[themadbubbler]

Underwhelming. To put it bluntly, these look half-a$$ed. McFarlane toys needs to stop being arrogant, and making lines in scales that don't work with any other major toy lines. Besides that, though, the sculpts just don't look great. The modern Batman and Batgirl look the best, I'd say (though I'm not familiar with the current comics, so I can't vouch for accuracy).

The animated figures just look off- they just look kind of rough, the head on Batman looks terrible, the unpainted black balls at John Stewart's shoulder joints break up the green on his costume in a visually jarring way. Harley looks like she's stoned and/or about to fall asleep. Nightwing's arms are freakishly short. The plastic capes are too pre-posed, and will limit realistic display options. The articulation is ample, but most of it has not been well-integrated in to the sculpts, and just looks bad. As has been mentioned, there is a lot of "diaper crotch" going on. We have already gotten much better versions of some of these figures by one, or even two, other companies already. The build-a-not-to-scale-tiny-Batmobile idea is a terrible idea, as opposed to an actual Build-A-Figure- no one is going to care. Since it's McFarlane, the plastic is going to be so-so quality, and not the most durable.

McFarlane should have tried to do something to really "Wow" collectors out of the gate, to get them hooked on their new line - pony up the money to make a Jack Nicholson Joker figure, etc.. It's also a big missed opportunity- they have all of these figures from various sources; it would be great to have a line all in the same scale that gave truly accurate representations of characters based on specific art from various eras- Give us Silver Age versions of all of the original Justice League members; give us figures of Darkseid, Mister Miracle and Big Barda that look EXACTLY like Jack Kirby's art; DC Direct has done different lines like that, but the scales didn't always go together well, and differing articulation styles, etc., didn't make them all display well together. Instead, we get a mix of figures thar are largely Batmans and Supermans, all based on relatively modern source material, much of it very modern; and none of them really capturing the look of the art they're based on perfectly. I feel like Mattel had made some great improvements in their 6-inch DC figures in the past couple of years (Improving the look and functionality of the articulation, most notably; including things like multiple sets of interchangeable hands, etc..). I would much rather have seen Mattel keep the license. Honestly, at $9.99 each, the Spin Master 4" figures seem more inspired, creative, and fun. I'm hoping Spin Master branches the 4" line out to the whole DC Universe, and gives us a fun, Super Powers-ish line. This McFarlane stuff is meh.