The Flash
The Good: When I first saw unpainted prototypes of the Scarlet Speedster here, I wasn't impressed. I felt the design was overdone, overwrought, even, to the point where they missed everything about what makes the Flash's costume work. Then there were the painted prototypes and the solicitation images of him being posed running and showing off the clear lightning effects that swap out for some of his regular parts... he was shiny and much sleeker-looking than that initial black and white prototype. He grew on me and I decided to get him.
The paint on Wally here (I'm sure he's supposed to be Barry, much like wave one's GL is obviously Hal, but goddammit, he's Wally to me-- the whited out eyes, the nose on the mask like Wally's final costume before the New 52, the hues of shiny red and maroon-- lemme pretend it's Wally, okay?) is pretty stellar compared to some of his PAK brethren. There's some fuzzy edges and some slop, but nothing that detracts from the overall look. He really pops on the shelf, which is saying something among my motley crew of superhero PAK.
Wally has two sets of extra hands (fists), three pairs of lightning effects (head antennae, forearms and waist), and of course the standard PAK stand that you have to assemble yourself. The effects parts swap out pretty easily, but there's some issues I'll get to below. Once equipped with the effects his overall look is even more striking. It's almost like they crossed the Flash with Guyver or any number of Sentai characters (that's Power Rangers for us yanks), and it's fitting, in a way, and a much better look for a character whose costume in the comics now assembles from pieces, parts, and panels, which I'm sure was influenced by Guyver in the first place.
Poseability is what I've come to expect from PAK. They've even gone so far as to have seperate moving pieces in front of his ankles to not inhibit his foot movement, a vast improvement over Batman and GL from wave one, who had restricted ankle joints. The mid-foot joint is there, and welcome as always to keep his feet flat in most poses and provide stability, which would be easier if he had flatter feet. Like GL, Flash has strange high heels that initially put me off but are growing on me. On his thighs are also soft plastic panels that swing out when getting him into deep stances, and although they aren't pegged into place securely, I'd rather have them come off and be reattached easily than be stuck in place or worry about a peg twisting off.
All his joints are nice and tight and there's no breakage, thank Grodd.
The Bad: Flash's arms are a bit more limited than you might think at the shoulder and bicep, and that is a head-scratcher. Why make everything else have such a wonderful Range Of Motion and then skimp on the arms? It's not a huge oversight, really: his elbows bend in nicely, it just makes no sense to me. The shoulder armor seems to keep the bicep swivel from moving more than a little bit each way, and the shoulder ball joint doesn't seem to provide enough ROM for him to do much more than swing his arms convincingly in a running pose. So given the fact that he doesn't have any accessories to hold (such as a gun or sword that he would hold with both hands), it's something I'm largely going to overlook.
The effects parts, while fun and an appropriate inclusion, can be a tad frustrating. The waist ones in particular were a bit of a pain to get on because the tiny panels that swap out of his lower back were stuck in place with paint. Once removed, the lightning pieces pop in easily, and fall out with even more ease. The right one in particular wants to fall out on a whim at times, so careful handling while setting up for posing, or better yet, waiting until you get your pose just right and then adding the waist effects afterwards is advised.
The now-infamous "floating crotch" piece that almost all PAK have is present here, but on the Flash it seems like some sort of superhero thong or speedo. A scarlet speedo for the Scarlet Speedster?
The arm effects are a little odd, but so far on mine haven't been a problem. below the elbow ball joint is where you remove the entire forearm and then that pops apart into two pieces: the joint closer to the elbow is what you swap out for the effects part. Neither of these pieces are marked "right" or "left", and when I first put the arm effects on I had 'em backwards. I've read complaints and seen video reviews where the forearm wants to pop off once the effects part is put on, but I've only run into that with the regular arm pieces, which is fine by me as I prefer the lightning.
Last are the antennae. I get what they were going for with them, but the lightning for his head and waist suffer a bit from not enough paint application. It seems there's a bit of a gold overspray on some of the 'static' parts in the lightning's sculpt, but it still looks mostly like yellow-orange plastic. I prefer the solid antennae, otherwise it looks like Wally's got sparklers for ears.
