Saturday, January 9, 2021

McFarlane Toys DC Multiverse Robin - Dark Knights: Metal

 


On the homeworld of the Batman-Who-Laughs homeworld, Earth -22, the Joker makes Bruce Wayne relive his trauma by repeatedly killing parents of children and then exposing the children to Joker Venom to turn them into infected orphans in the process. Batman breaks free and kills Joker, only to take in the children to try to find a cure. Eventually, Batman succumbs to his own exposure to the Joker venom and becomes the Batman Who Laughs. These children are the Crow Robins of Earth -22. 

This Robin looks great in many ways. He's got the slightly askew ties for his classic red and yellow robin costume, green fish scale shorts, and overly large green gloves and boots. The face sculpt is great, and it is a random draw as to which of the three Robin heads you get with the figure (grinning, screaming or winky face with open mouth). I love all the sculpted pockmarked arms and legs, the folds of the boots and gloves, and the way everything drapes. I'm not super impressed by the fact his face is a stark white but the rest of his body is a drab gray. It's a bit strange once you look at it long enough. The other thing I'm not fond of is the articulation. If DC Icons can do a Robin much smaller with double joints, what happened to this one? It's also a bit awkward, and unbalanced easily due to the way the knee joints are permanently bent. 

Sculpt/Paint: 2/3 It's a really good sculpt, though my two issues are the gray paint for the body vs. the white face (it's very noticeable off camera) and the fact the figure has both a rubber overlay for the shirt and shorts. I'm not a big fan of either. Both limit and causes the greens and reds not to match the rest of the body. 

Articulation: 2/3 (21) The figure kinda suffers a bit compared to other McFarlane toys in this department. The neck swivels nicely and has some good attitude. The shoulders are standard, but the elbows and knees are single jointed, which still achieves an ok range except the knees are permanently bend and make it a bit harder to pose. The gloves are annoying because it fully hinders the wrist joints. I'm counting each as one despite being a double pegged ball joint since it's functionally nearly useless except to swivel the gloves. The boots are a bit better, but not like, amazing. It's got the useless toe joint. It also has a rubber shirt that does allow an inner joint to move forward, but the rubber stops it from keeping position, as do the rubber shorts with any kind of spread. Kinda frustrating! 

Accessories: 1/1 These Robins don't really need too much except for the chains (a real chain!) which attaches with some difficulty to a rubbery plastic collar piece on the figure. I like that! It also comes with the stand, card and the big, beautiful torso piece for The Merciless build-a-figure. 

Fun Factor: 1/3 Like I said this one was disappointing. The posing is so awkward and the rubber pulls the stances so you always need a stand, which is ok, but not great. The knees annoy me more than they should. He does look good with the Batman Who Laughs, especially if you have three of them. 

Verdict: 6/10 Limited  He's alright. I like the sculpt but wish the engineering was better. If you're collecting the Batman Who Laughs/Dark Knights: Metal or just want a weird zombie-like variant, I would recommend getting three to make it a complete set. Little bit useless to have three Merciless torsi though. Maybe they should've thought that one through.
















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