As anyone who's followed this thread for any amount of time knows, I've spent a good deal of time and energy defending this piece. I own it, I like it a lot. I think its been over a year now since these first began getting delivered, and with the benefit of hindsight, I think that we are in a position to try summarize the reasons why so many folks (IMHO) struggled to give this piece a fair and objective review. I'd say they are these:
1. PVC issue. Obviously #1. In short SS really dropped the ball by not letting us know that the materials we all came to expect on all PFs was not going to be used on this piece. I think, frankly, they were afraid of the potential cancellations, and I think that choice actually made cancellations, and perhaps even more importantly, subsequent potential orders, nose dive even more than they otherwise might have because the word-of mouth reviews were animated by the surprise and disappointment with the materials used. i would argue that the PVC in no way diminishes the figure as a display piece, but this aspect gets very emotional for people.
Although I maintain that the head sculpt on this piece is as good or better than other SS PFs I own or have seen in person, there has been a vocal group of people who think its not good at all. I think some of the main contributing reasons for this sentiment are these:
2. It always seems to be an order of magnitude more difficult to mass produce a truly great head sculpt for these pieces in quarter scale when there is no dominant facial feature that takes over the look of the sculpt. With the MOS piece, we're looking at a clean shaven, short haired Cavill. When there is a major, not-too-difficult-to-capture feature that takes up a relatively high percentage of head sculpt real estate, which can be rendered accurately without all of the soft detail and facial structure required when dealing with a human face, its a lot easier to nail the final result. for this piece, there is no heavy beard like we see an Galdalf the Grey, or Saruman; no heavy cowl like the excellent Keaton Batman (only need to sculpt 1/3 of a human face), Indiana Jones' famous fedora, etc... Facial replication/recognition is tricky and subjective, and everyone has an opinion. A "naked" face makes this that much harder.
3. The proximity to when this was released and the release date of the truly awe inspiring Hot Toys piece from the same source material. Hot Toys hit their MOS out of the freaking ballpark (particularly with regard to the head sculpt), and I think the comparison didn't do the SS PF any favors. I don't think it would be too hard to get any honest critic of the SS PF to admit that this is really an unfair comparison given the way HT and SS produce these pieces, but one can't deny the obvious impact of the side by side.
4. Honestly HORRIBLE pictures sideshow is currently using to promote this piece. A sculpture is a 3D image. It does not translate well into 2D, so special care is required to show off the topography of the more subtle details. Lighting and positioning are absolutely critical. If you fail to take care in these elements, the pictures you wind up with can range from bad to vomit inducing. We've seen a lot of examples of the entire spectrum in this thread. But as I've said many times, I own the piece, I own several others from SS. The MOS sculpt is on par with all of them.
So that's the deal as I see it. Now, with heavy discounting and extra reward points in play, I think there is a very strong argument to pick this up. One thing that NO ONE argues is that the costume is truly spectacular. If you're a fan of Cavill in this role, I don't see how you go wrong. That said, one thing we may see is a new piece for BvS, assuming SS isn't scared off by this license at this point (even if they botched things by their own hand). I'd say that the PVC experiment - at least with regard to the Superman line up - is likely over forever. Lets hope so...
I'll leave you with a few favorite shots I've taken of my personal piece. He displays incredibly well, if you work with the lighting to compliment the sculpt:
Cheers!