The only glaring paint problems I found were on his left open hand: there's glop on two fingers, and when I tried to scrape it off it only revealed yellow plastic underneath. Bummer. But he looks just as good, maybe better, with the fists, so again, not a big deal.
Finally his neck could have a tad more ROM than it does. He can tilt side-to-side really well, but can't look up much due the lip of his helmet getting in the way. Again, I can live with it, as the rest of the articulation makes it hard to find things wrong without seeming nitpicky. In fact, most of the issues I've mentioned in this section are to me incredibly minor. I'm not looking for things wrong, I'm just trying to be thorough.
Overall: Flash, be he Wally or Barry or some wholly new Japanese version of the character, is a welcome addition to the DC Variants line. The shiny paint job, the design... it's a very fun figure. I was able to snag the Flash for a little over $60 with shipping from Sideshow Toys, and that was only due to using discount points that I forgot about a loooooong time ago. So not having to pay full price (around $80-$90 right now; I'm assuming that will drop as the figure is more readily available stateside, but not by much) was a huge plus. The Flash is up there with Batman and gets an A.
Batgirl
I still have a bit of a problem with Barbara Gordon resuming her role as Batgirl. Not that it irks me as much as the whole Wally West issue (yes, I know Wally's name has come up in solicits for future Flash adventures, and yes, I'm sure they're going to fuck with him more), but hear me out: you take her character, cripple her, and have her build herself back up from detrimental injury as this brilliant, behind-the-scenes tactician and facilitator (Oracle), make her the leader of a team of female heroes (Birds of Prey), make her a member of the JLA for about five minutes, introduce a new, protege Batgirl for her to train (Stephanie Brown), make the comic a blast to read, and then decide to make her all better and Batgirl again? It seems like a step back, if you ask me.
Okay, sorry. Done ranting. This isn't about my character preferences, it's about the toys, goddammit.
The Good: If the Flash was inspired by Super Sentai and Guyver, Batgirl has a very Gatchaman influence going on, and this is not a bad thing. The scalloped cape is a very obvious visual cue, and the helmet and hot pants (in lieu of a skirt) are evocative of the Ninja Science Team as well. Some folks don't care for the exposed skin from her shorts, but I feel it's much more appropriate than Wonder Woman's exposed midriff.
In short, Babs is everything in a PAK figure that wave one's Diana should have been.
Along with the callbacks to Gatchaman (or G-Force, or Battle of the Planets or whatever your preferred name for it is), her outfit is full of visual tie-ins to Batman's. The armor is very similar in places and the forearm blades are of the exact same design, although scaled down for her feminine physique.
Like most PAK, Babs is depicted with an exaggerated anime physique, but it's not as amazonian as Diana's, and she's not as tall as Wonder Woman, either, which is a nice touch. Like Diana, Batgirl has ridiculous high heels (I'm torn on the whole high heels issue with my superwomen-- I understand it, I guess, from an aesthetic standpoint, but I know heels are impractical especially if being worn for any activity involving walking let alone running or saving the world), but unlike Wonder Woman the design is chunky enough to support the figure's weight without bending, allowing Batgirl to stand without the assistance of the included stand, albeit precariously at times.
Paint is pretty top-notch on her as well, although there are one or two issues I'll get to. The gold is applied evenly and she has a very nice blue overspray, another callback to Batman. The wrist armor, a piece attached to Batman's hands, is built into the forearm on Batgirl, and is a seperate piece that swivels and gives full Range Of Movement from her hands and wrists, a nice touch.
Her arms and shoulders all have great range. She comes with two sets of open hands to hold her knife/sword (the packaging refers to this as a kunai, a type of shuriken, but I really don't see it). At first I was a little nonplussed at the sword, because I thought she couldn't hold it well. Upon further play, both gripping hands have a little trench in the fingers that the handle of the sword fits into perfectly. Whether or not she'll be able to hold it indefinitely over time with the wear of play remains to be seen.
