Jay's Toy Shelf : McFarlane Toys DC Multiverse The Drowned

Saturday, December 4, 2021

McFarlane Toys DC Multiverse The Drowned - Dark Knights: Metal

Bryce Wayne was born to Martin Wayne on Earth - 11. Like the Batmans before, her father was shot by criminals. After rogue Metahumans killed her lover, Sylvester Kyle, Bryce went about killing every metahuman as revenge. The ruler of Atlantis in this world, Aquawoman, proposed a peace treaty that proved to be unreliable and resulted in an attack. Bryce responded by killing the Queen and taking the trident to eventually lead a surface army to defeat the Atlanteans. In retaliation for the Queen's death, the Atlanteans drowned Gotham and a good part of the world. In order to win the desperate war, Bryce modified her body to adapt Atlantean features such as hydrokinesis, fast healing and breathing underwater. She defeated the Atlantean empire, drowning the world. Becoming The Drowned, she was soon met by the Batman-Who-Laughs who proposed his multiversal scheme. Side note, shouldn't she be The Drowner? Anyway, onto the figure review!

As with all the Dark Metal designs I really love The Drowned character design. It's a mix of dark green, gray flesh of an undead person with the attire of a pirate and the cybernetic eye of a cyborg? Anyway, all put together it's cool. Here's a quick breakdown of the figure's merits!

Sculpt/Paint: 2/3 For the most part, it's got amazing textures from the folds in the seaweed dress to the jacket and boot moulding and the amazing hair. It's neat how they really went all out to sculpt the individual strands and add some nice shading there. But, I'm getting kind of annoyed at how there is often a glaring lack of paint details in McFarlane's figures. The straps for the cyber eye are not painted, as are a few other small details. The sculpting of the hands is a bit annoying too as she can't really firmly grip the trident. I'll also add whenever high-heeled boots are put on figures they are often poorly balanced to add to the issues. Otherwise, looks very badass!

Articulation: 2/3 (23 points): I've decided to start giving McFarlane less leeway with points. If I can barely move it in any direction, regardless of intent or the joint there, I'm not counting it. In this case, the doubled elbows and knees only really function as singles. The hips do rotate, however, and the ball hinges at the wrists and ankles work fairly well with some maneuvering. The head can swivel but basically can't move due to the massive amount of hair. The ab crunch is hidden in the torso but basically doesn't allow anything but a slight backwards motion.

Accessories: 1/1 She comes with the standard stand and card, as well as her trident. The trident is really well done and the gold paint is very shiny here. It's also very thick, which you'd think would allow her to hold it easily at any section, but it slips notoriously. This is basically all you need for the character, maybe aside from punching hands, which I think should just be the default for every character that is a superhero or villain.

Fun Factor: 1/3 Like I said, she looks really cool, and can kind of fit into a pirate or undead vibe as well as your Dark Knights Metal collection. She doesn't balance fantastically, though I was surprisingly able to get her to balance for a one-legged kick. The joints on the ankles and other places are pretty fussy though, so it's tough to get her into a pose she'll stay in even with a stand.

Verdict: 6/10 Limited Because of the lack of range, and some weight issues with the high heels, this isn't necessarily enjoyable for everyone to play with. Among your Dark Knights she looks very fearsome though, but I don't think you'd really want to pick this up unless that was your goal, or you had some other cool undead or pirate figures you wanted to pair her with as some kind of Queen of the Drowned or something like that! I'll definitely continue to enjoy it in a display with my other Dark Knights metal though!