Darkseid Is - DCUC wave 12

I received my DCUC 12 set today from Enchanted Toy Chest, currently my online choice for DCUC ordering.

This wave evokes curious feelings of indifference and excitement. There's not a figure in this wave that I was clamoring for before they were announced, and even after seeing pictures and now having them, there's not one that means anything in particular to me. So I'm almost completely indifferent about the character selection. Darkseid is probably my favorite character of the set, but I was not one that felt we needed a new Darkseid, though I'm okay with the larger size, from the pictures I've seen I haven't been impressed with this new one, except for the nifty Killing Glove.

The execution though, is great. There's been a whole lot of whining about Mary Marvel's face on the Fwoosh, but it really does look better in person. She's definitely not the prettiest girl in this line (Artemis is), but she's not ugly either. Her white costume looks good, though I'm still thinking of painting the lightning bolt black, cause I think that looks nifty.

My set had Glow in the Dark Spectre, which is both kinda cool and kinda not. I'm pretty much a completist of the single carded figures, so I was planning on getting this figure anyway, but I'm looking forward more to the regular version, as the shading looks good on that one, helps bring out the sculpt. The glow feature looks good though. I've always liked that the inner tray often has something character related molded in, and the skulls in Spectre's tray are the best so far.

The only thing I know about Dr Mid-Nite is what I just read in his bio on the back of the card. Not a bad looking figure though, and it's always nice when they retool the torso pieces for a character. He's going to have a noticeable case of bent-leg though, from the way his right knee is posed. And his owl has more than one paint app.

Copperhead is, with Desaad, the character I'm most familiar with, and that's from a couple of appearances in Justice League the animated series I've seen. I think his arms and torso are reuses of Aquamans, but they did something to make the scales less defined in the sculpt, and it works really well - he FEELS like new parts. Also, he has that slick-looking yet dry feel that snakes have, if not quite so pronounced. Also he has a crazy look on his face, and the way it's peeking out of a giant snake mouth, you could imagine what you would look like if a snake was swallowing you whole. That's kinda what he looks like. I think he's my favorite of the bunch.

Speaking of Desaad, he looks exactly like he should, facially. He looks twisted and evil, with a little bit of a slack-jawed yokel mixed in. He's a very good representation of the hateful little sniveling worm that he is.

From what I'm seeing online, Iron seems to be the fan favorite of the wave, and he is really well done. He's large, has neat accessories, but most importantly, he has probably the most interesting, unique, and well-executed paint job of the entire line (and it's predecessor, DCSH). He has a dark charcoal base paint, then a dark metallic blue brushed over top of it, leaving lots of small little spots for the dark base to show through. It gives the deco a lot of depth, and since he's all the same color everywhere, he needs that depth to look interesting. And look interesting he does. I don't think it should be this neat and appealing, but for some reason, it just is. He looks cool. Also he has a ball and chain as one of his accessories, that he can use to crush your head.

Lastly of the single figures is Eclipso, who is the God's Spirit of Wrath, given a human host, who has often clashed with the Spectre, who is the Avenging Angel. That's about all I know about either character. I'm not at all familiar with this host, Dr Bruce Gordon, who looks like a cross between an Elf (from the Lord of the Rings) and the Joker. The face sculpt is great, I like the wacky smile, it makes him look evil, despite the funky coloring.

And finally, Darkseid. I love Darkseid the character, he's cool, he's intimidating and scary, and he's an evil dictator, what's not to love? The figure on the other hand... The larger size is cool, I like Darkseid being large. However, I think the DCSH version looks better. I would have preferred a different costume, rather than exactly the same as the first version. The only consolation there is that I don't have the first version, I have the second darker repaint, so this doesn't look exactly like a larger version of a figure I already have. From the pictures I've seen online, I was not liking the face. The cracks in it are painted to dark and obscure the face too much. Some have said it's not as dark in person. The cracks on mine are black, not gray. The saving feature is that the face on mine has a darker shading than I've noticed in pictures, so it's not as jarring a contrast. And the face does actually look really good. I'm a lot more pleased with him than I expected. The head is harder to push into the neck hole than I thought, and it didn't click, after I pushed on it a couple of times it just stayed in. The Killing Glove looks nifty, lotsa cool details, and I don't know why anyone would want to use the extra hand he came with.

The Soles of his Boots! I don't recall having seen this in pictures - he has Kirby-tech boot soles, kinda like Mr Miracles flying dishes. Neat! They look like rocket boots. Of course, having detailing on his boot soles means the copyright info is stamped on his buttocks. Thankfully his skirt covers it. So, in conlusion, he's not my least favorite C&C as I was anticipating, that dishonor remains with Gorilla Grodd and Atom Smasher, who are just pretty boring to me. But I'm also apparently the only person in the world that's not in love with monkeys.

All in all, the wave is really well done, and there's nothing to complain about really. It's just not terribly special to me because none of the characters are, though it's not as unspecial as I thought before opening them, as Darkseid really is much better than I anticipated. In re-reading what I wrote above, I'm not longer sure if I like the DCSH version more than this one or not.

I like the new packaging, it looks good, and I really like having the various characters on the front of the card. I'm not one to think that because someone's on the card they'll be released anytime soon, but I do hope that when Zatanna comes out, she's in the cleavagey corset as shown. I like the new layout on the back of the card, just looks cleaner to me.

The pins: Oh, the pins. The pins are absolutely worthless. The art is too small to look very good, and they feel every bit as cheap as they are (presumably). I think Mattel probably threw these in to make us feel better about the price increase, but for all the garbage pins I'm going to acquire this year, I would have rathered they didn't bother. I can take the price increase without the worthless consolation prize. I'm in love with this line enough to pay $16 each without needing the gimmick. The C&C is all the gimmick I need to ensure I buy them all.

Alright, we've got Steppenwolfs, Mantises, Parademons, Kalibak, Darkseid again. When the hell are we getting Granny Goodness?