{"id":11814,"date":"2011-02-22T06:04:09","date_gmt":"2011-02-22T12:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=11814"},"modified":"2011-02-22T04:21:54","modified_gmt":"2011-02-22T10:21:54","slug":"dcclassics-com-review-riddler-jonah-hex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=11814","title":{"rendered":"DCClassics.Com Review:
Riddler & Jonah Hex"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a> An odd pair to be sure, but with theme waves coming I figured I should take advantage of the dissimilar characters offered in DCUC16. I’ve been looking forward to picking up this version of Riddler. I wanted Hex too, but I had fears about how Mattel would handle him. Sadly for Hex, both figures met my expectations.<\/p>\n

DC Universe Classics is now up to Wave 16. That\u2019s kinda crazy to think about (even though we\u2019re not halfway through my personal want list). I picked these up online a few weeks back, but Vault found them at our Target today so they’re out there now if you’re looking for them. The wave is notable for being the last eclectic group of figures we get for awhile (as I said, the next few waves are themed) and for being the first under the new paradigm where the waves consist of only six figures \u2013 all of which are required to build the collect and connect, in this case, a much needed redo of Bane (a complete list of which figures comes with which piece is available at DCClassics.Com<\/a>).<\/P><\/p>\n

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I’ll start off with the Riddler. As a major Batman villain, he’s relatively high profile, but I’ll give a short bio for those of you that always seem to enjoy that part. The Riddler is the creation of Bill Finger & Dick Sprang first appearing in 1948’s Detective Comics<\/em> #140. He doesn’t make a big splash and disappeared after only a handful of appearances. The ’60s Batman show and actor Frank Gorshin would revive the Riddler and basically install him as an integral member of Batman’s Rogues Gallery (along with making him a household name, Gorshin also traded in the Riddler’s spandex for a suit, a change that later made its way into the comics).<\/p>\n

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The Riddler’s modus operandi is to commit crimes and leave riddles, matching wits with the heroes he’s fighting. It’s not really any more complicated than that. The Riddler has always been a favorite character of mine – one of the few where I truly appreciate his simplicity and dread anyone trying to overcomplicate him (I’m looking at you, Paul Dini).<\/p>\n

It probably won’t surprise you to discover that the Riddler is a new head on a standard buck. Since that’s all that was really called for, he’s just about perfect. Just about.<\/em> He’s got forearms with raised gloves which are nice, but the belt piece has the buckle painted on instead of raised. Normally, I wouldn’t nitpick such a small detail, but since Riddler is a 5pk figure (read: new head only) it might not have killed Mattel to find room in the budget for a new belt piece with a raised buckle. Heck, I’m surprised that the line doesn’t have one of those already. It’d surely come in handy.<\/p>\n

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Anyway, now that I’ve found something to complain about for complaint’s sake, let me lavish some praise on the head. It’s a great sculpt with no soft features and it even has a slight smirk that’s perfect for the character. Without any reservations, my Wave 5 Riddler is safely boxed up in my extras\/no room bin from here on out. I have my Riddler (now where’s that Poison Ivy?)<\/p>\n

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I had some slight paint issues with Riddler, but that may be because he required so little paint. He’s basically molded in his particular shade of green with paint only needed for his gloves (which have sloppy edges) and his neck\/head (which has a sloppy hairline). The question marks are all tampos and save the figure though. They’re all over (not like the dumb jacket on the Wv5 figure) and you’d be hard pressed to find a spot where there should be “one more”.<\/p>\n

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Articulation is standard for the line. There are no new pieces here, so Riddler is still using the older buck outright. He has the annoying one piece ankles and his head has decent down motion and some tilt. Everything else works like you’re used to (though I supposed we’re used to the heads and ankles by now too). I had no issues with stuck joints on Riddler.<\/p>\n

Riddler also included an accessory, a reuse of the cane packaged with his earlier figure. It’s okay. It fits in his hand well and it’s the right height for a figure his size. He comes packaged with it tucked under his arm in the tray, that’s really the only cool thing about it for this second go-round. Continue to Jonah Hex…<\/a><\/p>\n

