Review – DC Comics Super Hero Collection Azrael
We recently looked at the DC SuperHeroes Azrael action figure (review here), and for the most part it’s a cool figure and I’m happy to have one in my collection. And Azrael looks even better this morning, since I picked up this Azrael mini-statue yesterday and we all know that statues and action figures look better in a group than on their own. But not all is perfect in the world, because this statue required superglue before it was ready for display.
Magazine
The figure came packaged with a 16-page magazine that gives us a detailed look at Azrael, his life and adventures, his allies and opponents, and the cults of his tales. It’s an attractive work, but it’s not exhaustive and certainly not a replacement for reading the various comics including Sword of Azrael (reading post here). I doubt that there’s anyone who buys these figure sets for the magazine, but it makes a nice extra and it really is well produced. The paper quality is especially better than I had hoped for.
A Metal Statue
At about 4-inches tall, this small Azrael statue is almost entirely metal; the cape and base appears to be the only plastic in the figure. In general it’s an attractive statue but it’s not nearly as detailed a sculpt or paintjob as you would expect in a statue. I guess that’s why it only cost me $12. The photo below gives you a fairly decent look at Azrael’s face; click on the image to enlarge it and I think you’ll see why it’s just an okay piece and not truly remarkable.
The paint is a bit blotchy and patchy in spots, with some areas showing the base color beneath. It’s better than the quality we see in a lot of pre-painted plastic gaming miniatures, but only a little better. The dark red wash over the red body helps bring out the sculpted muscles — especially in the legs — but the paint is pretty much just passable and not anything I’d get overly excited about.
A Broken Cape
When I pulled Azrael from his package the cape was broken in two parts. A chunk was missing from the back and the right shoulder piece — and attached streaming parts of the cape — was snapped off and rattling loose in the package. I managed to superglue everything back together, but as you can see in the photo below it’s not exactly a seamless job. Still, once the figure’s on the shelf and looked at from the front you can’t even tell it was broken so it wasn’t a catastrophic problem. Annoying, though, and it makes me wonder just how many of the statues in this series are this fragile.
Will I Buy Any Others in This Series?
Maybe. I’ve looked at these before (and the Marvel series), but Azrael here was my first purchase of a piece in this series of pre-painted metal statues and the first impression is mixed. The magazine is an okay extra, but the broken statue combined with the just okay sculpt and paint make me think that if I do go after more of these I’ll want to be very careful before dropping the cash. I could see myself grabbing some specific characters — a cool Iron Man or two, a MODOK if they ever make one, maybe a Batman or two — but I’ll never be a hardcore collector of this series.
It’s not bad, it’s just that there are better statues out there that I could buy.
Closing Thoughts
I think I may have been expecting too much from this DC Comics Super Hero Collection Azrael. I’ve been seeing these magazine/figure sets for a few years now, and I just expected that they were fantastic because there are so many of them in the comic store. What I got was an okay metal/plastic statue and not an incredible work of art. And while that’s not a bad thing, it does make me wonder why I see some of these figures selling for $25+. That’s quite a bit of money for an adequate collectible. Especially when much better statues can be had for roughly twice that amount.
Philip Reed is now starting to think he should search the web and see if anyone has ever produced a truly remarkable Azrael statue or bust.