Friday, March 3, 2023

Action Figure Review: Batman (DC Vs Vampires) from DC Multiverse by McFarlane Toys

 


   Batman sells. Batman and anyone related to him. There's no doubt about it. For years I've always said I was a DC guy but, really I was a Batman and Batfamily guy. Oh, and his villains. I really do like the main Justice League, Justice League Dark, and I absolutely love the New Gods and other Kirby creations, but when it comes to DC almost everything I love spins out of Batman. At this point in comics and movies, the Gothamites could make up their own comic universe and cinematic universe. McFarlane Toys knows that Batman sells to, so they release him at every opportunity. I haven't read DC Vs. Vampires yet (I just ordered the first trade before reviewing this figure), but from what I've heard it sounds pretty good. It also doesn't seem like this figure is really based on the series, however. In fact, I believe the design of this figure is based on the Francesco Mattina variant cover for issue #1, which shows a vampire version of Batman, rather than something actually found in the pages of the book. Still, a vampire Batman? It's just cool. Batman's been a vampire before in Elseworlds, so it's not a new concept, but when I found this Gold Label Walmart exclusive figure I had to pick him up. He's creepy and very, very cool. Let's sink our fangs into another DC Multiverse review after the break...






The Facts:

Height: 7 1/2 inches

Articulation: Hinged toes, double swivel hinged ankles, double hinged knees, swivel thighs, swivel/hinge hips, balljointed waist, balljointed mid torso, swivel/hinge shoulders w/ ballsockets, bicep swivels, double hinged elbows, double swivel/ hinge wrists, and a ball jointed neck.
 
Accessories: Axe, collector card, and display stand.
 
Non-Scalper Price: $20 dollars






The Facts:

* While McFarlane puts out a crazy amount of new sculpts in this line, Vampire Batman is a reuse of the Hush Batman body. The blue costume Hush Batman is just starting to ship, it seems, but the black and grey Hush Batman was included in last year's 2 pack. The head and hands are new on Vampire Batman but the rest of the figure is the same, just now with a darker paintjob. 

The Positives:



* The "Hush" Batman sculpt is a great body sculpt and has lots of cool elements like a raised bat emblem, the excellent belt with larger pouches, and a nice amount of muscle detail and costume folds and wrinkles in the sculpt. Everything is darker now, fitting in with this more frightening take on the Caped Crusader. The trunks and other costume details are still black but the outfit itself is almost a very pale brown. It looks great and does strand out from other Batman figures, even though the costume design is pretty standard. 



* The face is creepy and seems to match Francesco Mattina's artwork quite nicely. Those eyes are terrifying and the teeth, locked in a bloody grin, are pure nightmare fuel. Imagine some unsuspecting parent buying this for little Johnny because he wants a Batman. That kid is going to either be freaked out he'll grow up listening to The Cure, writing poetry, and wearing a cape to school. 




* Not only does Vamp Bats have sharp gauntlets with no bending or warping but he's also sporting long, talon-like gloved fingers with blood on them. Spooky!






* The cape is a standard plastic cape. It's not terribly flexible. but it does look nice with a lot of detail and a bit of a dynamic swoosh to the sides. 



* I really like the articulation on most DC Multiverse figures from McFarlane Toys and the Hush body for Batman is definitely a good design. Solid, sturdy, and with a fairly good range of motion. Count Batula looks great in a variety of spooky vampire creeping or axe-swinging poses. 



* The axe is probably a McFarlane creation and it's incredibly cool. This is a pretty sweet accessory that's very gothic. Bruce Stoker looks fine on his own but he also looks incredible toting this thing around. The bat on the blade is just neat. It looks like it's riveted on.


*Still count me as a fan that McFarlane includes a stand with each of their releases these days. It's just a simple disc stand with the DC logo on it but it works well and keeps the figure standing upright in most poses.





* A collectible card is also included with the figure sporting an image from the variant cover of DC Vs Vampires #1. I also really like that there's a bio on the back, though it's a standard Batman/ Bruce Wayne bio and not something related to DC Vs Vampires. 

