I had mixed feelings when I saw the variant DC Universe figures from the Square Enix Play Arts Kai line at Toy Fair. Now that Square Enix has released their press pics of the first three figures – Batman, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern, my take hasn’t changed. I’m mostly positive on their other DC offerings – the Arkham Asylum / City line has been fantastic, and I will probably be picking up the Dark Knight trilogy figures. The Superman: Man of Steel figures look interesting. But these DC variants will most likely be a cherry picking line for me.
I’m expecting that the articulation on these babies will be just as good as the other figures I’ve picked up, but I’m so-so on the designs. This is the kind of thing I worry about with 3A Toys and their highly-anticipated Marvel line. When you look at iconic characters through the lens of an artist with a distinctive style, there’s a chance that what you see won’t agree with you.
The designs for Batman and Green Lantern veer a bit too far into a hyper-anime style for my liking. I can understand an armored Batman, but gold-accented piping and a cape collar just don’t fit. With GL, I can try to imagine that his suit is an armor construct, but his hair? Sorry, but I don’t think Hal Jordan would gel his hair just like so.
Wonder Woman comes closest to hitting the mark for me. She retains most of the basic elements of her most iconic costume, and I can buy her bracelets being upgraded to full vambraces. Yeah, she’s got the exposed belly button now, but that’s not too far off from the one-piece bathing suit she normally wears.
I couldn’t disagree more with the reviewer; in my opinion, these look fantastic.
I will never understand why people want to buy products that look like the same old Batman/Green Lantern/Wonder Woman, etc. The anime-style execution here is imaginative, and different. Who says Batman can’t have a collar??? That’s absurd.
I’ve been excited about these since the first pics came out of Toy Fair 2013, and I’m more psyched now.
The thing I worry about with the 3A Marvel figures is the likelyhood of them ever turning up at all…
@Gee Vee – I think you’ve hit on the point I was trying to get across. I agree that the designs of these figures are imaginative and different – but with that their appeal will be limited to those that like the anime style – and for me it’s hit or miss.
I’m glad you like them. Square Enix makes great figures, and I hope these find an audience because I want to see more DC figures from them.
i love them…im really looking forward to batgirl, any idea on a time when i can buy these?
These are the action figures for me! I’m not a die hard DC fan but I do admire the DC lore and really enjoyed many of their recent live action and animated movies. In addition to that, I am a fan of Square-Enix from their Final Fantasy to their Kingdom Hearts series, I really enjoy their art style and the attention to detail they put in to everything they do. With that said, it just makes sense to own their action figures. Not being a die hard DC fan, means the variant additional details for these characters do not bother me but rather intrigues me to no end. I found that the original designs to these characters seem… simple and plain, which is why I didn’t care much for their previous play art figures. Now don’t get me wrong, the original character designs are not bad, they’re just very vanilla. But to say these new figures are not plain and boring but new and hip sound like a marketing 101 fail but not in this case. The badassory associated with these figures gave me an eye-gasm, yes an eye-gasm! especially wonder women 😉 I am definitely going to jerk off to the wonder women figure once I get it and that is why these figures are for me. 😀
Not worth the price I paid, my wonder women also had a shoulder defect with two left shoulder hinges. The butt looks awful and the hinges on the hands were reversed. I expected more from square enix, this is very disappointing, will return as soon as I can.