Note of interest: I wrote this review for the Mafex Dawn of Justice Batman over a year ago. It has since been replaced by my Mezco DoJ Batman as my go-to Bat-Fleck. However, I still think it’s a great figure. The downside, I took these pictures over a year ago as well. I may not be a good photographer now, but I was way worse back then. Carry on.
Unlike a lot of the free world, and apparently different religious leaders across the globe, I did not hate Batman v. Superman – Dawn of Justice. I enjoyed it in the theater and I enjoyed the extended, “ultimate” edition even more (here’s the Superman review).
Still have you on board?
Good. I’m not saying it wasn’t without its flaws. There were quite a few. However, right now this is 12 year old me speaking, and he’s been waiting 30 plus years to see two of his favorite heroes on the big screen together.
We could have an entire different thing on the movie, about Zack Snyder as a director (or, if you read enough movie reviews, as a person), and about how close he followed (or didn’t follow) the source material. We could, but we won’t. At least not right now.
We’re taking a look at the new Mafex Dawn of Justice Batman from the aforementioned movie, so let’s start with the basics. The box.
What’s in the Mafex Dawn of Justice Batman box?
We find a fairly standard see-through plastic window on the front, with the figure and his boat-load of accessories in the forefront. I can’t be certain, because I can’t read Japanese, but I think he actually comes with a Bat-Butt-Wiping-Hand. Don’t quote me on that. I won’t know for certain until I have him in that all too vulnerable position.
In all seriousness, he has a set of trigger hands, face punching hands, a set of neutral hands, about 3 sets of bat-a-rang hands (including one that looks like Obi Wan’s force push “peace” sign) and a set of toast grabbing hands. At least that’s how I’m going to use them. He only has one set of feet, but that’s ok, because every foot on Batman is a crotch kicking foot. As is standard with Mafex figures, he comes with his own acrylic figure stand.
The package itself could have a mathematical equation on it that shows us how to divide by zero. I wouldn’t know. What I DO know is I use the box to show to friends how worldly I am, because, hey, do they have anything with Japanese writing on it? Nope.
He comes with a bat-a-rang, his grappling gun, a smoke canister and the canister launcher he uses during his two major fights (see? Look at me, avoiding spoilers). He only has one head, with one expression. That’s ok, because his expression is that of “grim” and really, that’s all I expect from my Batman. The Mafex Batman’s expression looks like he’s 7 seconds away from sending you a throat-punch-agram, special delivery courtesy of his Affleck fueled biceps.
Speaking of his face, the sculpt and his costume are not too far off for a figure of this scale. They really have come so far with the action figure sculpting that it makes the beef stew headed Han Solo I had as a kid look like… well… I don’t know what’s worse than beef stew when it comes to a face. Beefier stew?
You get my point.
Prior to this purchase a year ago, I only had one Mafex figure and that was Darth Vader. If you own this figure, you may already be familiar with the cape. It’s the same deal on Batman. A tiny wire runs all through the edges of the cape, allowing (some) posing options. The wires aren’t strong enough to do a “blowing in a strong wind” look but you could most likely pull off “blowing in a slight wind.”
We’ve covered packaging (exotic!), accessories (many!), face (grim!), and cape (blowy!). That leaves us with articulation.
How is the articulation on the Mafex Dawn of Justice Batman?
The head has a large range of motion both up and down, and side to side. It also has head pivot. We have a torso crunch (with detail and paint apps all through the arc of the torso crunch) and no waist swivel. Double jointed elbows (so when Robin dies, he can put his grim head in his hands and let out one solitary tear before swearing to stop The Joker forever. Again), wrist is very smooth, hip swivel/top thigh movement, double jointed knees, feet do a decent job going up and down and yes, for those who want to know, it does have ankle pivot.
The area I am least impressed with are the shoulders. As you can see in the pictures, that’s as far as they go up without flipping the shoulders around.
They do kind of dislodge a little bit like their Figuarts contemporaries and slide down, but you really don’t get any more range out of them. As a matter of fact, I popped my figure’s right arm off trying to get it higher about 3 minutes out of the box. Snapped back in, so it’s all good. Not once in my 43 years have I ever seen Batman put both arms straight out to his sides, parallel with the floor, and begin spinning at criminals, shrieking “I’m not hitting you, if you get in the way of my spinning fists, it’s not my fault!” However, the shoulder thing also stops him from pulling his arm back to pull off a decent “You’re about to get punched” pose.
Speaking of Figuarts, he scales nicely with my Figuarts Ant-Man. It’s just insane the amount of detail they can get on a six inch figure as opposed to when I was a kid with my 1:18 figures.
All in all, I am really happy with the Mafex Dawn of Justice Batman and I’m glad I picked him up for my display case. I don’t own the Multiverse version (as I knew I had this preordered already, so I just had to be patient, which if you knew me, you’d know what a challenge that was), I seen him a-plenty in stores and there is simply no contest. I’d buy the Multiverse figure for my nine year old without question. It looks ok for that age group. However, you simply cannot compare something mass produced and sold at every Walgreens, TRU, Target, Wal-Mart, etc to an import such as the Mafex Batman.
Should you get the Mafex Dawn of Justice Batman?
My final analysis, unless you are specifically trying to get all of the Multiverse or Mezco line from a completionist point of view (and I’m ok with that), I don’t think you can go wrong picking up the Mafex Dawn of Justice Batman. It’s a great looking figure with plenty of extra parts and pieces and he feels solid in your hands.
He is still available here:
Be warned though, this figure has been bootlegged. I heard it’s a decent knockoff. Regardless, if you see a price that’s “too good to be true” and it’s from China, it’s probably a knockoff (KO). If you’re ok with that, have at it. I am not saying either way, but wanted you to be aware it has been bootlegged.
What were your opinions of him? Did you pick him up? The Mafex Knightmare Batman made me doubly happy I picked this figure up as I got some extra pieces for him with that one, so it was a win for this nerd. Tell me your thoughts below!
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