Maybe I shouldn’t harp it on all that much. Below the waist, things are great (that’s what she said!). Things are also articulated well at the neck. Elbows and wrists work fine. But if you collect a lot of toys, you know what’s left – what you could tell was going to be an issue even on the prototype. Ozzy’s shoulders? Well, he may as well not even have them. The heavy plastic on the tunic, though it looks great, basically removes that articulation point.
You can get some use out of the ab crunch, but the arms just aren’t there – even the bicep swivels are hard to turn because they can’t clear the torso! I could give Mattel an easy out here and say they were going for aesthetics. I more or less did on Rorschach. But this is different. Rorschach was in a trench coat and some cuts for articulation might have messed up the look a little too much. That’s not the case for the tunic here. Some smarts could’ve stayed hidden in the folds and retained the arm movement. Kinda lazy, Mattel.
In addition to his Watchmen stand, Ozzy included one of the potentially best accessories in the entire line. Something I really would’ve liked to see on more than a few of the other figures: an alternate head. On the one hand, I’m ecstatic to get the piece, a masked, younger version of Ozzy. On the other, the paint really takes away from it. The same great sculpt is under there – and I do think the size is good, the figure appears pinheaded at times, but I blame that giant plastic tunic, but the mask just isn’t painted well. There’s not really a sculpted line for the mask over the nose and, as a result, the paint over the bridge of the nose is just off. It looks weird. I prefer unmasked (he’s almost always sunmasked), so I’ll deal, but the extra accessory kinda nullifies itself here.
Overall, though, it’s here. It’s done. I have the six main Watchmen characters in figure form. That, in-it-of-itself, is awesome. I would’ve liked the figures to be better, but they’re okay – I think Doctor Manhattan’s misshapen noggin perturbs me most, but I like what I see more than I don’t. I make the “Desperate much” joke at myself as much as anyone. It may be the love of the property lifting up these figures, but I do love it so. Even now, I’m happy to have the six. I’m happy to have one less subscription from Mattycollector, but I’d be lying if I said I’d pass on more figures. I’d be all over it. Captain Metropolis, Hooded Justice, Silhouette, Nite-Owl I, Silk Spectre I, Bubastis… Yeah, I’d sign up again in a heartbeat.
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Excellent review and pics. Every one of these Watchmen figure reviews has made me glad I didn’t sign up for them or try to get them day-of-sale. These (and other products, like the BBC’s Mongrels Series 2 DVD) seem to show a distressing trend in modern merchandising: the “Now buy this, shut up, and leave us alone” release, where the manufacturer puts out a disappointing, minimum-effort, yet eagerly-anticipated product in the hopes that the customers will give up on any future releases.
Thanks, Beedo!
I think minimum effort does describe these well. They look great on a shelf, minus one blue head, but those aesthetics and a lack if more careful engineering sully the figs somewhat.
you truly baffle me homes… you’ve had issues to varying degrees with every single one of these figs, and you’d sign up again for more? i don’t know what to say to that.
“Thank you, Master. May I have another?”
Because the pile of issues collectively aren’t enough to dissuade the fact it’s still cool to have these six in figure form. I think I wrote that in there, but it was late.
no, you wrote that, my sentiment was that i don’t understand that sentiment, that’s what i was saying. for me, if it’s a character i like, i want a great toy. i try to pass when i know the figure’s inferior. so like w/ watchmen, i passed on these, they just didn’t look great, but i also passed on the movie figs that dc direct did cuz they looked nice but weren’t really articulated. for me, IF i were going to invest in watchmen figures (more on that in a second), i want a great set that move well but also look good or i guess more importantly, accurate.
that said, i think there’s an element of watchmen fandom that requires we not buy the merch. if you love the story, and if you respect alan moore, i think that truthfully watchmen toys, watchmen t shirts, etc… should be the very last thing we buy… but then, i guess one could make the case that we ought not to buy the comic either, and there would certainly be a nugget of truth to that. but yeah, i have to draw the line at merch, personally. it would be like buying commemorative vials of thomas and martha wayne ash… that’d be beyond tacky, no? even if they’re not real people, it’d be kind of disrespectful to the whole property, wouldn’t it? the only watchmen figure that could be properly justified in purchase would be adrian.
“Nothing ever ends”.
This was the first Watchman I could have bought day of sale, but damn if that tunic didn’t turn me off him. Surely there’s a short sleeve bicep piece they could have used for saving articulation in the arm? and could DeSaad’s tunic top be re-used for Ozy, or was his robe one piece?
Sure, the heads look great, but that’s not enough for me to buy a figure that’s basically covered in a robe for twice the price of retail.
and that group shot DID happen in the book, in the Watchmen group meeting where Blake burns the map. Granted, we don’t have Capt. Metropolis (or Janie Slater), but his inclusion in the movie in that scene was left out, unfortunately.
Also, I just watched the D.Cut *WITH* the Black Freighter and Bernie/Bernard scenes added this weekend. The cartoon bits were okay, but the B&B scenes had me wishing for the cabbie and her gf, too.
You gotta watch your details. Only two of the figures appear as they did in the map burning scene! Ozy gets there by virtue of his second, masked head and SS is the only one who doesn’t undergo any physical transformation in the story.
Rorschach & Nite-Owl are from the modern setting of the story, appearing tubby & dissheveled, Doctor Manhattan can not appear as his modern look for obvious reasons, but it’s the Comedian that mucks it up no matter what era you pick – he really needed alternate heads.
now it needs only his pet lynx ‘Bubastis’ – that would make a great display piece and round up the collection. ah well…