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Regular readers over at Michael’s Review of the Week were already treated to the first part of this review, covering the fourth wave of DC Universe figures from Mattel. In that review, I looked at Wonder Woman, Cyborg and Ares, and tonight I’ll cover Captain Atom and Batman Beyond, along with the Build a Figure for this series, Despero.

This wave comes hot on the heels of wave 2, with rumors that wave 5 is not all that far away. Wave 5 is an exclusive to Walmart, and should be out very soon.

You can find wave 4 at major retailers like Target and Meijers, as well as the aforementioned evil Walmart. Expect to pay around $11 a piece for them, or you can hit one of the online dealers I have listed at the end to buy them by the case.

Mattel’s DC Universe Wave 4 – Despero, Batman Beyond and Captain Atom

This has been the year of the Build a Figure, with not only DC Universe waves and Marvel Legends waves having them, but we also had Build a Driods and some others as well. This wave features Despero, who might look familiar to collectors of the line.

While the main series has five figures – Wonder Woman, Captain Atom, Cyborg, Batman Beyond and Ares – there are a number of variants as well. Kaybee Toys is scheduled to have a variant of Cyborg (different ‘attachments’) as well as Batman Beyond (maskless) later this month. There is a Wonder Woman variant called Artemis (you can see a photo of her in the other review), and there’s two versions of Captain Atom as well, one silver and one gold. The Artemis and Captain Atom variants ship in regular cases to any store.

Packaging – ***1/2
I’ve mentioned before that I really like this style of bubble and card, even if they aren’t the most collector friendly. They do show off the figures well, they allow you to see new waves buried in amongst the old on the peg, and the text and graphics are specific to the particular figure. All of these pluses, along with their general resistence to shelf and storage wear, make them some of the better mass market packages out there right now.

Sculpting – ***1/2
All three of these figures are extremely well done, and while there isn’t a ton of detail on a character like Captain Atom or Batman Beyond, they’ve done a perfect job with the minimalist features.

The head sculpt on Batman Begins is a tricky one though. I’m torn on whether I’m feeling the slightly odd expression or not, but the longer I’ve had the figure the more it’s grown on me. His hands are sculpted to hold the accessories, and the utility belt is well done. He fits in nicely scale wise with the rest of the line, standing about 6 1/2″ tall, and he stands great on his own in just about any pose.

Likewise, Captain Atom has a very good yet basic sculpt. Both these figures use the standard DCU superhero body, and they are both excellent base figures for customizers. The very simple sculpt, with most of the detail in the paint, will allow talented artists to turn these guys into all kinds of cool characters. Atom’s head sculpt is where the majority of his detail work is, and the hair is very nicely done. The hands are both fists, but since he doesn’t come with anything to hold, it’s not a huge problem. he’s slightly shorter than Batman at about 6 1/4″ tall.

And then there’s the BAF, Despero. I mentioned earlier that you might recognize this guy, since he and Lobo share the same body sculpt, as well as some similar weapons. The Despero figure is much more in scale with the rest of the line, standing about 7 3/4 inches tall, since the body was originally sculpted for him, but used for Lobo as a cost cutting measure. His head sculpt is fantastic, and he’s one of the best looking BAF’s of the year. His hands will hold the weapons in a number of ways, and while you can’t remove the harness doohickey without cutting it off his back, it’s only a minor issue for me.

Paint – ***1/2
We’re now four waves into this line, and one of the issues we’ve seen crop up on occasion is poor paint ops. That’s not been a problem with this series from what I’ve seen so far, which is critical with characters like Batman Beyond and Captain Atom, where the paint makes up much of the unique look.

Everything on these three is sharp, clean and neat. There’s a little bit of slop on a few of the cut lines, as well as some slight bleed, but it’s quite minor. Some folks may find they prefer the silver Atom over the gold (the gold does look a bit like a pimp’s Cadillac), but that’s more of a taste issue. The gold also has more actual paint on him, as it looks to me like the gloves on the silver version are cast in red plastic, while they are painted (in a very glossy finish) in red on the gold version.

Articulation – ***1/2
These figures all sport the same type of articulation as the rest of the line – ball jointed neck, ball jointed shoulders with joints on both sides of the ball, pin elbows, ankles and knees, cut wrists, thighs and waist, ab crunch chest, and the somewhat unique hips that allow the leg to move forward and back, as well as outward from the body, all with a very good range of movement.

The ball jointed necks worked particularly well on all three of these, elevating the score even further. But I did find that the legs were a little loose on them, bring me back down that final half star.

Accessories – Atom ***; BB **1/2
The first three figures in this wave that I reviewed (Wonder Woman, Cyborg and Ares) all came packing more extras than usual for this series, but CA and BB are more in line with the standard. I’m not counting Despero here as an individual figure, since he is actually part of the accessories for the other two.

Batman Beyond comes with a small soft rubbery batarang. It fits in his hand fine, and it doesn’t look bad when he’s posed with it, but a second accessory would have gone a long way here. He does come with his Despero piece (an arm) however. Of course, that only matters if you’re looking to complete Despero.

Captain Atom has nothing other than the Despero piece, which is usually a big negative to me. However, he comes with the most important and largest piece: the entire torso and head. He also comes with both gun weapons for Despero, giving him quite a bit more plastic for your dollar than any of the other figures in this wave. Even considering how nice the Artemis variant is, I’m betting over time CA will the the hardest to come by, as completists buy multiples to have both colors, leaving folks trying to complete their Despero desperate.

Fun Factor – ***1/2
Great sculpts and paint with useful, fun articulation – how much better can it get than this? Sure, most kids today are going to have no idea who any of these three characters are, but Despero will make a terrific supervillain for any kid’s evil action figure empire.

Value – **1/2
At $11, you’re getting a pretty average value. Had we gotten a few more non-BAF accessories, like we did with the other three figures, this score would have gone up another half star. But for those that understand my reviewing methodology, you’ll know that this score makes the category neutral for my personal Overall.

Things to Watch Out For –
Obviously if you’re buying these off the shelf you’ll want to watch the paint, but it looks like this series is pretty consistently good. Other than that, you shouldn’t find any other gotchas!

Overall – ***1/2 ***
Rigjht now there aren’t too many mass market lines that I really look forward to finding. But the DC Universe is a bright spot in that otherwise cloudy retail peg space. This is one of the few lines that I’m still a completist on, and it’s because they look so terrific together on the shelf. Batman and Atom might be a little plain in terms of sculpt here, but that fits the characters just fine. And Despero is one of the best BAF’s this year, although displacing Foom from the top spot is mighty tough.

Where to Buy –
While you should be able to find them at your local retailer, you can also order cases at CornerStoreComics for $63. They have pre-orders up for waves 6 and 7 as well!

Related Links –
You’ll definitely want to check out part 1 of this review, as well as my look at wave 3 and wave 1 busted into two parts, one here and one here.

Comments: 1 Comment

One Response to “Toy Box: DC Universe Wave 4 Part 2”

  1. Dark Lantern Says:

    Going back to your Wave 4, Part 1 review, I noticed that the Wonder Woman figure I purchased actually has two right legs. The thigh joint is twisted around to give one the appearance of a left leg, but you can tell by the musculature, the shape of the foot, and the way the thigh joint would line up with the lower leg, that both legs are actually the same.

    Looking at your photos, it looks like your figure has the same flaw. Can you confirm? I wonder if they were all constructed like that.

    DL

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