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Jonah Hex is arguably DC’s most important western character, though he’s far from the first. Jonah’s not from the \u201cwestern age\u201d that ran through the 50s. He first appeared in 1972 in the pages of All-Star Western<\/em> (which became Weird Western Tales<\/em> soon after) and took over the book until he received his own series a few years later. He did go through a long Post-Crisis<\/em> drought, but the amazing Palmiotti & Gray brought Hex back in 2005 with a book that is still going strong today.<\/p>\n

Jonah isn’t your typical Roy Rogers cowboy*. Here are the greatest hits: His mother abandoned him at an early age and his father sold him to an Apache tribe. He was raised by the tribe, even gaining the Chief’s favor, only to be betrayed by the Chief’s son and left for dead after a raid. He joined the Confederate Army (and surrendered to Union forces twice). When he later returned to his tribe, he killed his former rival, the Chief’s son, and the Chief “branded” Hex as a demon and scarred the right side of his face with a white-hot tomahawk, giving Hex is trademark appearance. Almost all of his stories occur after this point, chronicling Hex’s time as a dangerous and surly bounty hunter in DC\u2019s Old West.<\/p>\n

* – You might have seen some movie where Hex has mystical resurrection powers… yeah, no.<\/em><\/p>\n

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I find myself somewhat frustrated by this figure. I was really excited at the prospect of getting a super-articulated cowboy, let alone the fact it was Jonah Hex. Going over the numbers, the figure doesn’t seem that bad, but there’s something about it that’s off. Let’s go over the details and see if I can explain it any better.<\/p>\n

The Four Horsemen definitely did their part with the sculpt. Though I might’ve liked slightly less wear and tear on it, the confederate uniform looks great with the tattered edges and tears throughout. The boots, gloves, and straps all have seams and the leather has crosshatching for texture. Simply put, the body of the figure looks sharp right down to the CSA belt buckle. And it’s all overshadowed by the head sculpt.<\/p>\n

The head sculpt must either a dream job or a nightmare for any sculptor. I\u2019m not sure what was felt in New Jersey, but they nailed it. The left side is simple, clean and fits in with the line. On the right side, the 4H outdid themselves with the right amount of detail. It’s not too simple or cartoony, and it’s not so detailed as to be graphic. It’s really just right.<\/p>\n

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The articulation is where things start to go a little wrong. It\u2019s mostly the same except for two things: Mattel removed the ab crunch and altered the shoulders. It does help maintain the aesthetic of the figure, but I would’ve rather had at least traditional articulation.<\/p>\n

An unintended side effect is that the chest feels enlarged and well, hollow \u2013 cheaper than what we’re used to. The top of the torso also overhangs the ball-jointed shoulders which feature much less range than your average DC Classics figure. It\u2019s annoying. The head is again a saving grace with good range all around. His hair does hit his collar when looking up, but you can work out the blockage and get a great upward pose (which you more or less have to do, more on that in a minute).<\/p>\n

I guess my real problem here is he’s an all-new sculpt. So where’s the extra articulation? Instead of getting some awesome ball-wrists (any character that has a weapon ought to have ball wrists), we’ve got no ab crunch and restricted shoulders. It’s just a bummer.<\/p>\n

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Paint is almost fantastic. The tears in the tunic have skin painted in the recesses. There’s a nice dirty wash on his clothes. The face is painted great even with all the little details on the scarred side of his face. It’s all great except that he’s another figure that’s permanently looking upward. In Hex’s case, he’s always staring at the brim of his hat. I know Mattel calls this just an instance of “vendor error”, but after several waves and being present on nearly every figure with visible pupils, it’s just become one more stupid QC issue that shouldn’t be happening over this sustained a period. <\/p>\n

The accessories are the place where the figure fell really flat for me. The sculpts are nice, though the revolver feels a little undersized. The real problem is they are very soft plastic. You can more or less fold them both in half. They both can be stored on the figure, so Mattel gets some points back there. The shotgun fits snugly in a loop on Hex’s back and the pistol has a holster, though it doesn’t hold the pistol particularly well. You can see it trying to escape in some of the images.<\/P><\/p>\n

