jye4ever
Broke and happy
Well, I finished opening this figure and I've got to say, it's one of my favorite figures in my collection, hands down. The best? Not with the Hot Toys figures I own, but certainly one of my favorites.
The pictures and videos of this figure don't do it justice. I haven't seen a pic yet that has captured the head sculpt properly. In hand it just blew me away. It looks like there's a Bruce Wayne head under the mask because . . . there actually is! NECA actually sculpted and painted a Keaton Bruce Wayne head. The eyebrows, the brown/black hair, it's all contained in that cowl so the figure is actually wearing a mask so to speak. You can pull down and expose more of the chin and neck, move the cowl nose up and see the human nose, etc. so that blew me away. I know the paint apps aren't as nice as a Hot Toys figure but I think I might like this sculpt more. I took the Hot Toys figure out to compare them and there's just something about this NECA sculpt that's dead on. All the pics made it look weird, especially around the neck/head area, but in hand it's perfect. I almost want to get an extra headsculpt and heat it up to see what that Bruce Wayne head looks like under there.
The chest armor, boots, gauntlets, emblem and belt are even better in person. The belt is the right color (I always preferred the more goldish, darker tone from the studio pics myself as opposed to the light yellow) and the chest logo is perfect and really stands out. Really nice sculpt all around.
The body is pretty good, especially the arms and knee area. The only thing I'm unsure of is the torso, and hip leg joints. They're a little scary to pose. The an crunch barely turns and seems to either lean left or right. The waist torso turn behind the belt seems unmovable. I don't know if it's just mine but you go and try to turn that sucker and it just moves right back into position and doesn't budge. I didn't want to force it, so I left it alone. The hips worry me a bit too. They're ratchets on a ball joint but I don't know how much turning they can take. It also seems like the right hip is hanging out a tad more compared to the left socket. You can sort of see the seam where it meets the underpants section of the torso where as the left is completely hidden. I dunno, that and the ankles of the boots not really moving bugged me a bit. The head, shoulders, elbows, knees forearms/gauntlets and hands all moved fine though. Tight joints, nice movement and they're hidden well too. The swap out hands are great, even better than those crappy Hot Toys peg joints.
The accessories are alright. I love the folding Batarang and two piece grapple gun. The rods for the cape are nice too. The rest? Eh, I could live without them. That cathedral grapple is big and useless and it wouldn't surprise me if they snapped. I would have preferred the Steel Gauntlet from the Museum personally, especially with the fold out gas powered line launchers. That would have been perfect considering the hands swap out so easily and this thing has great arm articulation.
My set was missing the grapple gun attachment, so keep that in mind when you open the plastic coffin. I checked the box and it was no where to be found. I'm going to try and contact Neca or Gamestop to see what they can do.
Overall, great release. It's the best NECA figure I own. They did a great job and even surpassed that first prototype. If you have any interest in Batman at all, I'd recommend it. If you wanted the Hot Toys version but either couldn't afford it or missed out, this is a worthy figure to fill that void. I held them side by side and this sucker just seems more fun. You don't have to worry about stressing out any rubber.
Nice review.
