Batman Legacy Arkham City Nightwing action figure review

With DC Universe 6" figures on the way out, shocking as it is, there's still time to snag some new offerings on the shelf. One is the Legacy series with Nightwing and Harly Quinn in the newest assortment, both in their Arkham City designs from the video game. Nightwing as we know is a talented hand-to-hand fighter, Dick Grayson aka Robin the boy wonder all grown up. He comes with a stand, mini poster, and two batons.

Nightwing's sculpt is downright awesome. Each diamond section of kevlar weave is raised and he has these neat sunken in rivets. The raised armor sections are done very well and don't hinder his articulation at the shoulders. Even his gloves are well detailed. The headsculpt unfortunately doesn't match the source material and while nice, has way too long of a face/jaw to be the Nightwing we see in the game.

The paint apps on Nightwing really surprised me. His chest and arm armor is airbrushed blue against dark blue and looks incredible! We're talking statue-quality work on that. There's darker gray shading on his main suit, each rivet is done with zero slop, and his mask/eyes are very detailed. I'd have to say this is the best paint I've seen on any DC 6" figure all year. His boots are even a third shade of grey to the shading used.

Articulation is a step up from Arkham City Batman whom I covered in an earlier review. With the standard DCU style articulation here Nightwing has great range of motion in his shoulders and hips, a good tilt/turn neck, and ab-crunch. He's still a bit restricted in the knee and elbow range, not able to get a good 90 deg angle unless you stretch the plastic or carve a bit away behind the joint with an X-acto knife. But it's still way better than Batman. He can get into all the decent crimefighting poses you need.

Nightwing's accessories include two batons which we've seen before in his DC Universe version, stand with a sticker nameplate, and a mini-poster...which I immediately misplaced. You probably will too as I don't see too many people putting up tiny posters on their walls. I think all of the Legacy figures come with one, though I really miss the build-a-figure part for the $18 we're paying for these now. I suppose the price jump is due to the tie-in video game license but who knows.

So what's the verdict? This is a great figure and if you swap the headsculpt out with the earlier DC Universe Nightwing you'll pretty much have a dead-on version of the AC one. Our sponsor Big Bad Toy Store has both him and Harley online or you can try to hunt him down at Target where he appears to be hitting first. His body mold looks like it would be a great base for a custom superhero with the armored look and kevlar styled suit.

Batman Arkham City Batsuit figure Review

The line of 6" DC Universe figures is ever expanding and we now have figures from the video game Batman: Arkham Asylum and Arkham City. Toys R Us has an exclusive grey and blue Batman with the black mask that pays homage to the classic Batman design. This appears to be one of the modded costumes you can wear in the game as well. He doesn't come with any accessories, but his hands are fists so he wouldn't be able to hold them either.

Sculpting is pretty decent. There's a nice carbon-fiber texture all over his main body, the armored boots/gloves are nicely done, and the belt is pretty spiffy looking too. The face/cowl looks stern and the cape hangs well. The packaging does a nice job of displaying the figure and is part of the Batman legacy line that's out. No Build-a-figure pieces here unfortunately as it only has 3 or so figure in it per wave.

Now, articulation..this is where the figure disappoints. The range of motion is exactly what you see in the pictures. Because of the design neither his elbows, hips, or knees, can achieve a 90 deg angle. He has all the points of artic that a regular DCU has but they simply don't work. No ankle rockers and no decent movement forward/back means you can't really pose him walking that well either. You'll have to carve a lot of plastic out of the joints to fix this, if you want to go the customizing route.

Paint is a mixed bag. I'm not thrilled on how bright everything is but that's the classic look for you. Its applied neatly for the most part and there's a light wash over his body that brings out the suit detail along with his belt. The blue doesn't have any sort of wash which is a shame because there's a lot of cool armor detail that can be brought out here.

The verdict? Unless you have some customizing skill and want to carve the excess plastic from every joint (which I did, and it works) he's kinda a statue. The design is cool and there's a black and grey version which you may prefer. Our sponsors BBTS carries all the Batman legacy figures at great prices and Past Generation Toys has some of the Legacy as well.