One of the Dark Knight Detective's greatest foes, Ra's Al Ghul, The Demon's Head, has been revealed to be alive and well in the 31st Century of the Legion of Super-Heroes!
Disguising himself as the President of the United Planets, Al Ghul disbanded the Legion and replaced them with his Presidential Oversight Watch. Ultimately once discovered by M'Onel, Ra's al Ghul freely announced his plan to draw Earth's moon closer to Earth to supposedly accelerate the evolutionary abilities of humanity via Hypertaxis. Ra's plan almost came to fruition as he single-handedly defeats most of the Legion in hand-to-hand combat. Luckily, M'Onel and Triad were able to best the Demon's Head.
Sculpt:
This sculpt is a reuse from the DC Universe Classics line that has been used multiple times throughout the line. It's a fairly standard male suit body type for the line, that adds an original head sculpt and a sculpted cape. As with most Mattel DC figures, the cape is not removable.
He also comes with an original Arabian-styled sword accessory that is very nicely sculpted.
Articulation:
I count 25 points of articulation for Ra's Al Ghul in total. His neck can move in a 360 rotation, but it really cannot tilt up or down, or even side-to-side. Arms can move up and down, as well as rotate in a circular fashion. There are bicep cuts that swivel and single joints at the elbow. The hands can rotate and move slightly up and down as well. He has an ab-crunch that should move 30/70, but the sculpted suit jacket pretty much prevents use of this particular articulation point. He has a waist swivel and the legs move up and back. He can do the splits, but the suit jacket gets in the way just a tad. There are swivels above the knee. Single-knee joints and ankle tilts complete the standard articulation. However, the suit pants cuffs interfere with complete motion on the ankle tilts, so there is really only very minor forward and backward motion.
Paint:
Paint Application is mid-range. The dull white of the shirt and maroon of the tie are well done and clean. The Cape has a lighter shade of green than the suit body, but is clean and consistent. The gold on the chain that secures the cape to Al Ghul's neck is okay, but there is some paint slop in certain areas. YMMV. The skin tone on the face and eyes alongside the black hair is fine. The right eyebrow, on the other hand, is a bit unfinished. His facial hair only looks to have been painted from the front end, with the rear of his facial hair having the same flesh tone as his face. The dress shoes have a glossy black.
Sculpt:
This sculpt is a reuse from the DC Universe Classics line that has been used multiple times throughout the line. It's a fairly standard male suit body type for the line, that adds an original head sculpt and a sculpted cape. As with most Mattel DC figures, the cape is not removable.
He also comes with an original Arabian-styled sword accessory that is very nicely sculpted.
Articulation:
I count 25 points of articulation for Ra's Al Ghul in total. His neck can move in a 360 rotation, but it really cannot tilt up or down, or even side-to-side. Arms can move up and down, as well as rotate in a circular fashion. There are bicep cuts that swivel and single joints at the elbow. The hands can rotate and move slightly up and down as well. He has an ab-crunch that should move 30/70, but the sculpted suit jacket pretty much prevents use of this particular articulation point. He has a waist swivel and the legs move up and back. He can do the splits, but the suit jacket gets in the way just a tad. There are swivels above the knee. Single-knee joints and ankle tilts complete the standard articulation. However, the suit pants cuffs interfere with complete motion on the ankle tilts, so there is really only very minor forward and backward motion.
Paint Application is mid-range. The dull white of the shirt and maroon of the tie are well done and clean. The Cape has a lighter shade of green than the suit body, but is clean and consistent. The gold on the chain that secures the cape to Al Ghul's neck is okay, but there is some paint slop in certain areas. YMMV. The skin tone on the face and eyes alongside the black hair is fine. The right eyebrow, on the other hand, is a bit unfinished. His facial hair only looks to have been painted from the front end, with the rear of his facial hair having the same flesh tone as his face. The dress shoes have a glossy black.
Saving the part that annoys me most for last, the upper thighs are clearly a slightly different dark green from the rest of the figure. It may be difficult to capture in photos, but this is one of those slightly off things that drives me crazy. They either used different plastic for the upper thighs, or the color was just a tad different for the rest of the body. I might be more forgiving if it was just a difference between the upper body and lower body paint, but the discrepency occurs in the middle of a joint cut within the figure's legs. Really obvious and really poor for something you had to subscribe to site unseen.
Overall:
Did I mention that the DC Signature Collection aka Club Infinite Earths line came after the DC Universe Classics line? This was a line that became the life-support for the now canceled retail DC Universe Classics line. The idea was, that folks would 'subscribe' to a year's worth of figures, and they would receive a new one every month. I liked the concept and the ability to possibly obtain figures that might not receive a wide retail release, but the website where you would obtain them was awful. Matty Collector dot com was one of the most notorious for its poor design and broken code that made submitting orders among other frantic collectors smashing their F5 buttons to refresh the order web-pages extremely problematic. Luckily, I got into these figures pretty late in the game and had less time on Matty Collector than most.
Suffice it to say, this Ra's Al Ghul figure was a pain in the you-know-what to obtain and it was a figure that a lot of corners were cut on so that the budget for the year's figures could go to others in the line. Not a lot of the budgeted money went into this figure. And it shows. Basically a reuse of an existing figure, with a new head, cape and sword and so-so paint apps. A popular character choice with poor execution. Not Mattel's best showing for a Collector aimed line.
Overall:
Did I mention that the DC Signature Collection aka Club Infinite Earths line came after the DC Universe Classics line? This was a line that became the life-support for the now canceled retail DC Universe Classics line. The idea was, that folks would 'subscribe' to a year's worth of figures, and they would receive a new one every month. I liked the concept and the ability to possibly obtain figures that might not receive a wide retail release, but the website where you would obtain them was awful. Matty Collector dot com was one of the most notorious for its poor design and broken code that made submitting orders among other frantic collectors smashing their F5 buttons to refresh the order web-pages extremely problematic. Luckily, I got into these figures pretty late in the game and had less time on Matty Collector than most.
Suffice it to say, this Ra's Al Ghul figure was a pain in the you-know-what to obtain and it was a figure that a lot of corners were cut on so that the budget for the year's figures could go to others in the line. Not a lot of the budgeted money went into this figure. And it shows. Basically a reuse of an existing figure, with a new head, cape and sword and so-so paint apps. A popular character choice with poor execution. Not Mattel's best showing for a Collector aimed line.
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