by DTW » Wed Nov 20, 2013 3:00 pm
Can you hear that? It's the sound of the ball being dropped, hard. With this kind of execution on one of the most-anticipated, Bat-related characters in Matty's to-be-made DC roster, it's becoming less and less of a surprise that people didn't have enough faith to continue subscribing to CIE.
I didn't want to pass judgment on this guy until I got him, because there have been plenty of times that a head sculpt or some other feature looked bad in pre-release pics and then turned out fine in person. In truth, the head sculpt is not the worst thing about this figure, although it is a bit of let-down for anyone who wanted a legitimate, classic Ra's al Ghul. The paint apps make the details very soft, which don't do it any favors.
The single worst thing? The one thing that makes this figure utterly useless? The inability to move his head. C'mon, Matty...it's been years. A functioning ball-jointed neck is a make-or-break point for a figure, especially one like this that really needs something to help it pose dynamically. If customizers have figured out how to modify heads so that they can move freely on this peg, why hasn't Matty? As it is, even if you get Ra's into a cool, about-to-swing-his-giant-scimitar pose, it's pointless because his head can't tilt up at all, leaving him permanently staring at the ground. Just awful.