She has a second weapon, a batarang, which matches the folded pair of them she wears on her loose-fitting belt (surely another Ninja Science Team callback), and it's a huge improvement over the one included with Bats. It's fully formed, and although it bears the dreaded manufacturing stamp, it's less obvious than the larger Batman 'rang. She includes a third right hand to hold the batarang, but I find either sword gripping hand accommodates it better.
Finally Babs has two separate sections of cape that are sort of swooping or swirling, so with enough time and patience there's a lot of poses you can get her into that implies dynamic movement, and they cement the Gatchaman influence even further.
The double-jointed knees are back, a welcome departure from Wonder Woman who only had the black Revoltech-style ball joints. Whether it was a design choice on WW because she had more exposed skin and less going on with her legs to hide the joints is up for debate, but I'm glad they went this with Batgirl.
Her eyes, although painted well, have the Doll Dot going on, something I've not paid much attention to since the old 1/6 Sideshow Star Wars figures were being made prior to Hot Toys' involvement. Overall her eyes give her face a sort of vacant expression depending on the angle, and upon further inspection it's due to her mask/eye alignment. Something is off that I can't put my finger on, but it looks like her eyes are either not proportionate to the eye holes of her cowl, or that her eye paint is off just enough to look odd. Hrmmf.
Exercise caution when moving her hips forward and back-- I thought initially there was a problem with the left hip joint that wasn't allowing it forward movement, but then after some play I ran into that problem with the right hip. Turns out her torso joint, depending on the angle and pose, can restrict her hips. A simple solution is to pose her torso out of the way before moving the hips, which is kind of frustrating-- but the sacrifice would be a less 'full' look in her trunk and waist, so I'll deal with it.
I'm not convinced that her heels will hold their shape over time, but I could just be concerned because of the softer plastic on WW and the fact that most PAK's joints can sag or droop over time as more wear develops from posing and re-posing. As of now, they do a good job of keeping her standing if you've got her balanced just right.
Her physique is more woman than girl, for sure, and that may bother some. It doesn't bother me, because I know how heavily manga/anime-influenced Square's designers were going for with these figures, and most Japanese anime depictions of women seem to fall into two categories: body of a twelve year old boy (not creepy at all, that) or over-the-top voluptuous. Given the choice, I'm glad they went with the latter. Your mileage may vary.
Overall: Batgirl is far and away the most fun of these designs so far, and almost makes up for the fact that their Wonder Woman fell so short in execution. I'd love for a Robin in this vein, as the Gatchaman influence would translate fantastically to the Boy Wonder. Batgirl is not only another great female from PAK, but probably tied with Batman as the best of the variants thus far.
Taking a cue from my stepson, Ezra, I'll rank the first five figures in order of coolness and value:
1. Batman/Batgirl
2. Flash
3. Green Lantern
4. Wonder Woman
It seems they realized some of first wave were lacking, particularly Wonder Woman, and Batgirl is a marked improvement and a much worthier purchase. I went to ebay for Babs, and she was $85, which included shipping, a little more than I paid for any of wave one. I justified that the price was worth it, since I got the Flash discounted, but again: your mileage may vary. Batgirl gets an A, and that's coming very close to an A+ if not for the steep price that only gets steeper, it seems, with each new PAK release. Having said that, the quality for wave two, at least on my figures, seems better. I'm still not sure that it justifies the price increase, but patient collectors (which I am not!) should be able to grab these for $20-$30 cheaper if they're vigilant and watch prices on amazon and ebay.
I really, really, like the DC Variants, and with EIGHT more on the horizon (Superman/Supergirl, Aquaman/Cyborg, Hawkman/Darkseid, Joker/Harley Quinn), some less interesting than others (I refuse to accept Cyborg as part of the League; he's the heart and soul of the Titans, goddammit! And Darkseid just looks bland), even if you pick and choose a few of these you probably won't be disappointed, especially getting them cheaper than the MSRP.
Til next time, kids.
-Swift
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