   Some collectors aren't going to like that this figure doesn't have much to do with the actual DC Vs Vampires book, and that's OK. This is still a very cool vampire version of Batman that's kind of unique, comes with an incredible accessory, and retails for under $20 dollars. It's well worth it if you just dig the aesthetic. There's also a DC Vs Vampires Joker coming out, though it seems to be the same kind of thing (regular darker Joker body with a vampire face and some blood). I find this Batman to be a Great and a 1/2 variant and just another cool Elseworlds Bats to add to the shelf shelves.


   I have reviewed so many figures of Bruce Wayne/ Batman that he has his own review archive. Check out the Dark Knight Gallery for all of my Batman and Bruce Wayne reviews. 

For more of my DC Multiverse reviews check out the following:
Harley Quinn (The Suicide Squad)
Man-Bat (DC Rebirth)



7 comments:

  1. Not bad, gives it a nice twist to the Dark Knight, like The Batman Who Laughs, but a Vampire Batman seems more like a name pun than an actual character, being honest.

    I wanted to ask you some things about your Classified Alley Viper but i thought that doing it on the AV article would be strange as it's from time ago, so if you excuse me i will ask them here:

    1.Is your AV left ankle joint loose? I saw a review of a guy that has 5 AVs and all of them have the left ankle joint loose for forward-backward movement, but the lateral swivel is actually tight, and the same somehow affect mine. It can stand still without problems but everytime i reposition the AV i have to look at the joint.

    2.You have any problem trying to put the AV vintage rifle on his hands? I saw Hasbro's images of the AV holding the vintage rifle without the magazine, and somehow i can't make him hold the rifle with the magazine, as in both hands the magazine interferes with both arms. So i have to make him hold the vintage rifle without the magazine.

    3.Your AV hands seem to be more opened than they should? I know thia sounds strange but the AV seems to hold the weapons a bit off-hand. CC, the B.A.T. and the Crimson Guard manage to hold the rifles and pistol of the AV correctly but the AV i have either holds the trigger with the fingers or holds the rifle with the index finger a bit out of the trigger.

    4. The modern rifle was made for the AV or actually for the B.A.T.? I know this is not an issue but i noticed that the B.A.T. actually holds the modern rifle of the AV way better than the proper AV figure, and i saw that Super 7 released 2 B.A.T. figures with rifles, and made me wonder if this was some sort of last-minute change by Hasbro.

    I know the comment is quite long, but i hope you can help me, as always. I wish to you and your family a nice weekend!

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    Replies
    1. Hello!

      I never mind a comment on an older post. I get notified about any comments, so it's just as easy for me to respond to one on a new one as it is to respond to one on an older post. That being said...

      1. Nope. My figure has a nice, tight left ankle.

      2.Nope, none at all as long as I'm having him hold the rifle with one hand. If I try to have him hold it with both hands I do have some trouble as his thicker vest doesn't allow him to hold the shorter rifle as well.

      3. The rifles definitely aren't a perfect fit and you do have to finagle thing a bit to get the AK styled rifle to look just right. The bottom of the grip does tend to come out of the bottom of the hand a bit.

      4. I'm guessing it was just to add another accessory to the figure since Hasbro realized it might get more folks to buy these. The Classified Series was really on fire when the Alley Viper was released and there were some really creative decisions. B.A.T.s have used rifles, but the fact that the magazines match both rifles and there are spare magazines sculpted onto the backpack seems to show this is definitely for the Alley Viper.

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    2. I see. Yeah, i forgot to mention that my AV holds the vintage rifle decently in one hand and the magazine stays firmly this way, but in two hands or using the frontal grip to lock it onto the shield (basically putting the frontal grip forwards on one of the shield's small rounded sides in order for the grip to "lock" and made it look like a full defense mode) the magazine either weakens or pops out. In my case the AV can hold both rifles decently in two-handed poses but the vintage rifle always must have the magazine removed in this situations.

      Also, you semi-convinced me that a batch of AVs had a quality control issue and got sent with a weaker left ankle. At least it's nice to know your AV has a good joint. What i am wondering is if the gun holding thing is because of the gun design or by tha AV hands design. I tried the AV modern rifle on CC and the vintage one on the Retro Siegie and they seem to hold them perfectly. And well, i miss a decent melee weapon for the AV. The knifes aren't bad, but being paintless and such small, one time i put both on him and i was thinking that the AV was goong to storm a mall to eat all the free food samples. And it was hard as they tended to fall from both hands.

