[En Sabah Nerd]

Picked up my Batgirl and Donnie set yesterday.
This is a pretty damn nice Batgirl figure, even on its own separated from the rest of the line I think it works well. My only issue is that her torso joint gives her upper body this kind of floating look from certain angles. At first I thought it was maybe just mine but every review I've seen has it like that. It does afford her a good amount of motion though so it's just a trade-off of movement over aesthetic. Other than that note I think the overall build and range of articulation is good and I really like that her belt/hip-pouch piece is separate from the figure so it doesn't really hinder much movement. Paint-wise her colors look great and the detailing is clean but there are some minor bits of smudging on her legs where the black meets the purple. Her accessories are mostly well done given the small size of most of them and then she has a pretty good amount too, without storage I would definitely lose a few of these.

Donatello is physically a well done figure but his articulation falls a little short mainly in the arms where his elbows can only bend to 90 degrees. He still has enough movement to get into a variety of poses so overall I'm not upset. Again the paint and sculpt are simple and clean to match the animation. Donnie also comes with a good array of accessories but there are some gripes here. His T-phone is neat on its own but he can't hold it or even store it on his belt and after opening it once mine is now pretty loose. His staff is nice and simple but his gripping hands are so tight that it took a bit of effort to squeeze the staff in and only afterwards did I discover it comes apart on one end where the wraps meet the wood, that information should have been somewhere on the box. Speaking of information on the box, it claims the canister of mutagen he comes with can glow in the dark but it absolutely doesn't. Heck it doesn't even react to a black light, it's still a nice piece to have but I'm a smidge sad that they lied to me. I should point out that Donatello came with no hands that can hold the canister, I swapped his left for one of Bat-Mikey's that could hold it and the greens aren't exactly the same but they match well enough. Overall I'm glad I picked the set up but I'm unlikely to pursue the others.


While at Gamestop I also picked up the Storm Collectibles Cole. The Cole Train has always been one of my favorite parts of the Gears series and Storm delivered a worthy figure. He's definitely in the 1/10 scale, standing near 8" tall as he should since Cole's a big guy. He's got a good bulk to him without sacrificing any serious articulation and his accessories help offer a variety of display options. While he does include an alternate head to represent his appearance in the first 2 games I find myself liking his older portrait from 4 and 5 a little better for display, maybe it's the slightly grayed hair with the more detailed face. Either way you display him they both came out well and really capture his look. I also like that they opted to give him a Hammerburst instead of the Lancer for his rifle, Kait and Marcus come with Lancers (Marcus has 2) so I appreciate some weapon variety. Speaking of weapons the Hammerburst and Snub came out great and his knife is fine but my Gnasher was notably warped in package, I was able to straighten it with a hairdryer easily enough but it is worth noting. I also haven't really gotten him to get a hold of the Gnasher all that well with the hands given. His coolest accessory though is his Hanover Cougars Thrashball helmet which he can wear on either head, it's made of a softer plastic but I actually think this assists in the ability to put it on and remove it easily without potentially scraping against either head. Overall it's definitely a solid "WHOOO!" out of five I just wish it wasn't so heavy on the wallet.