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The top is the SS and bottom BvS.
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Top BvS and bottom SS
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So I think you can clearly see, the suit for SS is a complete disaster. The BvS is a nice shaded grey and has great printed texture design on it. You can clearly see there's a lot of little black protrusions sticking out of the suit making the pattern, it is crisp and sharp with thick lines cutting through it adding to the pattern. This is extremely close to his BvS suit as can be seen below
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The SS is a blurred, badly printed piece of crap compared. It looks like they have cheaped out and made indentations to give the effect of the black bumped patterns. The suit pattern looks like it has bled out from the lines it was supposed to fill in, and the lines cutting through look wide and thick. However they printed this is awful in comparison, looks like a gluey paint has been splurged in compared to the BvS version looking like an actual textured suit.
I've not made any mods for either figure, and you can see on both the cowl does not touch the symbol, those have their heads pushed down also - there's no trickery, no mods, the BvS is capable to have it this way. The SS is great with the cowl, I think the matte black is a huge improvement. However I do hate how thick the cape that is glued to the cowl is, it sticks out like a sore thumb. The top part of the cape is better than the BvS version however, it looks thicker and hangs better on the shoulder because of the wire. But again, Hot Toys dropped the ball on the cape, it doesn't look the same material, doesn't have the same properties and isn't film accurate.
You can see also that from the film stills, Ben's suit isn't really puffed out, it's more because of his actual body being bulky that gives him the imposing look. So yes, SS does look better proportioned and the added padding does help, however Hot Toys got it wrong. Instead of padding the muscle definition and applying a different paint app which really highlights it, they should have just bulked up the inner body, NOT the muscle definition. But this will be swings and round abouts of what people prefer, I personally think they got it completely wrong, and anyone using the argument of looking bigger, I think really makes it look less better in terms of representation, to the point of verging on a balloon muscle man. Anyone that has it should see inside the suit that the extra padding is within the suit of the muscles.
SS does look taller, and his body articulation more or less is better along with his proportions, even if they proportioned the wrong way (muscle vs body bulk beneath the suit). I do feel like it has been overly exaggerated, though. Yes you can notice the extra padding etc. but overall it's not a huge difference, it seems to be more optical with the paint app combined with the extra padding, but yes, it is there, he is bigger, but not exceptionally so.
You can't really see from these photos but the most obvious case in which SS is bigger is in the arms. It is actually a big difference, it's not the width of his arms from the side that is bigger, they seemed to enlarge his bicep width, and there seems to be something going on with his shoulders, either way, the shoulder articulation and the arms in SS does just feel better.
It is still a great figure - had I not already had two BvS Batmen, then none of the issues I've highlighted would be problematic for me. He is better in some regards and not so in others. I think some members on here have exaggerated A LOT about the slight differences, you can call him the definitive Batman until you're blue in the face, in the end he has some improvements and some bad differences.
For me... the suit is just awful, that's the biggest problem, and the main reason I would say he's not the definitive representation of Ben's Batman (along with that God awful comic cape). The suit texture and colour just kills it completely for me. The proportions are better and looks better, however, I feel it's more to do with the paint app making the slight changes look bigger and better; the actual size difference is subtle at worst and very slightly improved at best. But again, for me it's not so much an improvement, the muscle definition should not have been padded (because this is what has happened, there's no enlargement behind the suit, the enlargement is the padding for the muscles IN the suit).
The tabs of the cowl have never been an issue for me covering the bat symbol - I've not really taken any photos in regards to articulation but they're pretty similar, doesn't really do anything new, but like I said he can make an easier ab crunch, possibly to more degrees, and his arms just feel and look like they articulate better in the SS than the BvS. His head also sits flusher to his body when putting it on which is a nice and welcomed improvement.
The cape I've already said enough about. I feel strongly that people who love this cape is because they like the comics capes. If you wanted a cape like in the film this is not the one for you.
But in the end, either one is fine to get, they're both incredible figures. Personally, I think the suit is a let down in the SS, and Hot Toys missed a trick in understanding that the extra bulk should have come from his body not the padding for the muscles. Either way, neither are the definitive Batman because the best one would be a combination of the both with even more changes. The definitive Batman will be the 1/4 BvS if Hot Toys ever decide to make it.
Hopefully this has helped some to a degree. I've tried my best not to be biased - both have their pros and cons that make me wish I could merge the best of both together.
I just wanted to clear the air of earlier pages of people declaring this to be the best and putting down the BvS, whether that's due to not having a BvS, unable to get one and only being able to secure one of the limited numbers of the SS Batman, I don't know. But genuinely, there's not enough improvement in the SS to declare it the best or better version. For all the slight adjustments that they made that could be seen as better, they also took steps backwards in other areas, which for me puts them on roughly equal footing.
/end my dissertation
