Up until recently. And that's why I'm not as forgiving with Flash and Joker not having weapons racks.
In terms of bang for your buck, these are about on par with Hasbro's ActionVerse stuff. And ActionVerse feels like Hasbro FINALLY cracking the kids centric code. That stuff feels solid, has the basic articulation and paint necessities down, and everyone comes with a weapons rack and a load out of character specific weapons.
You're right, Hasbro's been bad at this until recently. Back when SpinMaster had the DC kids licence, they were dunking on Hasbro. They were spitting out four inch figures with pretty good paint, articulation, and weapons load outs for $8 while Hasbro's four inch equivalents had half the articulation, less paint, and less weaponry for $10.
But with Hasbro's recent ActionVerse stuff and this new Mattel DC line? It seems like they're pretty close. In terms of size and articulation Mattel has the edge, but it's much closer, and the one thing Hasbro has is everyone gets a weapons layout and rack.
If Hasbro, who can be notoriously stingy with budgets can manage that, Mattel surely can.
To be clear, I think this Mattel line is a home run. They've clearly taken things back to basics since they last had the DC licence and figured things out. These are a great value, and a hell of a lot of fun. But like... come on. Give Flash and Joker weapons racks. It would add to the play value. I'd sacrifice the Jokerized heads if that's what it took.
Well I'm gonna defend collectors here.
These new Mattel figures scale great with Marvel Legends. And I'll even say they feel as solid as Marvel Legends.
Where they're not quite the same is accessory load out and articulation.
Marvel Legends, like a lot of collector oriented lines, focus on alternate heads (usually a masked and unmasked option) and hands with non-gimmicked accessories. With the full range of articulation.
I'm sure Mattel's collector line will feature that stuff come 2027, and frankly? If the quality from the kids line tracks to it? It's exciting to think of what they may have in store.
Regardless though? This line doesn't have that stuff. Articulation is good... for a kids line. Not so much for a collector line. Accessories are fun! For a kids line, but collectors may feel like they're not getting much (the handgun I gave Joker is actually from a McFarlane Joker, I don't really do much with his spring loaded missile launcher).
None of these shortcomings bother me because I know they're not shortcomings. This is a kids line, was always meant to be a kids line, and it succeeds wildly at that.
Still, it is worth hammering home, especially with so many people who will eagerly see how these compare to Marvel Legends, or even McFarlane figures these will share shelf space with for six months. It's worth pointing out that these aren't really 1:1 comparisons.
And that's fine. I notice pendulum swings.
Back in 2012 or thereabouts toy companies began to segregate their lines into "Collector" and "Kids" lines. Obviously collectors gravitated towards collector-oriented lines, and maybe scoffed at kids lines.
But then the pendulum in the collector oriented community swung back, and it became intellectually fashionable to "champion" kids brands because "they're fun," "these are supposed to be toys," and so on and so on.
Frankly? I don't really see the point in any of that. It's your money, buy and enjoy what you want. There's nothing wrong with enjoying the level of detail, articulation, accessory load outs, and lack of obtrusive gimmicks collector lines tend to feature. And there's nothing wrong with enjoying a fun kids line being fun. These are not a binary, they aren't sides in a debate.
But DC figures are in a real transition period where those lines are a bit blurred due to licensing and manufacturer overlap, and it's worth keeping everyone aware of what's what so there's no marketplace confusion.
This Mattel kids line is fantastic for what it is, and it would suck if it got a negative reputation if the collector marketplace wrote it off as not being Marvel Legends, when it was never intended to be.
