ItsAllTrueReview: Joker
& Forager (& Batman, kinda)

NoisyDvL5

Third in our four part series on DCUC10, this review covers Joker, Forager, and Batman.

There’s always a broad spectrum of feelings when reviewing a DC Classics wave. There are the figures you wanted and the figures you didn’t know you wanted. There are the highlights and then there are the warped legs. And sometimes there are accessories. These figures are all of those (with a strange quality control issue thrown in).



Forager

I didn’t expect Forager. Cosmic Odyssey is a trade I’ve never properly read (Hey, I was 8 when it came out!). I know of him, but have never read a comic that featured him, since Cosmic Odyssey was kinda sorta the last one. Still, I knew who he was when his named leaked and I was cool with it. He’ll fill out the ranks, right? When I got the figure, my excitement was drained by a QC problem I’d never encountered before: his head was glued to the plastic insert. That’s just dumb. Truthfully, I could tell this from the package, but even though I’m still confident DCUC10 will be more plentiful, it might be the only Forager I ever find, so I picked it up. The glue from his goggles was over applied and Forager had a chance to bond with the insert. I’ve been able to remove a lot of the excess plastic since taking the -photo below, but the head isn’t in the best shape on that side. It’s a luck-of-the-draw quibble, but it did detract from my enjoyment a bit.


Forager makes good use of a buck body. They’ve added all the right details to make him spot-on. His new pieces include the bottom of his tunic, a bandolier, glove cuffs (and his wrist blaster), a new softer plastic piece for the top of his tunic, and his head. The standard articulation is there, and there is some moderate up/down movement to the head. (I’m starting to forget older DCUC figures could look up and down though). All the pieces are sharp and the soft good upper torso fits really seamlessly with the buck torso underneath. I love his head sculpt (it’s spot-on to his first appearance), but mine looks like he’s going, “there’s something on my head! get it off! get it off!”. Again, luck-of-the-draw.


Some of the best DCUC figures are ones where the pieces were molded the right color. Power Girl, Robotman, and Forager all look sharp because of molded colors. He does have some paint, some crisp blue lines on his uniform, his goggles, and the amazingly well done pattern on his tights. Virtually, no slop on that semi-difficult detail.

Forager also includes his trademark shield. Similar to Guardian, it has some textured soft good straps. It fits over his arm easily and stays snug. You can’t ask more from a shield.

Batman


I forgot to put them in the picture, but Batman does include a “Bat-Laptop” (??) and a batarang – both in metallic blue.


Joker

I may not have been paying attention to Cosmic Odyssey, but I am a Super Powers kid. So you can imagine, this Joker is damn near perfect in my eyes. The 4H didn’t try to recreate the Super Powers Joker, but instead aimed to make a figure of the Joker the Super Powers figure was trying to be. It was a great choice and they nailed it.

Joker shares his body with the Gentlemen Ghost, but I don’t really associate the two in my mind. The Joker figure looks appropriately tall and gaunt whereas the cloak on Ghost helped give him bulk. Even side by side, they don’t look similar enough to be simple repaints.

There are some new parts of course. The 4H left the lapel spot as a separate piece so they could switch out character specific parts. The lower forearms are now cuffless and the neck/collar assembly has been replaced. That’s probably the only drawback to the body reuse – a gummy post has to hold Joker’s head into the empty socket. Joker has the same lack of head articulation as most DCUC9/DCUC10 figures, but his is made a little more awkward by the rubber neck. But I’m sure if the up/down articulation was there, I wouldn’t even mention it. And atop that neck? A great head sculpt. Joker’s having a good time on your toy shelf and you’ll know it every time you look at him.

Paint is obviously the area where Joker deviates from his prepaint. He’s molded almost entirely in purple, but the yellow, orange, and green areas are all painted well. Even the two buttons above his coattails have paint apps. And the main area where things could go wrong is instead an impressive selling point. The pinstripes on the pants are straight all around the figure.


Joker’s got serious accessories. He features his classic cane, a hand of playing cards, a laughing fish, and his Super Powers mallet. The cards end up at the low-end because only the Joker card has a tampo and the rest are blank, but it’s still cool to have. His cane is sculpted and painted well for those looking for comic accurate accessories. The well-painted laughing fish would be my favorite, but I love that mallet. It looks perfect. From the J on the top, to the face and long nose, it’s an excellent recreation. My only one complaint, and it’s not really a good one, is that the mallet has a full bottom and I can’t put it over Joker’s head. I know it’s silly, but I did that all the time as a kid. It was awesome.



