I’m a big fan of parallel universes, alternate timelines, and alternate futures. I like the comics and the figures they spawn. I just look at the Metal stuff through that lens. The rest is case by case. Endless Winter Wonder Woman is striking. Didn’t care for Hazmat Batman.
(long-ish post coming, blame it on my autism, sorry for the length)
I got into action figure collecting with the first wave of McFarlane stuff in 2020. I had some figures here and there from Mattel/DC Direct/DC Collectibles, but I had only purchased them to add to my collection of all things Superman & Batman. Just things to throw on a shelf, but I didn't buy them specifically because they were toys.
When that first wave came out, I found the entire thing at Walmart with exception to the
Arrow Oliver Queen figure. I think I spent $250, $300 that day perhaps. I remembered McFarlane from the late 90's, I had collected a bunch of his Movie Monsters line, and later his SportsPicks NFL and some of the Twisted Fairy Tales. So when I saw a wave of DC stuff from McFarlane on the shelf, obviously I was shocked. I wasn't a toy collector, but I was (and still am) a comic reader, so seeing The Batman Who Laughs on a peg at Walmart seriously took me by surprise. At that time, I was very uneducated on what modern toys were like or what was considered good or bad articulation. McFarlane's stuff articulated better than the New 52 Superman that was on my shelf, and they all articulated better than the Mattel Dark Knight Returns figures I had, so when I alter came online and saw people complaining about the lack of double elbows or the weird torso joints, I was oblivious to all of that stuff
In many ways, I was a much happier consumer with that wave than I am today, because now I am educated on what's good and bad, where things lack or excel, etc. Ignorance was truly bliss.
Anyway, trying to get to a point here, what really excited me was the wording on the packaging. It didn't say "Superman", "Batman", etc...it said "Superman - Action Comics 1000", "Batman - Detective Comics 1000", "Nightwing - Better Than Batman", etc. Every figure had the name of a comic story arc attached to it! Immediately, my mind starting racing on the possibilities because that meant that we would probably continue to get very specific story-based figures, and perhaps even based on the artwork itself. If I wanted Superman fighting Doomsday, it was always a generic Superman but now my mind went to the idea that maybe I'd actually get a Jurgens Superman to fight that Doomsday, or a McGuinness Superman, or a Curt Swan. We didn't necessarily always get artist-specific versions, but sometimes we did, and at the very least the figures were based on their appearances in a story.
The Batman Who Laughs, of course, opened the door to the Dark Knights. These guys ended up being a bit oversaturated everywhere, Batman Who Laughs most of all, but that does not take away from how fucking cool those figures were, and still are. Even the Drowned, who peg warmed around here for an entire year, is an outstanding achievement in figure design.
I know a lot of people were mad about the scale (didn't bother me at all, obviously), and they were frustrated with many teams not being completed, but for me it was all about getting figures that jumped straight out of some of my favorite stories. Not all of my favorites were adapted, of course, but a ton of them were. I adore Metal and Death Metal for their outlandish ridiculousness, and the figures match them 100%. The Batman Who Laughs was overdone in the comics, but I got 3 incredibly cool toys of him from this line. Warworld Superman is eternally battling the forces of Masterverse Skeletor alongside He-Man on one of my shelves, and even though he's not the classic design I have a friggin STARRO hanging from a wire in the corner, threatening to drop his spores and take control of any who dare walk beneath him.
I got to relive my Kenner childhood a bit with McFarlane's Batmobiles. I don't have room for them, but that's a good problem to have.
Anyway, sorry for rambling. The line wasn't perfect...it's missing women, full teams, and there are far too many trigger finger hands and not nearly enough powers/effects pieces. But I love it all the same. I've been thrilled with nearly every release, and maybe I'm just incredibly easy to please but I've even found positives in the poor ones. I recently noticed on our channel that of all of the McF figures I've reviewed, the digital Two Face was probably the one I was least impressed with...and he still got a review of "he's not bad, grab him if you see him just don't go out of your way" lol Maybe I'm easy to please, or maybe I'm just not overly critical of this hobby. But man, I was pretty bummed when the news came that Mattel was getting it back. After I started collecting McF, I picked up a few Mattel releases from their later waves. Unimpressed would be an understatement.
My long-winded take on McFarlane DC. I wish he would have had a straight-up "Elseworld" label, just to increase the odds of getting figures from the "Super Seven!" Elseworlds story from the mid 90's that ran across 2 annuals. It had some cool outfits for the heroes fighting to take back Earth after it was conquered by an alien armada that I would have liked to get. But if that's my only complaint, then it was a hell of a run. Apologies again for length.
