McFarlane Toys Batwing Thoughts PLUS Custom By firmpulse Pics

Doing up a half review today for the McFarlane Toys DC Multiverse Flash Movie Gold Label Batwing. This was a larger size (and price) item exclusive to McFarlaneToysStore.com, which released back in April when the rest of the Flash Movie items dropped. I grabbed Batman, the Batmobile, and Batwing immediately. While not exactly 89, I dug the remix looks seen in the trailers and eventual movie, and was happy to add them to the shelves. The piece is 7 inch scale, which allows a standard DC Multiverse figure to sit in the cockpit. The wing span comes in at 36 inches, so it’s taking up significant real estate wherever it goes, shelf or wall.

Overall, it’s a well done piece. Engineering is solid, functional, nothing wonky or misaligned. Feels solid in hand. It’s not raw plastic, so it’s got a slight matte and then some slight paint on top of that. The base is nice, and if you set it up you can attach that to the wall and hang it (my eventual method).

Now, I usually don’t get negative in my reviews and I rarely share anything I didn’t like, because why buy or spend time on a gallery for something you don’t like, right? Well, I wouldn’t say i didn’t like this but I was disappointed once in hand, and for one reason only – the color. The default one from McFarlane is just super grey. It’s a flat gunmetal grey with grey weathering paint on top of it, making that almost pointless. When you display it with Batman and the Batmobile, it looks like they forgot to do something at the factory. It was just off. I guess my fault for not catching that before ordering, but the lighter tone just did not click for me by looking at promo images during the pre-order phase.

So, I did my initial play around session with the piece, tested lighting for the photography shoot, and then instead of digging fully in, I just popped it apart and put it back in the box for a sell. I did one combo fancy pants setup, but I wasn’t fully happy with those and normally would have just recycle-binned em. You can see some of those less refined pictures of the original below. Not the best, but they will let you see how this thing looks right out of the box, compared to Batman and the Batmobile.

Then, out of nowhere the fates intervened. A regular member on the Toyark forum and some of the other 2005 Network sites – firmpulse – contacted me via Private Message here. I’ve seen his name and posts over the years, but we haven’t really chatted beyond that. His message was just alerting me to his post showing off his newly completed custom McFarlane 89 Batmobile. He knows I’m into DC Multiverse and DC generally from my posts, so he wanted to make sure I saw. This thing was perfection. I had just boxed up the Batwing, and let him know that what he did there is what I thought was needed on the Batwing, what should have been standard. We got to talking back and forth, bottom line – he was willing to do the Batwing like the Batmobile. I shipped that bad boy out, and you can see the results below.

The end result is magnificent. A matte black, smooth paint all over. If you have the DC Collectibles BTAS Batmobile, firmpulse’s version is very close to that in tone and feel. Guns and key areas keep a grey or silver hit. He masked off some of the panels and layered a gloss black in, so that there was some blocking to break it up. The cockpit got a lot of attention as well, with some panels and buttons getting color. The matte is sturdy, doesn’t immediately catch scratches just from touching it, it’s functional for posing and light “playing”. The entire piece is functional the way the original was, the back vents, landing gear, cockpit and base display all still work perfectly. firmpulse’s work saved this piece for me – instead of being a sell, it’s now on full display.

I think McFarlane was close with this one, but for whatever reason chose that grey instead of black. Given that DC Collectibles did paint something similar to firmpulse’s years ago in mass production, it was possible. I understand costs are an issue, and that concept art is different than final movie results, but there is no way this thing should have been this light. So big shout out, and thanks, to firmpulse for fitting me in his schedule to do this!

I’m good now, but hopefully for everyone else McFarlane can pop out a matching Batmobile, Batwing, and Batman with something close to this style of paint in the future. They do love some repaints, so never say never!

Check out firmpulse’s custom Batwing below, and then a couple shots of the original after that! I purposely shot it in non-pure-white style, so that the matte and texture of his final product shows through the best it can. I also did several different lighting setups to show it off in different ways. Hopefully the quality I can see here in person shows through to you guys via the pics.

You can contact firmpulse on the Toyark forums here, or email him at firmpulse at protonmail dott com.