For many longtime fans Superman was our gateway character into comic books. Eventually he would take a backseat to grittier, darker and less faithful, honest, good-natured and optimistic. Says a lot about the cynical nature of most comic fans, doesn’t it? That was why the Death of Superman rocked comic fandom so hard. We never expected to lose Superman (even temporarily) so it was a shock when Doomsday killed him.

As a grand farewell to its DC Classics/DC Signature Series 6″ line, Mattel decided to make good on the tease of releasing Doomsday Unleashed. For its issues DC Classics was the deepest and varied take on the DC Universe in the format so Doomsday being the final release felt appropriate.

I’d gotten my Doomsday Signature Series from Matty.com for awhile now and what with the grey guy’s appearance in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, I figured this was as good a time as any and see if this was a fitting swan song for one of my favorite lines.

Packaging: If I were basing a figure strictly on packaging, this would be an all-time classic figure. Mattel didn’t necessarily mail in the DC Signature Series on the packaging front with some nice painted portraits and a solid bio so I wasn’t expecting a San Diego Comic Con exclusive style treatment here.

For starters, the figure is packed in a white box with the iconic bleeding Superman logo. Next is a wraparound slip cover featuring artwork from Death of Superman co-writer/co-artist Dan Jurgens. Involving one of the creators of the signature comic book storyline involving the character was a nice touch and one I’d like to see repeated more often.

Once you remove the wraparound slip, it’s on to the inner packaging, which features Doomsday posed triumphantly holding up Superman’s tattered cape. I’m not a big MOC collector, but this was definitely an exceptional package setup that had me questioning my regular stance. Once you open it, there’s a nifty little insert of Doomsday’s destruction.

Likeness: On his own, this is Doomsday leaping right off the comic pages on his path of destruction en route to Metropolis. All of his jagged bone protrusions are faithfully rendered in great detail with varying cracks, chips and pock marks throughout. Mattel used a soft enough plastic that it conveys that bone appearance but is flexible enough that it won’t accidentally get snapped off if you’re playing/posing too rough.

The most impressive work on the figure is the headsculpt, which is tremendously done right down to the eyes peering through the boney eye covers. This is a very expressive looking figure and as usual for work done by the Four Horsemen, it’s top notch.

The only area where it looks more like a plastic accessory than part of the body is the shoulder/back piece. The 4H didn’t have a lot of reuse opportunities with the Phase 1 Doomsday figure so the attention to all the various parts like the biker shorts with metal cuffs and coiled belt.

I got the short straw with my figure as it has a long glue stream from the shoulders down to the chest. It’s not one of those only noticeable in pictures kind of quality control errors that had sadly become far too common for the dying days of DCU on Matty.com. My biggest issue with the likeness has more to do with the next category.

Scale: Someone along the creative process designed Doomsday couldn’t be intimidating if he was only slightly bigger than Superman so he got blasted with a mega-enlarging ray. On one hand, I get it. Bigger looks more impressive, but Doomsday is so much larger than the standard DCU 6″ figure he might as well be from another line. You can fudge this a bit by hunching him over yet Doomsday will tower over every other figure. And on that end, this figure misses the mark.

 

Paint: There’s not a whole heck of a lot of obvious paint applications for Doomsday, but Mattel added a blue was to the bone fragments and a grey wash to the ponytail. Those are appreciated touches since the rest of the figure has such a minimal paint job. I did appreciate that Doomsday’s green shorts and boots matched the green of the containment suit version.

Articulation: DC Classics always had one of the better articulation schemes and even with the more restricted Build-A-Figure molds, you could get a fair amount of poses out of the figure. Since Doomsday is more of the hulking powerhouse he doesn’t need as many dynamic pose options. There wasn’t a lot of obvious poses I couldn’t accomplish with the figure making for a lot of fun to fiddle around with my other DCU figures.

Doomsday has:

• neck
• ball jointed shoulders
• bicep
• elbows
• wrist
• abdomen
• waist
• hips
• thigh
• knees
• shin
• ankle

I’d like the elbows and knees to have more clearance to allow for deeper punches and squats. The knees would be especially helpful considering Doomsday is so top heavy. The head/neck articulation is only partially limited due to the ponytail, which means you really have to have Doomsday hunched to an extreme to be able to look at an opponent.

Accessories: This was a category I wasn’t expecting much of anything since Doomsday is a simple character that doesn’t need any accessories, but Mattel surprised me. Doomsday comes with a tattered Superman cape that I’m sure will make for a useful display piece for folks who like to set up dioramas.

Worth it? If you were one of those folks who missed out on him when Matty.com first released him, Doomsday is going to obliterate your wallet clocking in around $100. Keep in mind this is based on a BAF body, which in Mattel’s pricing scheme required collectors to spend close to that price anyway. Given the extra details and the exclusive nature, it’s still not a terrible price.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Doomsday is a great cap to a beloved line of figures even with the scale issues. It helps that it’s a heck of a fun figure.

Where to get it? Matty Collector.com has long since sold out of Doomsday, so you’re going to have to track him down on the secondary market, but he isn’t too outrageous. With BvS giving him a larger spotlight, if you’re interested, you might want to grab him sooner instead of later: DC Universe Classics Doomsday 6 inch Signature Collection