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Overall, these are two of the better figures in the wave. Riddler is a great example of how the line can work on a budget. The paint could be a little crisper and they could do better than to paint on a belt buckle, but the buck body looks great here and the colors are spot on for this version of the Riddler. The classic head sculpt brings it all together and gets us one step closer to having a full Batman Rogues gallery.<\/p>\n

Hex has a few things I don’t like about him – the gummy weapons, the restricted articulation, the mispainted eyes, but the power of the Four Horsemen sculpt saves this figure and somehow outweighs all those negatives (Mattel should consider that if they ever want to make DCUCs without the Four Horsemen). He’s a mean-spirited, mutilated cowboy and he’s probably completely out of place in this line of superheroes, but you’re not going to find too many DC fans that care about that. He’ll look great on the shelf and, not counting Xevoz, he’s surely the best articulated gunfighter figure in this scale despite missing some obvious points. I\u2019m glad to have a cool Jonah Hex figure. Now, we just have to work on getting Mattel to give us some horses…<\/p>\n

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For more DC reviews, check out our
\n DC Universe Classics Collector’s Guide<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An odd pair to be sure, but with theme waves coming I figure I should take advantage of the dissimilar characters offered in DCUC16. I’ve been looking forward to picking up this version of Riddler. I wanted Hex too, but I had fears about how Mattel would handle him. Sadly for Hex, both figures met my expectations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":11817,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[6,34,10],"tags":[70,378,665,409,20,806],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.itsalltrue.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/ridTN.jpg?fit=50%2C50","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pObc6-34y","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10402,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=10402","url_meta":{"origin":11814,"position":0},"title":"DC Classics Update: Wave 16 Packaged & Renegade at TRU","date":"December 3, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"On Facebook today, Mattel showed us our first packaged pics of DCUC Wave 16. I was expecting this delayed wave to be in the Super Power packaging (with buttons!), but it now serves as our first look at the 2011 packaging - the nice part? It's bigger! Plus, some early\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "DCClassics.Com"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3773,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=3773","url_meta":{"origin":11814,"position":1},"title":"Truetorial: DC Classics & Walmart – A Match Made Without Variants","date":"February 8, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm ambivalent on the Mattel\/Wal-Mart partnership. I really don't care if they keep getting exclusives or not. I live practically on top of Wal-Mart HQ and have dozens of stores within a reasonable driving distance, but that doesn't make it easy to find the exclusives. I didn't get DCUC5 first\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "DCClassics.Com"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3444,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=3444","url_meta":{"origin":11814,"position":2},"title":"Ask Matty – January 15th Edition","date":"January 15, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Ask MattyJanuary 15th, 2010 1. SilntAngl asks: I think I speak for most of the fans when I say that I love that MOTU Classics follows the blueprint of the vintage MOTU line, but is there room in the line for some new takes on old characters or some all-new\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ask Matty"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12594,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=12594","url_meta":{"origin":11814,"position":3},"title":"Matty on Facebook: DC Universe Classics 17 in Package","date":"May 11, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Earlier this week, Mattel released images of the DC Universe Classics Wave 17. This wave stirred up a lot of controversy when it was announced, so how it sells in the next few weeks will be interesting. I'm buying because I want to build the Anti-Monitor and, hey, the figures\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "DCClassics.Com"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11003,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=11003","url_meta":{"origin":11814,"position":4},"title":"Updates to DCClassics.Com","date":"January 11, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"With Toy Fair about a month away, I figured I should go through each IAT Checklist and make sure they're all up to date, so there's no backlog when the news and updates start rolling in from New York over Valentine's Day weekend. First up, a big update to DCClassics.Com.","rel":"","context":"In "DCClassics.Com"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":20335,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=20335","url_meta":{"origin":11814,"position":5},"title":"Ask Mattel August 15th & Link Round-Up","date":"August 16, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Ask Matty - August 15th Edition DCClassics.Com Asks: Did the Death staction have enough of an impact that Mattel will look into moving forward in that scale? It did very well, but how and if this line will continue has not been decided. MOTUClassics.Com Asks: We know that Granamyr can't\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ask Matty"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11814"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11814"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11825,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11814\/revisions\/11825"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}