a way that allows him to use both hands with the
tommy gun. But I suppose there really wasn’t a way to do that while
maintaining the figure’s aesthetics.
The
stopwatch is simple and it’s all paint job, but it looks great.
The
gas mask has a great profile. The sculpt is solid and the dabs of
black paint really add a lot. The mask clips securely onto the
figure’s face thanks to an inner sculpt. This is a simple, yet
incredibly well-executed piece.
The
satchel and containers look good and interact well with each other
and the figure. The containers fit inside the satchel:
And
the figure can hold the satchel securely:
Finally
there’s the stand. I normally despise stands as accessories, but
these are cool and have reference art printed on them. The clamp has
two supports and the support rods adjust horizontally as well as
vertically. This is easily the most impressive stand I’ve seen at
this scale. I like the graphics an awful lot, as well. I think they
should have gone with a black stand with red print (to match the
usual color scheme of the show’s materials). This white will likely
discolor over time.
I’m
truly blown away by not just the number of accessories, but the
quality of them and how successfully they interact with the figure.
FUN
Two-Face
is great fun! His joints are all sculpted into the design as nicely
as they could be – the profile is barely interrupted. And these are
very functional joints. They have a range that exceeds what you would
expect from just looking at them. Two-Face can be posed in just about
any way you might want, though there’s no avoiding the fact that
those hip joints are fugly. Less so on this one than on other
figures, but I’ll never be a fan.
Here’s
the crazy thing – Two-Face can totally stand up without the stand.
Like, in a solid manner. I don’t know what kind of magic spell DCC
cast on this thing to make that work, but it does. And more than
that, the figure can hold several unlikely poses without the stand. I
wouldn’t leave him on the shelf in any of them, but the fact that
they work at all is wild.
This
figure is incredibly satisfying as a toy, which is not something I
always get to say about collector-oriented figures (and something I
should probably give the Masters of the Universe Classics line more
credit for). He’s sturdy, poseable, and comes with a ton of useful
accessories.
OVERALL
Mrs.
Troublemaker is right in saying that the paint on this figure is not
as good as it should be. But otherwise Two-Face is excellent. He has
a wonderful profile and lots of different things to keep you playing
around with him for a while. And – like I said – he’s sturdy.
While I did what I always do and very carefully loosened each and
every joint before really posing him, it wasn’t as tedious a
process as it sometimes is.
You
collectors know what I’m talking about – you can feel it when you
move a joint. You know if it’s going to be a pain in the ass or how
likely it is to break or whatever. I was terrified
trying to move Batman’s wrists. But there weren’t any joints like
that on Two-Face.
This
is an awesome figure that I highly recommend, just inspect yours
closely before buying.
4
out of 5
You
should buy this figure in person at your Local Comic Book Shop, but
if you can’t, help out Needless Things and buy one here!:
I'm planning on picking up most of these figures, but I do think I'm going to wait a few more weeks to see if DC Collectibles makes any more announcements about the first run QC issues. This seems like a line that they could keep rolling for a long, long time, and I imagine they want to get it right going forward.
ReplyDeleteAfter talking to the DCC reps I feel confident saying that they have very long term plans for the line and that they intend to make what happened with this first wave right.
DeleteIf you're talking about that little "spike" of black that runs into the white hair, I'm pretty sure that's supposed to be there as it matches the animation. Otherwise, I didn't see what you were referring when talking about the scrape. I'm pretty tempted by this figure and Mr. Freeze, and I'll wait for the series 4 batman with the yellow oval to come out before I get him.
ReplyDeleteI suppose you're right, but if you look at references sometimes it's visible and sometimes it isn't. I think for the purposes of the figure it shouldn't be. It really does look like an error.
Delete