I
want to start by saying that I love DC Collectibles’ idea of basing
lines around the designs of specific comic book creators. It’s
something that the company has done all along to a certain extent. I
have Batmans designed by some of my favorite artists – Dan
Brereton, Tim Sale, Kelley Jones, Mike Mignola, and more. But now DCC
is going one step further and putting the artists’ names front and
center on the toy lines.
The
Thrasher Suit was the centerpiece of one of the biggest and most
cinematic scenes in Snyder and Capullo’s “Night of the Owls”
story arc. Bruce Wayne and Alfred are facing an invasion of deadly
assassins – Talons - in the Batcave and the odds are seemingly
dire. But Bruce has hinted that he has something special in reserve
for these uninvited guests.
As
readers, our first look at this Thrasher Suit comes as Bruce emerges
from its storage chamber and tells the Talons, “Get
the hell out of my house.”
It’s
a pretty awesome moment.
It’s
always cool enough seeing Batman get all serious with the bad guys,
but to see him doing it while wearing a big-ass mech suit, the
existence of which we were previously unaware of, makes it one of
those panels that will send the Nerd Chills up your spine.
That
panel is followed by many panels of Batman smashing the crap out of
the Talons. Which is also awesome.
Similar
to Heavy
Metal Album Cover Swamp Thing,
as soon as I saw the Thrasher Suit I knew I wanted a toy of it. And
as unlikely as it may have seemed initially, DC Collectibles have
delivered because they know a moneymaker when they see one.
FIRST
GLANCE
So
big and so heavy. And loaded
with detail (which it kind of has to be to capture Greg Capullo’s
intense pencil work).
The
design actually reminds me of the Earth Corps figures from
Inhumanoids.
They were humans wearing oversized armor, so when you took their
helmets off there were these tiny heads poking out. As a kid I
thought it was kind of silly-looking, but now I get the whole mech
suit thing.
PACKAGING
DC
Collectibles is good at making classy window boxes. This one gives a
clear view of the product and has a nice angled panel on the front to
display the name and number of this figure. The graphics are bright,
clean, and appealing, but the multi-lingual print makes it look
cluttered. I guess it’s a cost-saving measure to not have to print
multiple versions, but I have never liked multi-lingual packaging. It
just looks junky.
The
back displays the rest of the figures in the wave. I like that DCC is
just including these larger figures as part of the wave rather than
doing a full wave and
a larger boxed figure. It makes it a little easier on the wallet if
you’re collecting a line. I’m not in this case, but I appreciate
it.
I
do wish there were some sort of bio or at least a description of the
first appearance of the suit. I like my toys to have context when
it’s appropriate.
DCC
does get credit for including what is, to me, the most important
thing that can be put on toy packaging – creator credit. DC
Collectibles and NECA are both leading the toy industry in this
practice and I wish others would follow suit.
LOOKS
Okay,
there’s no nice way to say this, so I’ll just get it out of the
way – I love
Greg
Capullo’s art. I’ve been saying for years that I enjoyed his work
on Spawn
even more than I did Todd McFarlane’s. But I don’t care for the
way his art translates to toys. I think it’s mostly the eyes.
They’re super weird-looking.
That
being said, this is an excellent head sculpt and a faithful 3D
representation of Greg Capullo’s Bruce Wayne. It looks like it
leapt right off of the page. The shape of the hair, the cheekbones
(Capullo loves him some cheekbones), and… those eyes. The sculpt is
great, but the fantastic paint job is what really sells it. The
subtle shading and the stark contrast of the blues and blacks give
this likeness a ton of character.
This
is one of those toys that I’ve found myself picking up and
inspecting over and over again. The design is essentially “What if
Bruce Wayne built a Hulkbuster suit?” and I can’t wait to put
together the forthcoming Marvel Legends Hulkbuster build-a-figure to
have the two face off. The design is somewhat reminiscent of the
armored Batsuit from Dark
Knight Returns,
especially the helmet.
The
suit is made up of large, thick-looking armor plates with flexible
support beneath. It’s all reminiscent of human anatomy, which I
always like in these sorts of things. The Bat symbol on the chest is
massive, which was the right call. Bruce Wayne is right up there with
Hordak and COBRA for maintaining strong branding presence.
