My Favorite Martian

A lot of people are waiting to see who makes a comeback in the DC universe this year, and next to Batman, my biggest hope is that the Martian Manhunter will return. I love the character. Somewhat because of his classic "alien lost on earth" origin, but mostly because he's just so weird looking.

Two of the Martian Manhunter figures that I've picked up recently are the Justice League International version from DC Direct, and the smaller DC Universe Infinite Heroes version by Mattel.

DC Direct has been pretty prolific in the past few years when it comes to Justice League figures, and given my fondness for the JLI, I'm more than happy with their Justice League International line. Martian Manhunter is a great figure that mostly captures the look and feel of the character from those books. Sure, there are things that I could nit-pick about, like the somewhat inaccurate costume (as seen in the JLI series anyway), or that he's a bit beefier than he needs to be, but this is such a solidly made and well sculpted figure, that I'm willing to let it all slide.

And considering that they gave him an Oreo cookie, DC Direct gets so many points for humor, that I'd be willing to overlook a lot of problems. Luckily there just aren't any that actually matter, and I'm calling this my very favorite Martian Manhunter figure... for now.



On the other end of the blue and green spectrum is the considerably smaller, but much more articulated 3-3/4-inch Martian Manhunter by Mattel.



I want to preface my criticism of this figure by saying that I really love most of what Mattel has put out when it comes to DC characters, cartoons, and comic books. The various incarnations of the Justice League lines have been wonderful, their Batman movie toys are brilliant, and the DC Universe 6-inch line is entirely responsible for reseeding my interest in DC comics as a whole. With that said, I've also tried my hardest to give their 3-3/4-inch DC Universe line a fair chance to grow and evolve, but after opening and fiddling around with the Martian Manhunter figure, I'm pretty sure that Mattel is simply never going to get it right.



Past DC Universe Infinite Heroes figures have suffered from either being too simplistic, with oddly limited detail and articulation, or they were just plain ugly.

The brilliant style and fantastic engineering that the Three Horseman have brought to the 6-inch line, is entirely absent from this smaller scale line. And what confuses me the most, is that I can't think of another DC related Mattel line that takes the subject matter for granted as much as this one. Even the Hot Wheels Batman vehicles (and Hotwheels has definitely been known to "phone it in" from time to time) tend to be a little more concerned with build quality and play value than the DC Universe Infinite Heroes figures.

So, what's the deal Mattel? Why is your little Martian Manhunter figure so painfully mediocre?



Here's the deal: Mattel's 3-3/4-inch version of this character looks good carded, and that's largely why I decided to give it a try, but once you've opened it up, you'll realize that something is wrong.

When it comes to build quality, I'm actually not all that picky. For the most part I tend to look for joints that don't fall apart, or a toy that your average six-year-old could abuse for a bit, without eventually owning just a pile of tiny fragments. In the case of Mattel's Martian Manhunter, what I've found are some weirdly designed hip joints, and some nicely articulated shoulders (arms in general) that are sadly limited by the cape. Martian Manhunter is a character on par with Superman as far as strength and abilities are concerned, but this toy is lacking in the kind of well rounded play value that a Superman toy would (or should) have.

Ultimately, I guess that I'm mostly bothered by the cape. The collar is huge, and it hides his head. The cape limits what you can do with the arms, though when I try to bend the shoulders, lifting the arms up, I see tiny stress cracks forming at the armpits.

I really want to like this line, and all problems aside, I still like this Martian Manhunter figure... just a little. Mattel needs to fine tune their approach to doing 3-3/4-inch figures some more. Part of me wishes that they'd simply rip-off Hasbro's Star Wars line when it comes to articulation and build quality, but another part of me knows that if they genuinely wanted to make better small scale figures, then they would have done it a while ago.