      Also, i have a question about McFarlane: for them 7 comes after 5 or they have a secret pact so they can't do 6 inch figures? I saw they are going to do some Demon Slayer figures and they are either 5-inch or 7-inch. I am not interested of them, but what got my eye is the sizes.

      Finally, then it's nice to know that for every comment you get you receive a notification. You made and implemented a really nice blog, and i appreciate it. And i wonder everyone does too. I will wait for your next review, even if you do one of a watermelon or a chair, ha, ha, ha!

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    3. With the Alley Viper's rifle, I do think it's a mixture of the design of the vintage styled rifle, and the Alley Viper's thicker arms and vest that make it harder to get a decent two handed firing pose. The vest also blocks the lateral pectoral joints/ butterfly joints, which are uninhibited on most other figures.

      As to McFarlane, yeah, they've always kind of arched to the beat of their own drum. The original Spawn figures were bigger than most other superhero figures back in the day and they've just gotten bigger and bigger. The same goes for most of their other lines, though they've also done figures at weird, smaller scales, like the Halo figures and the Walking Dead.

      I do like the larger scale on the DC Multiverse line. Would it be cool if they scaled with Marvel Legends and most of Hasbro's other lines? Absolutely, but I do like that they scale well with Spawn and the Mortal Kombat lines from McFarlane, too. Plus, many of the newer DC Direct/ DC Collectibles figures can fit in with DC Multiverse nicely. I missed the original McFarlane Red Hood, but my DC Essentials Red Hood fits in nicely. Since McFarlane also took over distribution for DC Direct, I imagine they wanted to keep a similar scale for that DC line.

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    4. Also, I don't know if a review of a chair or a watermelon is incoming but I have previously reviewed an iPhone case (despite never having owned a smartphone), hand soap, and some salt and pepper shakers. Sometimes the right mood just strikes me and things get weird....

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    5. At first i thought you were joking, and i got surprised when i saw the reviews. Quite curious having Batgirl and Wonder Woman as shakers. I have Darth Vader and a Stormtrooper as cologne dispensers, and Homer and Bart Simpson as both plastic mugs and ice cream holders (it was an ice cream sold inside of a mug). Well, if you get a Joker Car you can review it, you know, for the fun and the furious, ha, ha, ha!

      I saw people complaining about the Alley Viper vest for the range movement, but being honest, i prefer it that way. It's true that it can be hard to make him hold the rifles two-handed, but the vest feels so realistic that i really like the "authority" and protection it imposes. After all, Alley Vipers aren't trained to be circus acrobats. Funnily enough (and i think i told it before, can't remember it now) i got an Alley Viper after i read your own review on it, and i will never regret it. Your review was the decissive factor for me to get it.

      And well, i don't get why McFarlane is doing Demon Slayer figures, except because other brands prices are hella expensive. Not gonna lie, at first before i got the Retro CG and the ROTJ Boba Fett i was thinking to get a Demon Slayer figure, but after watching the plot a bit it made me refuse completely.

      Because the story of a coal seller (wonder if he gets the coal from the Atomic Runner Chelnov game, as Chelnov was a coal miner) having to fight a Speed Demon Michael Jackson (ba dum tss) which can change genders at will while also having to save his sister with a bamboo stick and fighting Jako's demons only at night (sure, it were demons the ones who hate sunlight, Bela Lugosi acted nice as a demon called Dracula...) with a "Reno 911" bad parody squad funded by a shadowly family seems like a good plot. Even Serpentor's plots made more sense, and i am the kind of guy who doesn't like Serpentor much...

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  2. McFarlane hasn't done Red Rain yet, but I imagine it's only a matter of time. He's definitely starting to do more 1990s Batman variants (they just showed a Knightfall Batman) and I'll wager they'll get to the Elseworlds classics like Gotham by Gaslight, Crimson Mist, and the Doom that Came to Gotham before too long.

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