SPF: [Part 1] The Big Repaint Wave
Does a wave of 7 repainted figures -- the largest wave yet -- mean Super Powers is going strong...or almost done?
[Holy grumpleupagus Batman, the original draft of this - sent out to subscribers - had a real cranky ol’ Kent vibe to it. This “repaint” of the post has been softened to hopefully get you to read it again]
Superman (Reborn)
The Flash (Opposites Attract)
Reverse Flash (Wal-Mart/TRU Exclusive)
Thomas Wayne Batman
Batman (Black Suit)
Robin (Tim Drake)
Nightwing (Knightfall)
— Super Powers Wave 5 — 2023, DC Direct/McFarlane Toys
It’s genuinely hard to be excited about this wave as a whole. If one’s a fan of the Super Powers line (and one is), and one’s a fan of DC Comics (and one is), then one really wants more unique figures and not variants of the same figures one already has. Don’t get me wrong, any day a new card featuring the exploding logo and blue-red-yellow stripe appears is a good day. Just some good days are better than others.
What is intriguing is that this wave is the largest wave of McFarlane’s Super Powers by far. Not just these 7 figures (as promoted in the cross-sell on the back) but the wave also includes the Peacemaker/Judomaster/Vigilante 3-pack (to be covered in part 2) and the Whirly-Bat vehicle. The first three waves were 3 figures a piece, with wave four jumping to 5 figures. That’s 14 figures over 4 waves, and wave 5 dumping another 10 figures on top of that.
The original Super Powers line wound up with 33 figures over 3 years. We’re at 24 with McFarlane in around 18 months. That should be more exciting than it is.
Of those 24 figures, 1/2 of them are figures or variations of figures we received in the original line. 1/4 of them are repaints of figures we’ve already gotten within this line.
This wave inflates those stats, and, in general, reinforces my warm-tummy/grumbly-tummy attitude towards this line.
Let’s look at the figs, and pick these feelings apart….
Superman (Reborn) is a repaint of the wave 1 Superman, with a new belt…
and a new cape.
It is very much an improved figure in a couple of ways. The fabric cape, as opposed to whatever that anti-fabric material wave 1 cape were made out of, is so much better (all those wrinkles in wave 1 Supes are a result of him sitting in his Supermobile).
I thought the head sculpts were different at first, but upon closer inspection, I now think the head sculpts are the same…it’s just that the new head is painted much, much better (even with those two lil’ globbies on new Supes’ temple). The wave 1 Superman’s blue dot eyes just wasn’t the mood, and the skin colour aligns better between the face and the neck on the Reborn Superman.
Neither of these can beat the vintage version though. Just sayin’.
Of all the figures, the Flash repaint is easily the least necessary of any of them.
The darker flash costume with the whited-out eyes is clearly a Wally West Flash, compared to the brighter reds and yellows, with open eyes of Barry Allen’s costume. But that damn chin-strap is a New 52 Barry thing and not a Wally thing.
Using the same head sculpt and trying to use paint to invoke a different character is just the reality of toy economics, but it’s also cheap and lazy. Reuse the body, make a new head. Even still I bought it, so Todd got my money. I’m happy to have a Wally, because I’m much more a Wally guy than a Barry one, but I just wish the effort was put into making him more comics accurate.
Reverse Flash is, aptly, the same sculpt just in reverse colour scheme. No complaints. Makes sense, and a new head sculpt, which, um, yay!
These Flash figures are all a bit smaller that most of the other McFarlane Super Powers figures, both in bulk and height, but they tower over vintage Super Powers Flash. The vintage figure was always too small anyway. Minus the super power action, these are almost an improvement…. almost.
Well, it’s not a McFarlane DC series without a lot of Batman stuff. I get it, Batman is DC’s biggest property, one that can be iterated over and over and people connect with it. I like Batman, but endless variations of the character just.don’t.excite me.
I never bothered with Flashpoint and I’ve only read a few comics with Thomas Wayne Batman in the decade since. The character doesn’t excite me in any way. The design is just another Batman, only with thigh holsters for guns. He’s a real *whatever* character for me, and as a figure, in any other line, I’d say “no thank you”. He is a *new* figure for the line, so he’s in the collection, just … meh
New belt, new thighs, different cape, new head, so he’s not just a straight repaint/reissue of Hush Batman, at least.
Black Suit Batman is taking the fantastic mould of Classic Detective Batman from wave 4 and making him look like he’s Michael Keaton Batman, or, at least, the Toy Biz version of Batman from 1989.
