By Phantom
Troublemaker
Wally West is my Flash.
I know that Geoff Johns Rebirthed Barry Allen however
long ago that was now, but I first started liking the Scarlet Speedster on Justice League. As with many DC
characters, I didn’t truly appreciate Flash until his depiction in the DC
Animated Universe, where the combination of brilliant writing and Michael
Rosenbaum’s natural charm made Wally West one of the best characters on the show.
Since then I have read a bunch of Wally comics and a bunch of Barry comics. I’ve watched Barry on the live action The Flash TV show. While Grant Gustin is awesome, his Barry Allen is one of the dumbest characters on television and seems to constantly be the source of the problems he has to handle. That’s on the showrunners and not on Gustin, but it’s just another element leading to my preference of Wally. Heck, even Wally 2.0 on the show is a more compelling and sympathetic character at this point.
My point here is that I wasn’t all that interested in
this figure when it was initially shown because the Alex Ross-looking Barry
head put me off. But then they showed the other
head that had a signature Wally West smirk (whether it’s actually supposed to
be Wally or not) and a much more comic book style likeness. It sold me on the
whole deal.
The other concern I had was about how Mezco would handle
Flash’s costume. The was the first neck-to-ankles one piece costume that didn’t
have any real texture differences or flair to break it up. Some of the
production pics looked more Mego than Mezco, which is totally awesome and fine
for a thrity dollar action figure but not so much for an eighty dollar one. The
One:12 team had their work cut out for them fitting this bodysuit to look just
right on this figure. But I liked the looks of it enough to give it a shot.
I mentioned in my review of the One:12
Daredevil figure that managed to bring enough detail and extras into
that costume to keep it from looking like a guy in his long johns, but that
they seemed to use a different aesthetic for Flash. A long john (Geoff Johns?)
aesthetic. As soon as I opened the front panel of the box, I knew it had
worked.
It does leave me wondering if Mezco has different goals
or directives between their DC and Marvel figures. So far the Marvel releases
seem to be taking a lot more liberties with character design than the DC
figures. Time will tell, I suppose. The amazing thing is that both approaches
to design are successful.
This is the same gorgeous style of box as Captain
America’s and Daredevil’s, making it the first DC release I own that didn’t have
a plastic slipcover. I wonder if this is a recycling thing. The paper slipcover
has various elements printed on it - the front sports a glossy Flash symbol
along with the standard branding stuff.
The back of the box features several full color images of
the figure in action, along with some detail shots. All of this is on the
interior box, as well. The slipcover seems to be there mostly just to keep the
box closed. I think the clear plastic looks much nicer, but since these boxes
are all just going into storage anyway, it doesn’t matter.
The front panel opens to reveal the figure and a very
cool minimalist graphic of Flash in action. There are two magnets in the panel
that wraps around the side to keep it closed.
The box opens easily. Inside there are two plastic trays,
each with their own cover. These separate easily and are not taped together,
which I liked. The bottom tray holds the arm and armature for the display stand
and a storage bag. Everything else in is in the top tray. The figure itself had
a plastic piece around it to protect against scratching. There were a couple of
pieces of film on various accessories to preserve the paint and keep them in
place.
This is a fantastic box. It’s a perfect combination of
everything that collector packaging should be – it has a beautiful design, it’s
easy to open and remove the figure, and it’s also completely resealable with no
sign of damage; not even tape marks. Mezco put together a box that is
utilitarian and attractive. I didn’t
have even a second of difficulty removing any piece of the toy from the box,
and that’s significant.
I don’t like the default head, but that doesn’t mean it is
bad. It’s my opinion that it looks way too much like an Alex Ross Flash and
that it doesn’t fit the aesthetics of the One:12 line. But it is an
immaculately crafted piece. The detail on the mask looks very good, particularly
the sculpt of the facial openings. They’re stylized without straying too far
from what we’re used to. The “ears” are separate pieces permanently attached
and they loom so much better than what’s on most Flash figures I have. I do
recommend extreme caution when handling the heads, though. These pieces are
fairly sturdy, but during posing and especially head-swapping I think it might
be easy to inadvertently break them.
My issue isn’t the mask; it’s the face underneath. It
looks too old, I think. I can’t quite put my finger on it. The sculpt and paint
are excellent, just not what I want in a Flash figure.
Flash’s costume is a red one piece from neck to ankles.
It’s Mezco’s magical stretchy material and it looks great. The seams are
strategically placed and, like all One:12 releases, carefully managed to stay in
scale with the figure. These are not the huge, clumsy seams of so many smaller
scale soft goods toys. The pictures are not doing this spandex-clad speedster
justice. In person, the suit is much more form-fitting and sleek than it
appears here.
Flash is built on a smaller body, about the same as
Daredevil. It’s perfect for a Speedster.
The Flash symbol is hard plastic that is affixed to the
figure through the bodysuit. It’s pretty sturdy, but I’d be careful about the
ends of the lightning bolt. The paint is bright and precisely applied. The
Lightning Belt (get it?) is attached to the figure at the back and is otherwise
independent of the suit, which allows it to stay in the correct position while
the suit moves underneath it. It’s an ingenious design.
