Superman Man of Steel Movie Masters Jor-El Action figure review

The new Superman reboot movie simply titled 'Man of Steel' is coming up and the toys are already hitting. Some of the kid-based ones possibly give away spoilers as to the enemies he fights and a possible movie plot. Here we're taking a look at the Movie Masters Jor-El from the collector based line, judging from the addition of  'Adult Collector' printed across the package. He's Superman's biological father that stayed on Krypton and is played by Russel Crowe in the movie.

Sculpting for Jor-El is startlingly detailed given we had a fairly lackluster Green Lantern Movie Masters offerings before this. The armor is an instant stand-out with all sorts of tencho-organic looking features and a textured under suit. You can make out the 'S' on his chest, the Superman family crest as it's explained, with strands of armor 'growing' around it. Russel Crowe's face is instantly recognizable and done with equally excellent detail that's just a step or two below NECA quality. There's also the addition of flexible hoses that run underneath Jor-El's arms to his back.

Paint application is cleanly applied with no slop anywhere. The armor is a
two-toned metallic that has been highlighted with a brass color and really makes the detail pop. The blue under suit has airbrushed shading as does Jor-El's flesh tones of his face and neck. The eyes, beard, and hair are carefully painted with the beard standing out having some nice shading. While there's not that many different shades of color here they work for the knight-armor style of design.

Jor-El's articulation is standard Mattel style except he's lacking an ab-crunch or tilt-ankles. Every joint has decent range of motion save for raising his arms straight up as the hoses restrict how far they can move. That means no flying poses for Jor-El here. Decent ball jointed neck movement and nearly 90-deg  hips mean you can get him into some interesting poses nonetheless. I would like to someday see tilt ankles return to mattel's offerings especially now that Hasbro has perfected them with their Marvel Legends line. His shoulderpads are permanently attached to his shoulder balls but really don't get in the way of articulation all that much but strike the collar before moving all the way up.

Accessories have always been the bane of Movie Masters figures either
giving us useless ones (Batman crime evidence/mini-masks) simply nothing (lack of any MM Green Lantern constructs) or impossibly hard to complete BAFs (TDKR Bat-Signal-good-luck-building-it parts). Here we only get a stand cast in a steel color with a yellow S painted upon it. The stand is textured but lacking any sculpt to the S which is simply painted on making it look sort of cheap. Jor-El stands just fine without it and the peg is slightly larger than the foot hole meaning you'll really need to twist it on.

So what's the verdict on Superman's Papa here? He's in interesting figure both in appearance and possible customizer fodder. I'm sure people have been wanting a Russel Crowe at some point and this is the first 6" version we've received. However the $16.99 and up price point is going to be a big turn off especially since there's no BAF part or decent accessory. Jor-El is scaled a little under 6" making him work with some figures but look shorter than most DCU/Marvel Legends. He does scale well next to the Batman and Green Lantern Movie Masters which were shorter than 6" to begin with so that may not be a deal-breaker for everyone. You can find the Man of Steel Movie Masters series at your normal mass-market retailers like Target, Walmart, and Toys R Us.