So, the diorama I bought separately [for a very good price, still some decent folk out there!] has arrived and honestly I am every bit as excited and pleased with it as I hoped.
The diorama steals the show in my cabinet now, in fact I fell in love with it so hard I moved it to my prime/favourite cabinet in my living room to show off and made it into a "classic Batman adaptations" cabinet.
The cabinet is in a corner between two doorways so you can easily see it from multiple angles and I decided to make use of that for this display.
I have my DX08 Jack Joker hanging from the devil-gargoyle in his parade outfit facing the front, so the detailed cathedral side of the dioramas are clearly visible and at the side I have my Returns Batman posed, and honestly IMO it all just
works.
The diorama details and painting is spectacular, easily the best diorama or base in my collection - which is saying something given they are a favourite part of the hobby for me.
The paintwork really sells the old and rotten bricks with mold and mildew growing on them, the crumbling and broken stones look great and they have sculpted a really convincing lean in the stonework into the diorama, giving an appearance it can crumble or topple at any moment [in fact I panicked when I first noticed thinking my Joker figure WAS making it topple and darted forward to stop it only to realize the base was secure and flat to the shelf and it was all just an optical illusion.
]
The gargoyle is awesome, has such a presence and they have sculpted him [it?] brilliantly with lots of details and the paintwork shows off these details really well.
Very happy I picked this up, this was definitely the part of this figure's package I was most excited for and I am really grateful to have this without also paying for a lackluster figure whose issues would really bother me.
In my mind it seems like Hot Toys put an enormous amount of effort into this diorama, its easily their best, which is why its so odd they executed the figure itself so poorly.
The Returns figure looks DAMN good with this set, honestly so good I feel no need to now pick up any 89 suit/figure, I even find myself wondering If I even need the Returns 2.0 because I love this set-up so much.
The Returns suit just fits so well, which may seem odd given its from the wrong movie, but the sharpness of the cowl + the smoothness and more minimalist design of the suit just seems to contrast really well with the cragged and broken and rough and chaotic nature of the decayed architecture of the cathedral's diorama.
Anyway - surprisingly long gushing session over, here are some poorly taken pictures.