Like a Page of Perez: New Teen Titans Series 2

Life throws up challenges all the time: your car gets stolen, your neighbour's dog eats your favourite bed of pansies, a cyclone wipes out your house, or maybe your wife asks you to skip your Friday afternoon trip to the comic shop because she's sick and the kids are being more than a handful, and it happens to be the week that the New Teen Titans Series II figures are coming out.

What do you do? Well, you do what any loving and responsible toy collecting husband would do, and race your ass past the comic shop as quickly as you can and hide the toys in your briefcase so you don't upset your beloved when she's not feeling well. Duh.

Anyhoo, risking, life, limb and an extended lack of nookie was totally worth it. This is a great set of figures. especially if you use your retcon powers to pretend that the maskless Deathstroke isn't a part of the wave. I'll get to him in a moment - happy stuff first.

The great: I'm not the most obsessive when it comes to scale, but even I would have been throwing my toys around the room if my Terra towered over my Starfire, a likely possibility considering DCD's track record. Considering this. they have to be given props for nailing the scale here - these figures are a perfect fit with the original series.

I'm also in love with the packaging. Great use of the original Perez art, the logo from the comics, and the little vignettes at the bottom are excellent. I display my figures loose, but have to admit I ended up going back and buying an extra Terra so I could keep one MIB and enjoy the packaging.

....and that's all I can put here. Everything else is either just that little bit or more than a little bit flawed.....

The could have been great: I'm not one for looking gift horses in the mouth, even if I've waited almost a decade for them, Terra and Jericho are already treasured items in my collection, and while some arm articulation for Terra and an interchangeable head with non-possessed eyes for Jericho would have made them 10/10s for me, I'm gonna deal with it. The extra head is a bigger deal for me, and in fact I was pretty sure that I had seen solicits of Jericho with such a paint job. The ad for the wave in this month's Toyfare confirmed my memory - a shame they didn't stick with it.

Props for the inclusion of Terra's rock - a good link to the props / stands that came with the original series Starfire and Raven, and definitely something DCD should be doing more often.

The far from great: What's this with the blue? Last week it was Harley Quinn's face, this week it's Dick Grayson's hair. Holy blue streaks, Batman! Actually the streaking is a theme - if you look closely at Terra and Jericho's coiffures, they're splotchy as well, just not as noticeable because they're blondies. There have been alot of Henny Pennies bemoaning Dick's blue locks. For me, it's just DCD reminding us they're DCD. Gotta love 'em.

Oh and there's that Deathstroke I'm retconning out of the wave. Meh. I'll hang for the DCUC version thanks.

The rage: I got a genuine set of chills when I put the gang together and had the complete team, in-scale team, and then it hit me: the chills aren't just because its my beloved Teen Titans in-scale, it's because this is pretty much a first, which is pretty crappy for all these years of DCD collecting. Pretty much every other team has gaping holes in the roster or has been cobbled together from different series with a clash of styles and scales. Is it any wonder that so many people are over the moon about the promise of an in-scale DCU from DCUC? I think not.

That makes me sound ungrateful, and I'm not. Whatever moved DCD to give us this much awaited and much needed wave of three pretty great figures, I'm thankful, really.

Oh, and while I'm being nice, DCD, give us a better Kid Flash and Wonder Girl. Starfire and Cyborg could use an update as well if you're feeling generous.

Just, no more streaky hair, okay?