I like the sizing of the Black Suit and Classic Detective Batman, as they’re more in scale with vintage (still bigger, but barely noticeable), so I think the biggest disappointment about reuse of the first wave bucks is the new Superman and Thomas Wayne are once again quite oversized comparatively.
I didn’t need Black Suit Batman, but honestly, I’m surprisingly not mad about it. Given the nostalgia trend of the series, Black Suit Batman makes a lot of sense.
Another Tim Drake Robin shouldn’t be so disappointing. But I didn’t love the wave 4 version, and this has made zero improvements.
I actually prefer the new darker colouring, but I really didn’t like Tim’s face in the first figure, and I still don’t like him in the second outing. There was a lot of complaining about Tim when wave 4 released with a yellow cape, but giving him a black cape isn’t any improvement. Tim has a two-tone cape (black on the outside, yellow on the inside) which is an extra level of dedication and commitment to accuracy that the house that Todd built just doesn’t seem to have.
I thought I came across a two-tone cape in my collection recently, but I can’t remember for the life of me where.
There was one big problem with wave 3’s Nightwing, and that’s he was too big. Using the same buck as first wave Superman and Batman (and John Stewart), it’s just too big a body for the acrobatic, athletic adult Dick Grayson. With McFarlane going back for a second dip, I’m very disappointed they didn’t heed the complaint and put him on Flash’s body, which is much more what Dick’s size should be. (Why am I so obsessed with Dick’s size?)
That aside, I strangely don’t mind this repaint. I like modern Nightwing’s costume the best, because it’s the best Nightwing costume, but it’s another era of Nightwing that is pretty well executed with just a paint job.
I also wish he had clips for his escrima sticks on his back.
Card Comparison
Some of my big gripes of the waves have to do with the cards. But not all of them. Let’s quickly compare…
No probem here. Nice, relevant art on both.
The art is different on all these, which is great. That new flash looks like Wally West flash art. But Reverse Flash is just the classic Jose Luis Garcia Lopez recoloured and changing the Flash symbol, you know, rather than finding actual Reverse Flash art. *Grumble*
The Dark Suit Batman recolouring of the Jose Luis Garcia Lopez art does bother me a little but I’m ready to give it a pass because Thomas Wayne Batman just drives me utterly mad. That is just another recoloured JLGL Batman key art, and is not at all Thomas Wayne Batman. The symbol on his chest is NOT the right logo even. No gun holsters on his thighs. Just McFarlane Toys being cheap and/or lazy in their card art (much like they are in their art for their DC Multiverse line). It’s crap like that which really makes me think Todd doesn’t care about putting out a quality product, but instead just selling product without consideration to the fandom.
The new Robin is on the left, wave 4 Robin on the right. This made me angry the first time around … that’s DICK GRAYSON Robin, not Tim Drake, and so someone had to go in and recolour and add a belt and other little tweaks to the JLGL key art, rather than, using art from any of the hundreds of 90’s Robin comics in this costume. Why? WHY!?
Shoot me now. I would rather be dealing with a sucking chest wound than have to loo at that card art on this Nightwing (Knightfall) figure.
So this wave of figures made me despair a little bit. Basically a double-sized wave of repaints. Was this just a cash grab from the Super Powers obsessives (mostly yes), but is it maybe funding some pretty incredible things coming down the Super Powers pipeline (most probably).
The rumours have it that we’re getting both Brainiac’s Skull Ship and Blue Beetle’s Bug Ship which both get HUGE fist pump “YES!”es from me. I literally cannot wait.
Alongside another large batch of repaints and multiversal variants of Batman (Manga Batman, Gold Batman and Zur-En-Arhh) and Superman (Gold Variant, Justice Lord Supes, and a 40th Anniversary Superman which I imagine will be like Classic Detective Batman, a more traditional sculpted and painted Super Powers Superman) we’re getting Kilowog (!), Blue Beetle (!), Brainiac (First Appearance), Sinestro and Hal Jordan. Oh, also a Gold variant Flash.
I’m not hot on these “Gold” variants. They’re a part of the Super Powers lore, but Todd’s going to exploit them for sure. I’m going to see if I can pass them by or if the tug of completeness overwhelms me.
1) I really want to sew a yellow lining into Tim's cape.
2) I don't remember, did you get two of those Nightwings? It's not my fav look (modern costume, hands down), but that's not too bad... it'll also stick out in my collection a lot though.