Here’s a little sneak peek at the upcoming JLU Doom Patrol!
Read on…!
Coming at some point to Mattycollector.com are the original hard luck heroes, the Doom Patrol!
This is a particularly exciting set of action figures as it represents the first time the Doom Patrol has been rendered in full action figure glory! Up until now the closest we got were the Heroclix miniatures and the prototypes of the canceled Bandai Teen Titans figures.
Well, the Doom Patrol is finally here, so let’s take a look at each in turn:
Robot Man
Cliff Steele is the standout in this line. The figure is excellent by any measure. He has an impressive amount of newly tooled parts. His head, torso and arms are all new, and his legs appear to be the same as the ones used on Atom Smasher and the other larger male JLU figures.
Paint ops are quite clean on Robot Man, and he benefits greatly from having proper sculpted details, so the paint ops have sculpted lines to match up to. The orange is particularly nice, as it’s rich and metallic.
One of the nicest elements of the sculpt is how broad and massive Robot Man looks. Rather than adding height, which would bring on scale issues, he’s got a deeper broader chest and wider shoulders making him look massive without being overly huge.
Negative Man
Negative Man uses the slim male JLU body, and has a new head and arms. The arms are quite nice, with a very expressive right hand and sculpted bandages. The face is actually a nice sculpt but suffers from inconsistent paint ops.
I was able to review both a loose and carded sample, and the loose figure had very sloppy lines on the face, and even the carded one had noticeable smudges and imperfections. The hands were also somewhat sloppy, but not nearly as bad as the heads. Ironic, as the sculpted areas seem to help the paint ops on Robotman, while the incised bandages seem to hurt the paint on Negative Man.
The tampo printed paint ops on the chest fare much better. They are crisp and clean.
All in all, Negative Man is nicely designed figure, but is probably the weakest of the set, due to sloppy paint. My hope is that the final releases will have cleaner paint ops.
Elasti-Girl
Rita here has only one new part, the headsculpt. But I think she’s MUCH nicer looking than most of the JLU females to date, and miles better than the adult Supergirl that was leaked on the ‘net recently.
In terms of paint ops, Elasti-Girl fares pretty well. The paint ops are for the most part clean and crisp. There’s some paint rub and wear on the loose sample, but that seems to be due to handling more than production defects. The only area that suffers a bit is the "D" logo on the belt. Unlike on Negative Man where the belt sculpt is very sublte, the "D" on her belt has to be printed over a much more prominent sculpt, which breaks it up and makes it a lot less effective. It is better aligned on the carded sample however.
Mento
Sadly, a loose sample of Mento was not available for review, but the carded sample looks fantastic. Paint ops are very clean, with no noticeable slop other than some slight haloing around the belt.
He’s got a new head sculpt but that’s all he really needs and the figure is prety much exactly what it needs to be: a very effective new character executed using only a new head.
Some may bemoan Mento’s inclusion in place of The Cheif, but I think it was clearly a budget issue. The Cheif would not only need a lot more tooling but a wheelchair and would present packaging problems, as he’d be unlikely to fit on the standard blister card. Also, the inclusion of Mento in the "Teen Titans Go!" animated series makes his inclusion in this set understandable.
In my opinion, the Doom Patrol is overall one of the best sets of JLU figures in quite some time. The fact that I am a big Doom Patrol fan aside, these are somewhat obscure yet popular charcters that are well overdue for action figures.
Here’s hoping that like with the Gentleman Ghost, the orginal hard luck heroes start appearing in even more action figure lines (I’m looking at YOU Infinite Heroes and DC Universe Classics!!!)
’Til Next Time!
SpyMagician
Great review of great figures. I’m a little disappointed that the paint apps on Negative Man were a little sloppy, but otherwise I’m really looking forward to these.
I still can’t believe that we’re getting a JLU Doom Patrol! Maybe if time and sales permit, we’ll get The Chief, Beast Boy, and some Doom Patrol villains.
Now, can someone tell me if this set is a definite go? Have Matty’s JLU sets been sellling well enough so far as to warrant the Doom Patrol’s release? What about a fifth JLU Matty set?
Very cool! Thanks for the sneak peek!
nice review . can not wait to get a hold of my own set. and still can not belive the chief was left out but can now see why mento replaced the chief though one hopes if the doom patrol follows gentleman ghosts lead that if the doom patrol show up in the other lines the chief will follow like maybe a dcuclassic line of just doom patrol
I never let myself get into this series, not least because it’s so difficult for the poor things to maintain a standing pose.
Still, for a DC nut, there’s no better line of toys than this.
Excellent review! I’m not a huge Doom Patrol fan, but these figures are spot on in resembling their Silver Age counterparts while retaining the classic Timmneverse look. Hope they do well enough to be carried over into the other 2 DC lines!
This set looks AWESOME!!!! Can’t wait to add them to my JLU collection. Now bring on a wave of JSA! GA Flash, GA Green Lantern, Dr. Midnight & Liberty Belle
At the very least, we now need a Negative Man ShadowForm (re: Shadow Thief, a body [or just lightning "legs" piece!] which could then also be used for T-bolt!) and Beast Boy/Changeling, which would then open the door for more TITANS…!
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Who else could fill out a second MC “four pack” of Doom Patrol? standing Chief (Harvey/Question body, no chair)? Madame Rouge? Mallah/Brain (Grodd redux/new accy)? Gen. Immortus would require all new body that maybe only Sivana could reuse.
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Or just the “new” team: Tempest, Celsius, Val Vostok/Negative Woman…silver Cliff/A-SS Grayson? …um….Ambush Bug?
What? both first appeared in DCCP #52! check the new Ambush Bug Showcase!
52!
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The inclusion of Mento makes sense, as he did marry Rita.
and shouldn’t Rita be smiling?
Amazing and finally! Look much better than the Ban Dai ones that didn’t make it to production a few years back. I’m continually amazed at the mileage they get out of these figures with minor retooling and paint aps.
Regrets, I have a few…1. I really, really wish they would have made it into an episode of JLU, that would have been really cool. 2. Too bad the 12” line is dead (is it?)because Negative would look awesome in that scale 3. These are the first DP figures ever?!? Shame on you DC.
Mento is tha BOMB!