In Conclusion…

Overall, Forager is a good figure that I like despite being ambivalent about when he was announced. The new chest piece really impresses me when I think about similar pieces on future figures. It really expands the buck’s possibilities. I like the expression on his face, even if it’s been hijacked by some errant glue. I guess the biggest praise here is the figure makes me want to read Cosmic Odyssey.

It may have taken ten waves to get the Joker, but it was well worth the wait. He’s perfectly done from head-to-toe. He’s so perfect, that I’d love to see Mattel revisit Penguin with Super Powers accurate colors (primary color umbrella!). I can’t help it. I love Super Powers and this figure recaptures that excitement fully. Excellent figure.


41 thoughts on “ItsAllTrueReview: Joker
& Forager (& Batman, kinda)”

  1. I don’t know if I’ve heard of your Forager problem before. Just one more way for Mattel to mess up your figures.

    Good review and really good pictures this time around too.

    1. I knew it wasn’t just me!

      And I do love that Batman, I just didn’t see the need to go full into it since he’s exactly the same as the 5pk/DC1 Bats, but black. LOL.

        1. I love that picture and I’m excited to see so many stories from the various forums about the different ways we used that mallet.

          Good times!

      1. It’s Batman’s portable laptop. That Bruce Wayne is so ahead of the times that his computers are actually getting bigger. In ten years, all our laptops will be the size of a newspaper and weigh as much as a small elephant. Progress!

  5. All the figures in this wave look really good. Why does it have to suck??

    Sucks about your Forager too. That’d piss me off big time.

  7. Not only did I have Joker wear the mallet as a hat, I also enjoyed having him smash it down on other figures’ heads for a cartoony “smashed his head down into his torso” effect. Best plastic-saving cheap out ever!

    PS I’ve always understood “soft goods” to mean cloth. I’m not sure what you’d call rubbery plastic.

    1. That’s true! It was dual-purpose cheapness.

      I also remember shoving the cloth capes into Luthor’s armor, but I don’t remember why.

      And you are correct about soft goods, so I’ve fixed it. We need a term for that softer plastic piece though.

    2. That’s what I did! I always smashed them on the head.

      Can the new oen be modified easily to do that?

  8. I love that batman and finally having joker….well somewhere in the planar conscious a four year old is jumping for joy

    1. Exactly.

      I was telling Vault that a lot of times the new figure replaces my need for the old one. DCUC Joker does that for SP Joker.

      But my black Bats doesn’t replace my classic Toy Biz Keaton Batman. I just love that toy too much.

  10. Thanks for all the wave ten reviews. I hope to find all these soon.

    I dont have th emoney to go to ebay.

  11. That Joker figures looks so good, but no.

    I quit this line cause it’s a #$%^ to find. Walmart is my nemesis.

  13. I keep thinking about trying to hunt down all of the 4th World figures from this line, since it looks like DC Direct won’t finish out their awesome New Gods line. It’s the CnCs that keep me from jumping in, but then I think, “Nobody else is ever going to do a Forager figure!” I’m truly torn.

    Those are just goggles, btw. Not his actual eyes.

    1. Kalibak and Brimstone are the only two New Gods CnCs though. And Kalibak is one of the cheapest/easiest to build! I know a Target that’s got almost all the CnC pieces of him that could use some cleaning out! 😀

      I guess Darksied is an upcoming CnC, but I don’t know your height preference.

  14. *sigh* on that Forager . . .

    Add it to the list of warped limbs, frozen joints, paint blobs, and other stuff as just another example of the factories not taking the proper time with these figures.

    1. I’m 90% certain that it’s all from one factory. The factory they switched to half way through DCUC3.

      Except Public Enemies, that’s a new, third, factory.

  15. So true about this wave. You never really get too excited about all the figs in a wave, but then they release the pics and… BOOM! Who the hell is Forager?! He looks freakin’ sweet!

    Of course, after seeing the pics, I was watching Justice League Season 2, and there he was! Now, he’s a must have for me. Also, Robotman, I was not familiar with, but he has a cool visual dynamic, I think I’d really be into him if I ever found him.

    I just finished my Chemo C&C (didn’t have to buy the sub-par Black Canary, and skipped out on Mantis) and I was really pleased. I think subconsciously I’m a huge robot/steampunk fan and these Chemo fits into that category pretty well in my book. So does Robotman. I may skip this version of Batman, though, and I’ve already pre-ordered wave 12 Power Girl.

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