Sick Day Haulage

So I ended up leaving work last Friday morning with a cold, and it’s a good thing I did, because Federal Express and the USPS chose that day to deliver not one, not two, but three action figures in separate packages.

The first to arrive was the First Appearance Batman, a gift from Mumma Ghostal. (Yeah, my mom still buys me toys sometimes. Jealous?) I’d been considering getting one for a while, and yo go re‘s belated review on OAFE sealed the deal.

FA Bats is pretty cool. There are two versions; this one is the original, with a cloth cape and the purple gloves Batman wore in his very first appearance in Detective Comics #27 (May 1939). A second version of this figure showed up in a First Appearance box set fairly recent, sporting a plastic cape and blue gloves (many reprinted editions of that first Batman comic recolor the gloves blue, for obvious reasons–purple doesn’t exactly scream “Dark Knight” so much as “favorite color of the artist formerly and currently known as Prince.”)

What sets FA Batman apart from most other DC Direct figures is the cloth cape, which, thanks to a number of embedded wires, is completely poseable. The colors and stitching are great, too, and captures the way the original comic highlighted the black with blue. My only problem with the cape is that the wires are thin and have started to poke out of the cape.

The other unique feature of FA Bats are his articulated biceps, rare for a DCD figure. They’ve been added so Batman can do the iconic “arms folded” pose from Detective

Comics #27, but they give him a touch more character than most DCD figures. Unfortunately, his left hand snapped off and had to be glued, but it was no big deal.

There must have been something going around, because another figure I received that day, the McFarlane Toys’ Master Chief, had a weak left hand too. In his case I managed to notice it was tearing and glued it before it came off. Fortunately, it was already in the gun-supporting position.

I wrote about this line in my big Halo article in ToyFare #123 (including an interview with Todd himself). Much has been discussed online about the decision to make these figures in 4″ scale (the Chief, who in “real life” stands seven feet tall, is about five inches). I think there are three main reasons McFarlane went with this size:

• Production costs–toy lines are shrinking across the board due to rising oil prices;
• Scale diversity–by keeping the line small, it’s easier to create large characters like Brutes in scale with other characters, as well as make vehicles down the road;
• Collectibility–smaller figures are usually more collectible than larger ones, though at$10 a pop, I can’t see this line becoming the next G.I. Joe.

Scale aside, I like this toy. As you can see, the figure’s sculpting and paint work are exceptional as usual, despite the figure being almost half the size of its Joyride Studios’ predecessor.

The wee Chief is also more articulated than the Joyride figure, with ball/peg joints at the neck, shoulders, elbows, mid-torso, hips, knees, and ankles, with some swivel joints here and there. It’s about as articulated as a figure this size can be.

The Chief comes with his assault rifle and a tiny little peg that can be inserted in his back, which can then be used to fasten the rifle to his back. He also has peg holes on his hips, presumably to hold other weapons such as submachine guns, pistols, and grenades. The idea of using removable pegs was a pretty neat touch, but in a toy line that, according to my interview with Todd, is intended for kids as well as collectors, I imagine those tiny pegs will be lost almost instantly by the young’uns.

Still, I liked the Chief enough to pick up a Grunt this weekend while I was out shopping.

The last figure I received was “Universe 1 Zoidberg,” my door prize for finally ordering a subscription to ToyFare. Like one in every two million American lobsters, this alternate universe Zoidberg is blue.

I got this because I wanted my own Zoidberg figure, but couldn’t justify buying a second one since I’d already got one for Mrs. Ghostal-To-Be, and what’s hers is mine and so forth. This was a nice loophole. Plus, blue is my favorite color. (I made the Parabox out of some extra posterboard, by the way.)