Welcome
to Arkham Week on Needless Things!
Every
day this week I’ll be reviewing one of the new Arkham
Knight
figures from DC Collectibles, and on Friday we’ll be posting a
special episode of the Needless Things Podcast where we take a look
at the Arkham
video game franchise.
Side
Note: The Arkham Knight figure has been delayed, so I’ve only got
four reviews. Word I’m getting is that it was pushed back due to
the figure itself containing spoilers for the game. I think it’s
somewhat prosaic that the antagonist from the oft-delayed game is,
itself delayed.
Today’s
figure is the GameStop Exclusive Red Hood, which was offered for
preorder from the website in October of 2014. I’ve been collecting
just about every figure from DCC’s Arkham
lines, so I ordered it. And completely forgot about it until I got a
shipping invoice in April.
As
far as the figure itself goes, obviously we don’t know much about
the Arkhamverse version of Red Hood, but the character model looks
great and ever since the excellent Under
the Red Hood
animated feature I am a Jason Todd fan. It’s a shame that Jensen
Ackles isn’t doing the voice in the game because he did some of the
best voice work I’ve heard as Hood. He was so good that I can
overlook John DiMaggio’s “What If Bender Was the Joker?” voice
work.
FIRST
GLANCE
This
is an awesome figure design with a great, eye-catching color scheme.
The hood over the helmet creates a nice profile and big honkin’
guns are always a plus. It doesn’t look like there’s anywhere to
store them, but maybe that’s okay.
PACKAGING
This is a massive
improvement over the clamshells that previous releases have come in.
When I received this figure I didn’t know if it was special for
this Exclusive or the new standard for the line. Come back for
tomorrow’s Harley Quinn review to find out!
The
box looks great and I love the shape of the window. I’m also a big
fan of the way DCC has been printing the figures’ names on the
corner panel. It looks good and makes them easy to identify. The
graphics and colors look great, very eye-catching. And while these
boxes do share aesthetics, each line has distinctive designs and
colors. You still have a uniform collection (until they change
packaging again), but each sub-line is distinctive.
Okay,
so yeah – this is DCC’s new packaging. But still come back
tomorrow for
Harley!
Harley!
The
back graphics are all fancy pants video-gamey and feature a wireframe
rendition of Red Hood and the actual first series of figures.
And,
as always, we have credits. This one is by Gentle Giant, who handle a
lot of video game rendered figure sculpts.
LOOKS
I
don’t know exactly why, but this Red Hood’s color scheme really
appeals to me. I think I just like how much the red and white stands
out against the drab greys. The Arkham
games
are chock full of dark tones and these bright colors are refreshing.
First
things first – the hood is not removable. I thought it would be and
I was wrong. But it is very flexible and seemingly sturdy, so you can
still pose the head underneath fairly easily. It is a separate piece,
so I was worried about tearing it off while moving the head, but it
is surprisingly secure. I’d still be careful with it, but I did
pull it all the way back over the helmet at one point and it stayed
on just fine.
The
helmet has a very clean sculpt and much more detail than is initially
apparent. There are sculpted seams and detailed parts, some of which
are painted despite the fact that they are covered by the hood. It’s
impressive.
You
might be wondering what’s up with that crappy paint app on the
figure’s chest. Personally, I’m more worried about the fact that
this man seems to have repaired a slice in his bullet proof vest with
an adhesive bandage. But the chest thing is an inverted Bat symbol,
presumably to denote Jason Todd's distress. It’s supposed to look
painted-on and is also on the back of his kickass jacket. While we’re
here, look at that sculpted and painted detail all covered up by that
kickass jacket. Not many toy companies would have bothered with that.
His
jacket is kickass. It’s a separately sculpted piece that hangs
nicely and has super tight shoulder openings. The effect of a red
hooded sweatshirt (shama-lama-ding-dong) underneath a leather jacket
works well. The sculpted detail features seams, buckles, and damage;
all painted to look worn and lived-in. The sleeves and bottom of the
hoodie even has sculpted detail to look like elastic. The gloves have
seams and padding sculpted on, as well as more paint to show wear.
Hood
has a Han Solo-style belt with tons of detail and shells of some kind
stored all around. Every rivet and buckle is painted and it looks
great.
The
jeans are dirty and wrinkled. There is a harness on either thigh with
ammo clips, which I’m not sure is the most practical way to carry
them, but sure does look cool. The armored greaves are scratched and
worn, with straps and buckles on the back. The boots are clunky and
covered with dirt.
Every
inch of this figure is covered in detail – both sculpted and
painted. DC Collectibles may be dealing with quality control issues
in some of their lines, but when they get things right they produce
some of the most amazing action figures the market has ever seen.
ACCESSORIES
Red
Hood comes with two pistols that are just shy of being ridiculously
big. They’re incredibly detailed and have four colors of paint on
them. These are definitely some of the nicest-looking pistols I’ve
seen at this scale. Each one has Hood’s Bat symbol painted on the
barrel, which makes me all the more curious to learn the Arkham
version
of Jason Todd’s story.
The
pistols fit perfectly into the figure’s hands and stay put.
FUN
I
had a ton of fun playing with this figure. The articulation is some
of the best DCC has done. Red Hood is one of those figures that you
just keep messing with to see how well it all works. The head,
shoulders, and hips are ball jointed, there are swivels at the biceps
and thighs, double-jointed knees and elbows, and an abdominal pivot.
The ankles have hinges with swivels connecting the feet.
The
figure can achieve a ton of poses but still looks great. Its
aesthetics fit with the earlier, less articulated entries in the
Arkham
line, but can do so much more.
The
pistols are awesome and interact well with the figure, but they do
just sit in his hands. They’re just too big to be stored anywhere
without creating an ugly issue with the profile. I imagine in the
game he keeps them under his jacket, maybe in the back. For the
purposes of a 7” scale action figure there’s just no way to do
that.
OVERALL
DCC
knocked it out of the park with this one. I couldn’t have been any
happier with Red Hood. And since it came out a few weeks before the
proper first series of figures it got me really
hyped for those. For a figure to be not just awesome but also to
create anticipation for the rest of its line is quite an
accomplishment. Excellent work, DCC.
If
you’re a fan of the Arkham
games or just of Red Hood, this figure should be a must. It’s
almost so good that I’d recommend it to any collector, but I have
to admit that if you’re not into the character or at least the
franchise it probably won’t be as exciting for you.
5
out of 5
If
you want one, go here:
This guy is pretty impressive. I'm a huge fan! This is pretty much the only thing I've preordered from Gamestop since Skyrim thanks to GameStop always ragging on me to buy their card, preorder games I'm not interested in, and making a big deal of me buying games on their day of release if I haven't preordered them. Still, this guy is incredible. I have 3 of the Arkham Knight figures so far: Hood, Harley, and Scarecrow. I'm waiting to pick up the Batman five pack later this year so I'll wait for that to get my Arkham Knight Bats.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I am done with GameStop. Their ridiculously poor customer service hit an all-time low in the weeks leading up to the release of Arkham Knight, and I won't be back.
DeleteI ordered this figure more because I was excited about getting an Exclusive and I'm getting to be something of a completest with this line. I am very glad I did, though, because it's my favorite of the bunch by far. And also the Red Hood levels are awesome.