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Thursday, November 05, 2009

Will Blackest Night save DC Direct’s Bacon?

Following the complete debacle that is the DC Direct 13” Wonder Woman comes the first series of the Blackest Night tie-in figures. Knowing Georg Brewer’s love for things that shine emerald green, the fact that the overall quality of this set is excellent doesn’t come as a total surprise. It’s hard to know, however, if this should be seen as a credit to DCD or just another example of the attention deficit disorder approach the company takes to its product.

I’m not reviewing the Black Lantern Earth Two Superman here because I won’t be buying the “zombie” characters, even Aquaman (gasp!). From what I have been reading this may be a pattern others are following, so I wonder if we’ll be seeing the Black Lanterns hang around for awhile, or if more Modern-Age focused collectors will snap them up.

Saint Walker and Atrocitus are great examples of the intriguing new characters that this saga has brought to the fore that will make great additions to the Green Lantern shelf – as long as they’re not just flash-in-the-pan plot devices that fade into the history books when Blackest Night is older. These figures are very well done – Saint Walker in particular looks like he’s stepped right off the page. His long, thin limbs make him a little hard to stand, but after a bit of peg-forcing he stands fine on his base. I pictured Atrocitus as a bit bigger than this figure, but it’s still an excellent effort. I’m not sure the headsculpt is quite right, but it’s effective. I particularly like the different design for the red lantern, which makes it a real gem to have.

Boodikka is a character that may not be old enough to be called “classic”, but having been around for 17-ish years as a non-Alpha Lantern it would have been nice for DCD to throw us a bone with an “original” Boodikka variant (with removable hand of course). This version is well executed, with the flowing hair and removable face panel very nice touches. She’s also easy to pose.

The kicker here is the scale – all of these figures tower over the Van Scriver Hal Jordan I have in the centrepiece of my collection. Not a huge issue for these three, although I don’t think Boodikka should be that tall, but if Series 3 Arisia ends up on the tall side of Hal, that’s going to be messy. Either we need a Series 5 with Hal or we need DCD to start paying attention to scale between it’s series.

Clearly a Series 5 Hal is our only hope.

You can see more pics at Facebook, discuss this at the AFB Forum, and comment on this post to enter the November AFB Comment of the Month Contest.

Until next time!

8 comments:

bigraj said...

I like the look of Saint Walker, but am bothered with the bicep position of Atrocitus. Looks alright if he's getting ready to do some serious flexing, Lou Ferrigno Hulk-style. Not good for a more neutral pose. I do hope DCD gets their stuff together, scale-wise, on this Green Lantern line. The pretty consistent scale within that line had been one of the positive things DCD had going for them.

Kyle said...

I like all of these, the only figures I'm probably going to pass on are the John Stewart and Kyle Rayner.

ryanlb said...

Scale and articulation issues with DCD figs always suck some of the fun out of them, but they LOOK great, I love the metallic coloring.

Makes me wish I had more money. I'll pick up a couple here and there, but unfortunately, I won't be able to buy them all.

Westy said...

They certainly look very pretty. I think that DCD really just cut back the poseability to make a figure that looks good in the poses available, which seems to be the case here.

fishmilkshake said...

Must...have...Atrocitus...

JQ said...

Nice review Andy!

I have to say though, as much as I dislike the concept ... the Earth-Two Superman Black Lantern is the best figure in the wave.

Also, Boodikka used to be MUCH larger in the comics, so this figure's size is a plus as far as I'm concerned!

I agree on Atrocitus ... something may be off but he looks great!

Tom Freak said...

They all looked better than I expected. Even Boodikka and Saint Walker, I might start considering getting one of each color.

Max JLA said...

Andy

Not to nitpick you, but you refer to the Ethan Van Scriver Hal Jordan in the blurb but I believe the one in the photo is the 2005 Hal Jordan from Green Lantern wave one.

The Van Scriver can not hold his own battery, while the one in the photo does. The Van Scriver is also closer in height to the new releases.

I know this seems comical coming from a guy who can't edit his own blog properly right but I thought you might want to make a correction.

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