Jay's Toy Shelf : Mafex Medicom Batman (Black ver.)

The Batman: Hush storyline is an iconic Batman series of comics from Oct 2002 to Sept 2003. It's a pretty convoluted back-and-forth storyline, but it all boils down to a mysterious villain Hush who is manipulating Batman's villains and allies to destroy Batman. These involve pretty elaborate schemes that cause his typical rogues' gallery to behave in unusual ways, all cumulating in the final reveal: Who is Hush?

I read the story and while I liked it and the art, like many comic book stories it's all over the place and tenuously connected. That's just the reality of comic books it seems, no hate! The version of Batman here is very plain and classic: blue and grey with a yellow utility belt. I prefer black and grey so when Mafex offered the alternative, I had to scoop it up!

This figure is fantastic: well-painted and sculpted, poses smoothly, comes with a bunch of accessories and is fun to play with. Unlike the original blue and grey release it comes with a cool gargoyle piece stand! Makes for some iconic posing! Unfortunately, it doesn't come with the unmasked Bruce Wayne head, which I think is one of the best comic forms of his face in figure form!

Sculpt/paint: 3/3 Despite the very simple colour scheme, I appreciate all the highlights and shading here, which you don't often see in things like McFarlane and Marvel Legends. The musculature is super well done, and they created a superhero body that wasn't grossly over-muscled here. I also love the cape here. It is probably my favourite cloth bendy wire cape out of the few figures I have that have one. First of all, the wire isn't just on the two sides of the cape, there are two more in the middle (admittedly one might be lose), which allows for way more cape posing. There's so many ways to put it up that look really sweet.

Articulation: 3/3 (30+ points) We have a pretty poseable Batman here, with double-jointed knees and elbows, decent swivel hinge wrists and feet, a diaphragm joint with good twist and bend, and a good range in the hip joints. The shoulder engineering works well with a double ball joint with a socket cap that allows some further movement across the chest, though after playing with the Arkham Knight from the previous post, nothing as dramatic as that.

Accessories: 1/1 So many things here. Two small batarangs and two larger semicircular ones, two hands with the grapnel launcher, one grapnel to plug in, and one that extends on the line very far, two open hands, two fist hands, two slightly open hands for batarang holding, two mostly closed fist hands, an extra teeth gritting head, and of course part of the reason I bought it, the stand with the gargoyle! Great here.

Fun Factor: 3/3 He balances well and has some really great poses to get in with the added value of the awesome cape. I think he is my favourite import Batman to play with: his joints aren't too loose or fight, and he looks very clean. There's little that gets in the way of enjoying this figure immensely.

Verdict: 10/10 This is another top figure for me. I probably have like 20 top figures at this point, but this is also one of them. It is insane how both it looks classic and clean, while also delivering in every other department. The original blue version is the actually Hush comic version in full, but I love this one all the same. Get it if you can, and I am tempted to even get the blue version for the other head option!