The
back has a sort of spine made up of armor plates that looks cool.
I
love that the feet are essentially giant robot versions of Batman’s
boots – they have the pointed tops. The sculpted hinge at the ankle
is nice and the feet themselves have treads and reinforced toes and
all kinds of neat detailing.
The
hands have fully articulated fingers and thumbs. The forearms are
huge, armored plates with double-pronged extensions at the front.
Underneath those are Batman’s signature glove fins (or whatever)
that don’t really make a lot of sense here or on Batman himself
from a design perspective, but do make sense from a combat
standpoint. Watching Batman deflect swords with those things is
always awesome.
The
utility belt (sometimes I capitalize it and sometimes I do not) has a
bunch of gadgets stuck to it. None of them are removable, but
whatever. I can’t remember Bruce using any of that stuff in the
comic. It is all sculpted very distinctively and has a thick,
oversized look that goes with the rest of the suit. This is a
separately sculpted piece (but permanently attached) that is molded
from a softer plastic, so it has a different look and feel, which is
good.
The
flexible base suit portions are all a solid, flat black that suggests
Kevlar or some other flexible armor. The armor is a gunmetal with
dark washes that look absolutely great. All of the applications are
tight and everything is where it should be, not that this guy is too
complicated. But the black extends to the edges of the Bat symbol and
no further – that sort of thing.
ACCESSORIES
Just
for the sake of having an “Accessories” section for this one I’ll
count the helmet as an accessory.
It’s
awesome. The swept-back ears are cool and have rivets running up
beside them. The grill on the “mouth” is a nice touch and the
black of the background is applied well. The vaguely Bat shaped
viewport is painted a metallic red that gives it a bit of a glowing
effect.
The
helmet fits snugly around the “collar” of the armor and stays
put.
FUN
A
few years ago this would have been a big, clunky hunk of plastic with
cut joints at the shoulders and hips. It might have had pivots at the
knees and elbows.
DC
Collectibles has come a long way since then.
This
is still a big hunk of plastic – you could easily knock a human out
with it – but it’s loaded with articulation. I don’t usually
expect to spend much time playing around with oversized figures like
this, but this guy is loaded.
Since it’s a unique figure I’m going to do my rundown of the
joints:
Head
(without helmet) – ball joint
Shoulders
– ball joint analog
Biceps
– swivel
Elbows
– pivot
Wrist
– ball joint analog
Fingers/Thumbs
– multiple pivots
Abdomen
– ball joint
Waist
– ball joint
Hips
– ball joints
Knees
– double pivot
Calves
- swivels
Ankles
– ball joint
This
really is a crazy amount of articulation for such a large figure, and
the good news is that all of those joints are thick and sturdy. This
means that the figure can hold poses and the joints are nice and
tight.
I
think the only figures comparable to this one in my collection are
the Jaegers from Pacific
Rim.
Those are also big mechs (in various states of clunkiness), but don’t
have nearly the bulk of this figure. I’ve had a lot of fun playing
with this one and it stayed on my desk for several weeks after I
opened it.
OVERALL
This
is one of those rare figures that I have ended up liking way more
than I thought that I would. I was excited about it, but mainly as a
thing to stand on the shelf and look cool. I didn’t really expect
it to have a lot of play value. But not only is it heavy,
cool-looking, and just generally badass, it’s a good toy as well.
If
you’re a fan of Batman or mechs or both I highly recommend you
track one of these down.
5
out of 5
Here
– I’ll make it easy for you. And you can help out the site!:
I think you just sold me on this one, man. I'm probably going to hit up your Amazon link right now and snag this guy. This was absolutely an amazing surprise in a fantastic storyline (one of the best Batman stories ever) and DCC definitely knocked this figure out of the park.
ReplyDeleteHmm.. the Amazon link isn't showing up for me. I see the text: "And you can help out the site:" but nothing after it.
DeleteI'm not sure what happened with the link. I saw your comment and assumed I had forgotten to post it, but once I went to do it I specifically remembered looking it up. Hopefully it's fixed now, though I imagien that ship has already sailed. Thanks for your attempted support, though!
DeleteJust in case it's not there, maybe this will work:
http://astore.amazon.com/needlthing-20/detail/B00JYAJXOQ