Jay's Toy Shelf : DC Collectibles Batgirl & Oracle

Appearing in Arkham Knight as Oracle, Barbara Gordon is once again Batman's eyes and ears in Gotham. She mostly operates from the clocktower in a secret room behind the clock itself, feeding Batman information and occasionally getting abducted! It's the first time you get to see Oracle up close and as a fantastic added bonus, the game designers actually made a DLC where you get to play Batgirl pre-shoot in the spine!

I loved loved loved playing the DLC as Batgirl because she wasn't simply another Batman character with the same moves and tactics. She had a much more sophisticated set of options for hacking any and all tech in her area as well as combat moves. I like the design they did for the character and it's definitely based on her New 52 look. I like the Rebirth look with the purple and yellow, but the black and yellow will always be my favourite. I also like Oracle's design with her clothes having bright, interesting colours. One odd thing though is Oracle's wheelchair. Not only is the wheelchair not super high tech, but it's not even a basic electric wheelchair. It's literally the oldest looking design for a wheelchair I've seen. It looks as if she got it from a haunted asylum and brushed off the cobwebs. Surely your dad as chief police commissioner can afford better.

This two-pack is awesome in some ways, and a slight let down in others. I'll take a look at both figures simultaneously and bring you all up to speed. Oracle has some nice accessories, and is quite colourful but suffers from some odd issues mostly to due with design. She also has some sloppiness in the paint application. I definitely like that they made the character into a figure, and it was smart to include her with Batgirl. Batgirl herself is pretty great but suffers from some limited mobility in terms of the range of motion and stability when put into a pose.

Sculpt & Paint: Oracle (3/5), Batgirl (4/5) Oracle has some splotches here and there and it becomes a bit noticeable especially when you look at her yellow short. Her sculpt for the legs is especially a bit strange. The figure is tilted a little too far forward and the legs strangely don't fit well on the foot supports of the wheelchair.

Batgirl is painted a bit cleaner, and the hair shading is pretty great. Both have great textures sculpted and forms for the armour and clothing respectively. The plastic used to sculpt the skin features I find a bit too translucent and soft looking. I wish for all the Arkham Knight figures with skin that they had used paint.

Articulation: Oracle (4/5, 16 points), Batgirl (4/5, 26): For Oracle, it makes sense that there is limited articulation at the lower body. She has a pretty good range for the head, shoulders, wrists and has the classic female non-double jointed elbows (hinge swivels). She has a diagram joint but it is sculpted in a way that makes it a bit obvious and simultaneously nearly ineffective at doing anything.

That would be fine and I'm willing to leave it at that, but for a strange reason, they gave her swivels at the top of the shoes? So that you can...splay them awkwardly sideways? I don't get it.

Batgirl also has decent range in the neck, though the big clump of hair does prevent upward motion.

The elbows are again hinged swivels and yeah, I know it's not a huge deal but a double-jointed elbow has WAY better range than a hinge-swivel and female characters should have them! The elbows, wrists, knees and hips all have a decent range, though it would've been nice to have wider range for the hips. The diaphragm joint is severely limited on this one. The ankle joints have a forward pin that allows a pretty limited ankle rocker as well.

Price: 3/5 (Both): These are only sold as a two-pack but are a bit pricier than originally released.

You can still find them in online stores but not in vast quantities.

Accessories: 3/5 (Both) Oracle definitely has some more interesting accessories. The headphones sadly only loop around the neck and cannot go around her head. The wheelchair I got in the package was already scuffed at the back and as I mentioned before, looks a bit ancient in design for a character who is a tech whiz and who has a father who is in a high position of power. The backpack is awesome and colourful and it can fit both on her actual back and the wheelchair. It is so clunky though that you can't really have her wear it AND sit in the chair. Surprisingly, the bottle is removable! And highly scuffed from being so tightly inserted into the backpack side pouch. I would've liked to see oracle have a laptop! Seems like it'd be appropriate.

Batgirl has typical pieces, just a few hands (open, punching and Batarang holding) as well as the typical Batarang we get with the Arkham figures.

Fun Factor: 3/5 (Both) Both figures look great on the shelf. I like the slightly furrow-browed look of Batgirl and how they did Oracle with her glasses. Both have clean looking colours (from afar) and look great with the other figures (sorry, I didn't realize how blurry the Batfamily photo was!). I will say though that it was difficult to get Batgirl to stand in a good pose and her bad ankle rocker joints did not help! Oracle for her part can fall BACKWARDS in her wheelchair if not properly situation when her backpack is hooked onto the handles. Oi! Still, I love having both in my collection.

Verdict: 17-18 (Oracle, Batgirl)/25: Good.

Both are good figures, and I appreciated them being sold together. I wish Batgirl had better range and stability and they had used better ankle joints with longer feet for better stability. Oracle is fairly well done with just some articulation issues for the most part. Good work, DC Collectibles. You'll want to pick this up to complete your Arkham collection since this is the first and only Batgirl/Oracle from that franchise. Otherwise, you may just like them if you like 7 inch Batman figures.