For me the biggest rub are these:
body: SS currently uses ONE body for all their "buffer" male superheroes (for the most part). Thor, Batman, Magneto, Luke Cage, Superman. Hot Toys might use a base then alter it to fit the character with foam padding or a new chest, new shoulders new biceps etc.
They do swap the arms from figure to figure (Flash, Batman and Luke all appear to have different arms/shoulders. I think padding might not look as good under the skintight outfits as it does under, for example, HT's sculpted rubber batsuit. I don't really disagree with you, but the torso they're using aligns pretty neatly with the look I want from my Justice League.
Paint Apps: regardless on if it's a comic character or a real-life person, the paint on the figure emulating a real person should be realistic. The Hot Toys Arkham and Resident Evil figures are a perfect example. Videogame characters that still have realistic paint and skin textures. You don't see Hot Toys slapping cheaper paint b/c they aren't real people.
Do you feel the paint job on the recent releases is lacking? The GK Batman faceplate are pretty bad, but on a new figure like this Batman, I thought the paintwork was really good (eyebrows on the exclusive head maybe being the exception).
I do think there's a big difference in the paint between, say, the Arkham City Batman and the Arkham Knight Batman, because you're painting should reflect your source (the AK model is drastically more photo realistic and the paint reflects that). I definitely have a different expectation from a comic Batman than I do from an MMS figure. The figure is inherently more stylized.
Accessories: Again, if you don't want to compare a movie masterpiece figure (like JL Bats) that's fine. But all the Arkham figures come with a good a mount of accessories be it weapons, switch-out mouth/head parts but this SS Bats only comes with TWO batarangs. Batman always uses more weapons than that. They could've done some really cool stuff like some more detective type accessories to let it stand out from their previous releases.
For sure, the lack of accessories bites. On that I completely agree.
If you REALLY want to do apples to apples just use the original Batman vs this one. Both Blue and Gotham Knight Batman figures came with multiple head sculpts, multiple mouth pieces, multiple hands, different batarangs, a grapple gun and a unique body to that figure. And you know what? It cost LESS than this figure that only has ONE headsculpt, 6 hands and two batarangs.
Sure, I get how it doesn't seem like a great value. But in that same comparison, the new figure is an improvement in every other area (my opinion, of course). In terms of what I'm looking for in my collection, if I'm paying more to get the higher quality suit, body, headsculpt, and paintwork that I got from this figure, compared to what i got with the GK version, I guess I'm okay with that. But that's me.
And that's where the price vs value comes into play with me. I'm comparing what you GET for what you're paying for in comparison to other figures with WAY more complex outfits, individual bodies and more accessories. It's not about a movie character vs a comic character for me.
Yeah, I won't argue with your feeling that the figure is not a good value. I was mainly responding to the sentiment that this is a Mego quality piece, which is laughable.
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