Year: 2011
Price: See below
BACKGROUND
A short time ago, I purchased some of the DC Universe Action
League figurines from my local Reject Shop. Of course, I wanted to collect more
of them, but I didn’t have much luck tracking down any more of them near my
home or workplace, so I sent family and friends scavenging around to see if
they could find any.
Ultimately it was my dad who found some – four packs
different packs, in fact, covering an interesting range of characters. Most of
them should end up on here at some point. This is actually a review of two
different 2-packs – Superman vs Bizarro
and Superman & Wonder Woman.
However, the Superman in both packs is absolutely identical, so I’ve
amalgamated the two reviews together.
SCULPT AND
ARTICULATIONThe style for these guys is like a shrunken, super-deformed version of the Batman: The Brave and the Bold cartoon – super-cartoony with large exaggerated hands. It’s a cool, dynamic look which gives the figures a lot of personality even before you start moving their arms around to get them into different poses.
Superman is in a nice classic flying pose. You can twiddle
his arms around to do a few different flying looks, but because of the
positioning of his legs and cape, he’s always going to look like he’s flying.
This is not really a problem, but I think it’s a bit of a shame that we didn’t
get two different Supermen in the two packs. Batman has been replicated
multiple times, but at least he gets a new paint job. It’s a missed opportunity
to give us something like mullet Superman, Red/Blue Superman or even just a
different pose for “Classic” Superman.
Superman has four points of articulation – his shoulders,
his neck and his wait. His neck is a very tight joint though, so I didn’t try
and wriggle it round too much. 
Though it would have been easy for Mattel to simply reuse
Superman’s sculpt, give it a new head and call it Bizarro, they took a different
option. Bizarro is a completely separate sculpt, seemingly a bit larger than
his original counterpart. His costume is purple, complete with reversed chest
shield. He’s a very cool figure, and has become one of my favourites in the
line, even though I tend to be pretty blasé about his appearances in the
comics.
Bizarro has four points of articulation – his shoulders, his
neck and his waist. 
Wonder Woman is a completely separate sculpt. The only other
female in this range that I know of is Metamorpha, aka the Element Woman -- no Black Canary, Zatanna, Supergirl or Power Girl, apparently. The two
don’t look they’ve been retooled from one another, which is good to see.
Wonder Woman is posed in a classic sort of action stance, as though she's about to deflect bullets from her bracelets.
Wonder Woman has three points of articulation – her neck,
and her two arms. However, the dynamic pose of the hair means that her neck is
quite restricted in its movement.
ACCESSORIES
Superman includes a transparent flight stand, so that he
doesn’t fall over. Bizarro has a large piece of green rock which I assume is
Kryptonite. Wonder Woman doesn’t come with anything, though her signature lasso
is moulded to her waist.
PAINT
There’s a little bit of slop on these guys – Bizarro’s teeth
being one of the areas I noticed it most – but nothing unforgiveable. The
shields on Superman and Bizarro’s chests are also clean tampos. Disappointingly, neither of them has the shield tampoed onto their capes though.
Curiously, these unmasked characters have eye sockets
sculpted, but no white painted in there. The effect is probably most noticeable
on Wonder Woman, who also has eyelashes for a more feminine appearance. This
wasn’t noticeable on masked characters, and while it’s not a major drama, I
don’t know if it was the right design choice. Maybe a project for me to
experiment with sometime. We’ll see.
AVAILABILITY
After finding a couple of these guys in a local Reject Shop,
the next batch I found was on the Central Coast, courtesy of my dad. For my
overseas readers, The Reject Shop is kind of like a factory seconds shop or
dollar store – a lot of discontinued or off-season toys find their way there.
The 2-packs are $5, but I don’t know how close this was to
their original price or how widely they’ve been distributed – a lot of places
seem to have sold out quite rapidly. I don’t think you’d have an easy time
tracking them down now. eBay is always an option, of course, if not necessarily
a cheap one.
The Action League line seems to have finished in 2012 or
maybe 2013, but still seems to be readily available online, though (naturally)
at a premium. Maybe one of my American readers could shed a little more light
on this in the comments section?
These were bought several months ago, so I don’t rate your
chances of getting them too highly these days.
OVERALL
I’ve heard other reviewers talk about “hand candy” – toys
that are just a whole lot of fun to play with. The DC Action League definitely
falls into this category. Though they’re obviously quite derivative of the
Superhero Squad toys, these are cool, fun and stylish little toys. I’ve now got
a miniature Justice League going, as well as a few villains. The Flash would be
nice, as would Martian Manhunter, but if I don’t find any more of these guys
I’d still be quite happy with my collection. 
No comments:
Post a Comment