Rather than trying to incorporate the hands and forearm bolts
into the suit, the designers decided to just give Flash gloves. It works
nicely. The bolts are well-defined and are bright yellow to match the other
highlights on the figure. The hands are smooth rather than featuring seams and
creases like some of the other figures. I think this somewhat addresses my
curiosity about Flash’s design versus the others – Flash needs to be sleek and slick.
Seams and detail don’t look
aerodynamic and would take away from the suggestion of someone that moves
faster than light. The people that designed Ezra Miller’s Flash movie suit would
do well to consider that. That thing is a hideous eyesore.
If you are,
however, running at light speed, you’re going to need some fancy footwear.
Flash’s boots match the sleekness of the rest of the figure (aside from the
absurd but necessary bolts on the ankles), but with some nice utilitarian
touches. You’ve got to have traction to go fast, and the soles of the boots
have cool, tire-like treads on them. I might have liked for these to be a little
taller, but they’re fine as-is.
Flash comes with a stand, a
posing armature, an extra head, four extra hands, four Speed Force effects, a
hand tornado effect, and a storage bag.
For some reason Flash’s
hands are a little harder to swap out than any of the other One:12 figures I
own. But they do stay put and all of them look great. I’m so glad I finally
have a great Flash with karate hands (running hands). The other set are sort of
“NOOOOOOOOOO” hands, if you know what I mean. They’re fine, but I might have
preferred regular relaxed hands.
The tornado thing plugs into
Flash’s wrist peg. This would have been way too heavy and a complete fail for
most twelfth scale figures, but thanks to Flash’s tight and plentiful articulation
(and the armature on the stand, if needed) you can get a lot of poses with this
thing installed. It looks awesome.
It takes a little effort to
figure out how to best attach the Speed Force effects. There seem to be a lot
of different ways to do it. I honestly didn’t mess with them too much because it
was getting really late when I was taking these pictures, but they all look
cool. I love the color gradation in the translucent pieces.
These are some of my favorite One:12 accessories so far and they make me eager to see what Mezco does with a Green Lantern figure.
These are some of my favorite One:12 accessories so far and they make me eager to see what Mezco does with a Green Lantern figure.
Personally, I’m hoping for Jon Stewart first,
but we’ll see.
Flash’s alternate head is perfection.
This is exactly the face I see in my
head when I picture the character. I prefer the covered eyes because it seems
insane to me that Flash wouldn’t
cover his eyes. And that smirk is just priceless. It says “I am the fastest man alive”.
It takes a little more care
to swap out Flash’s heads than the other One:12s. It isn’t difficult, but you
definitely have to account for the bolts. At least they won’t stab holes in
your fingers like that
jerk Batman.
The base is super shiny and
will scratch easily, so be careful. There’s a removable peg so that you can
simply stand the figure on it, but there is also two an armature if you want
more extravagant poses. It holds the figure in various jumping or kicking
positions; aerial stuff.
The bag is plastic and has a
zipper seal on it. There is a spot to presumably write the figure’s name. I
won’t be doing that. I do store the extra parts in there in a drawer, though.
If I put everything back in the box I’d never pull the parts out and use them.
I don’t know if it’s because I mostly only wanted him to
be running, but Flash’s articulation seems to be the most satisfying of the
One:12 figures so far. All of the joints work quite nicely with each other and
even the ankles seem to have a little deeper bend than other recent releases.
The articulation on these figures is always tremendous,
even when the odd joint is more limited than you expect. The head can do pretty
much whatever you want, the shoulders have a huge range, the knees and elbows
are double-jointed with super deep bends, and the torso has two highly functional
joints. Aside from a deep squat, this figure can do just about anything a human
could do and more. I played around with various running and motion poses for
quite a while and I can see this guy staying on my desk basically until a more
exciting figure comes along. And that could be a while.
The accessories are fantastic. Short of the Cosmic
Treadmill, I can’t think of much better to go with this guy. And unmasked head
would, of course, be great, but wasn;t really necessary.
I wasn't sure if I would end up liking this figure and I
certainly didn’t expect him to be my favorite, but it happened. I can’t decide
exactly what it is, but something about Flash just seems perfect to me. There
are a couple of things I might have
done differently, like the height of the boots, but just looking at this guy
makes me happy. Mezco absolutely nailed it with this one. So much so that I’m going
to have to get Zoom, who I definitely
didn’t intend on buying.
5
out of 5
Mezco rejected my request to join their affiliate program
and get a discount on their products for my reviews, so if you want to help
Needless Things pay the bills buy this Flash (or anything else) from Amazon!:
Or, if you enjoy Flash, toys, or Needless Things, you
might enjoy SupportPhantom.com.
yeah, the alternate head just changes it- goes from "nice presentation" to "it's the Flash!". funny, huh?
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing the difference it makes.
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