Say “hello” to the DC Multiverse Robin King and say “goodbye” to your ever lessening ability to extend goodwill. More on that later.
I am almost positive I mentioned it before, but nearly 100% of my comic reading these days comes in the form of my DC Infinite and Marvel Plus apps on my iPad. Pre-pandemic (and hopefully starting again soon) I’d go into my local comic shop (LCS) and buy some trades or figures just to support them.
Long story short, I am, at a minimum, six months behind on floppies. It’s just the nature of the beast. In the digital age, I’ve just become ok with having things spoiled because I am no longer the “see it/get it first” guy. That’s a young man’s game. I am not young. I barely qualify as a “man.”
While I’m still making this short story long, where this word salad train finally derails is, I am just now reading my way through Death Metal, and thus, was only recently introduced to The Robin King.
Man, that was one heck of a sentence.
Because I am six months behind, you may see spoilers if you’re even further behind than I am. If I just described you, stop reading now, because if you’re lazier than I am, you should probably seek medical help. I am concerned for your safety.
When I saw the figure announced, I hadn’t read any of Death Metal yet, but I did read all of Dark Knights Metal, so I was familiar with The Robin Crows. I thought, “Kinda lame, so one of these Robins is smarter than the other Robins? This is absurd.”
After reading it to find out it was a young Bruce, it had my attention. I texted my friend Mark and said, “This Robin King kid is a terrifying little p**ck, isn’t he?” After he straight-up murdered the heroes on his planet, you start to think, “either he lives on a much dumber planet than Earth 0, or he’s way OP.”
I could see how a Kryptonite ring could put him at an advantage over Kal (but really, outside of Reeve’s Superman, no other film, TV, or drawn Superman becomes instantly powerless and crippled upon sight of Kryptonite, but yay, plot armor?), but he also has a couple of rings that allows him to beat up the entire Trinity? And not one of those is an emotional spectrum ring? OP.
That’s ok though because I like OP sometimes, and darn it, if the Robin King wasn’t the perfect combo of OP and cool. We all loved to hate Superboy Prime a few years ago for this very reason if I recall correctly.
As soon as I read the story, my excitement for the figure hit a fever pitch. As luck would have it, one lucky trip to Target saw me picking up that entire wave sans Diana.
I wasn’t really planning on reviewing this figure, but here we are. Buckle up.
What’s in the DC Multiverse Robin King box?
We get the DC Multiverse Robin King figure. He comes with the now-standard McFarlane collector card and stand.
The Multiverse Robin King also has two additional hands. This gives him a total of two opened hands, one fist, and one… trigger hand?
Ok then.
What doesn’t work with the DC Multiverse Robin King figure?
The first issue is the inclusion of a trigger hand in this, and almost every McFarlane Multiverse figure. There is nothing for him to shoot. He comes with no weapons. In the comic, his biggest weapon was his utility belt.
This means it’s essentially a waste of a hand. He can almost point at people. He can almost hold a knife. He can almost do a lot of things.
For instance, he can almost be a complete figure.
Folks, I think we need to draw a line in the sand and start shaming. I don’t know what else to do, other than not purchase domestic DC figures anymore.
I try not to write negative reviews. There are other guys who get the figures first, and some of those can get really mean. Personally, I feel like there is so much toxicity in both this hobby and on the Internet in general, that I hate to add to it. Unless I have something amusing (to me) to say about a crappy figure, I don’t bother. There are too many good figures that deserve our time.
You may have noticed this review isn’t like most of my other ones. Barely any pictures.
Know why? Because his stupid left elbow joint snapped on me while I was in the middle of the photoshoot. You see, if anything, I was going to feature this guy on a Thursday with all of the weathering I had done on him. That involved several washings of hot soapy water. Every time I heated those joints up, I worked them all gently.
If this was the only McFarlane figure this happened to me on, you’d never hear me mention it.
But it’s not. The only Robin Crow figure I have (same buck) snapped in the same place. I didn’t replace him because the arm, much like my DC Multiverse Robin King figure, is still quasi-attached, and I’m not that big of a Robin Crow fan.
My Joker Rebirth figure snapped at the ankle. I bought a new one.
My Injustice 2 Grodd fell off of a counter because he won’t stand up, and his leg snapped off in the fall. Sure, I’ll accept culpability… but do you know how many Legends or Black Series have fallen off of something and broke on me in the last decade? None. But… I bought another one.
I was so excited to come across the Injustice 2 Flash figure… not because I think it’s a particularly great figure, but because I’m a big Flash fan. I opened up the package as gently as I always do. I then pulled him out of the package.
Well, I pulled 80% of him out of the package.
You see, this happened. I didn’t wrestle him out of the package. No. I lifted him up (gently) and the leg never left the package.
I feel like this all violates some sort of unspoken, tacit agreement, between customer and company. At a minimum, we should be able to assume it WON’T arrive broken.
Here’s the thing, it’s not even “broken” as much as it’s just made wrong. There are no snapped/busted parts. It’s just that the engineering on the figure is such that the leg will not stay attached. No matter how many times I boil/pinch/invoke chaos magic.
Here we are… a line that’s barely a year old, with five broken figures. I broke zero legends last year. Or the year before that. or the year before that, with this same level of usage. It isn’t us, the consumer. For the record, I wrote their customer service about my Flash. No response. I suppose that’s better than what happened to someone else on a Facebook group.
McFarlane Toys told him to just glue it.
What other industry can get away with this kind of nonsense? Imagine buying a new car and a wheel just falls off on the way home. You contact the dealer and they say “Just glue it, brah.” You have surgery and your reattached limb falls off. “Just glue it, ma’am.”
The disdain they seem to have for their customers when it comes to their faulty designs is palatable.
I understand that they are releasing variant figures with different heads as opposed to just packaging the alt heads in the first figure. I get it, unlike Legends or Black Series, it looks like every character is a unique sculpt, so they have to make their money back somehow.
But forcing us to buy multiple copies of figures because of your poor designs?
C’mon, Todd. Staaaaahp.
You can’t put “24 points of articulation” on your package if only 20 of them can move without snapping off.
In short, I won’t purchase a second Robin King because I can’t keep rewarding them for not caring.
What works with the DC Multiverse Robin King figure?
Like most of the McFarlane DC Multiverse figures, the sculpt on this guy is fantastic. One of the reasons why I enjoy giving washes and stuff to this line is because the details are all there, and they are amazing. He’s a cool character and if you’re a fan of the series, he definitely belongs on the Death Metal shelf.
Should you purchase the DC Multiverse Robin King figure?
No.
I know you will because I would also. But I am telling you, the arms will break. If not now, eventually. We all need to collectively agree to nip this crap in the bud. Avoid this figure until McFarlane Toys gets the message that they cannot continue to toss hot trash at us and expect us to lap it up like the good nerds we are.
Can’t really see my silver dry brush work for some reason. That “some reason” being I’m a bad photographer. 
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