I guess every line has to have a stinker…

Have to get it out of the way first: whoever it was at Mattel that came up with the idea of a clay-spattered Batman as a counterpart for Clayface in a DCUC Two-Pack needs to be taken out and shot, or at least made to wallow in pig slop for a long, long time. More on Poo-Powers Batman later.

Thanks to the magic of Mike from Mike’s Comics N’ Stuff, I managed to get the two new DCUC Two-Packs pretty quickly. These are a great way for Mattel to produce some new characters and also to get a chance to pick up some figures that passed some of us by in the DC Super Heroes era.

The only new character here is Silver Age Brainiac, but he’s quite an addition to the line and it’s taken way too long for him to appear in plastic. The less than great? He’s green in a Jolly Green Giant kind of green, not the lighter shade of green which is more comic correct. He’s also a bit more brawny than one might expect – perhaps a proper use for the Shrimpestro sculpt? His facial expression is a bit blank and could be a little more menacing for my tastes. The great? It’s Silver Age Brainiac for pete’s sake! He’s darn fun!

I was really looking forward to the non-mullet Superman included in the 2-pack to be “the”  Superman in my DCUC line-up, forgetting he had red “Super-Eye-Beams” eyes. Bleargh. More on wasting one half of the two pack when we get to Faeces-Force Batman.

Clayface is just great fun. He really does look like a lump of doggy doo, but it’s a great sculpt and very much reissuing in this form. His wobbly arms are a particularly nice touch, although I wonder how the quality of plastic will wear. Still, he’s great, great, wobbly poo fun.

And that, of course, brings us to Crap-Creature Batman and the silly wasting of figures by doing silly things like covering a Black & Grey Batman, which would have been a great addition to the line, with “clay”. Obviously part of the point of the two-packs is reissuing and recycling, but surely it could be done more creatively than this. All I can say is that I’m glad my kids aren’t fussy about a Supes with red eyes or a poo-splattered Bats, because otherwise they’d be in the charity bin. Worth it for Clayface and SA Brainiac? Kinda, but really, Mattel could be throwing us more of a bone with these.

Benefit of the doubt goes to Mattel for what a great line DCUC is over all, but if the next two pack has Mera with a seaweed-covered Aquaman, well….. that won’t be nearly as fun, because you can’t make poo alliterations with that.

There is an extended range of photos at Facebook, you can discuss this further at the AFB Forum, and don’t forget that you can enter the July AFB Comment of the Month Contest by commenting on this post.

Until next time!