Hey, everybody! It’s DrunkWooky back again with another Action Figure Review! Today, I’m taking a look at the new Mezco One:12 Collective Batman (Sovereign Knight) Previews Exclusive Action Figure.
Mezco has been producing a trilogy of Batmen 1/12 scale figures that walk fans through his development in his career as a vigilante. First came Ascending Knight illustrating Batman’s first forays into the criminal underworld, then this figure, Sovereign Knight, when Batman’s skills and armaments had become fine-tuned. Next up, releasing in March 2020, will be Supreme Knight, the grizzled and battle-worn Bruce at the end of his career.
At each turn, as is par for the course for Mezco on many releases, Mezco did not exactly copy or replicate a Batman from a particular medium, but took tropes, themes, and ideas and meshed them together into a sort of collage representative of all Batmen across the multiverse through the arc of his career.
Mezco has released a few different color ways for this Sovereign Knight figure including an Onyx edition reminiscent of Tim Burton’s Batman. This blue and grey is more “Batman ’66” if you ask me. Adam West costuming with Christian Bale attitude underneath. If I had to choose a Batman from all the Mezco Batmen to be the one and only Mezco Batman (so far), this would be it.
Like all Mezco figures covered in cloth outfits, the Sovereign Knight is not achieving the most demanding of Ninja moves, but he has all the Biff, Bam, and Pow articulation necessary for a fun shelf presence. If you want a more articulated figure, head towards one of the MAFEX figures coming out next year and steer away from the soft goods here. Having said that, I love this figure and would recommend it to anybody wanting a quality, high end, fun, and infinitely re-poseable Batman!
Mezco One:12 Sovereign Knight Previews exclusive is available now for around $90 to $100 through Diamond Distributors to your local comic shop and at these fine retailers:
Packaging
The packaging is nothing new for longtime fans of Mezco One:12 Collective figures. There’s nothing to complain about on that front, though. The outer tin case is a bold, vibrant, and colorful presentation, keeping the inner trays snug and secure inside. I’m impressed with how they made grey come out as so bright, but still pastel. Inside, you have the upper tray holding Batman, ten (yes ten) batarangs, one different designed batarang, a sonic emitter, grappling hook, three head sculpts, and nine interchangeable hands. His cape is nicely tucked behind him through a hole and secured in its own space.
Underneath you have the lower tray holding the normal Mezco One:12 stand, with bright Batman base. Additionally, you have some strange apparatus which took me quite a while to figure out. Skip on down to “Accessories” to see what that’s all about.
Nothing new here, but what’s old is working just fine, so no complaints. I’d like to know how they decide which figures get the tin treatment and which are stuck with cardboard, though.
Sculpt
The sculpt section here pretty much comes down to the four different heads and the eleven total interchangeable hands. There is some great sculpting work on the utility belt, having said that. And I’ll deal with the Bat Drone, Sonic Emitter, and Grappling Gun down in “Accessories.”
You get four different heads with Sovereign Knight: (1) hooded with tall ears; (2) hooded with short ears; (3) unhooded; and (4) battle damaged with tall ears. Each of them is sculpted with tons of detail in both the cowl and the face itself. The white eyes don’t rob our knight of his expressions as his brow is shaped enough to provide some attitude. There are nice bevels to the temples which provide some interesting play with the light and shadows.
The unhooded head sculpt has all the detail you would expect from Mezco. His stern, stoic gaze is augmented by proper shaping to the temple, chin, nose and ears, making sure the light and color play well across the whole head. The hair gives a good impression of individual hairs in sculpted form.
The battle damaged head looks to be somewhat specific to Catwoman clawing away at Bruce, but it works for all sorts of battles, really. (Check out his bout against Mattel’s Joker Original below!). Mezco didn’t over do it with the damage. Just enough over one eye to get the point across.
I feel it’s my job to dig deed and really try and find flaws in even the most impressive figures. This figure would fall into that category of very impressive figures. But, if I had to find some criticism on the head sculpts, it would be that the short-eared head looks a bit buck-toothed. I’m not sure if Mezco has a Squirrel Man figure in the works, but they may have borrowed the sculpt on the teeth from over there on that head.
When it comes to hands, you’ve got everything you need and more. The gun-holding hands could have sufficed for holding Batman’s batarangs, but Mezco went a step further and gave you batarang holding hands. If you picked up one of the Supermen, you also have the Kryptonite knuckles to keep him at bay. The Kryptonite is cast in a nice translucent green which comes across really well when you play with the lighting. Each of these is sculpted with individual fingers, and where the fingers aren’t individual, the sculpting is deep and intricate enough to give that impression at least.
Paint
Bold blue cowl, gauntlets and boots, complex skin tones, dead-center eyes on the unhooded head sculpt, and not a smudge, splash, or paint outside the lines to be found. Well, except one smudge on Bruce’s unhooded chin. I told ya, I got to find that one issue in these reviews!
At any rate, top tier paint application here with appropriate shadowing in places like the creases of Bat’s utility belt.
Articulation
Bats has the standard Mezco humanoid articulation suite. He has a ball jointed neck which provides a decent amount of nod up and down with some tilt for attitude. If there’s another ball at the bottom of the neck post, it’s hidden and entirely obfuscated by the blue shoulder piece. He has the ball and hinge shoulders, bisected bicep, double swivel elbows, and a ball jointed wrist. His shoulder range of motion is somewhat limited by the tight costume, as is his bicep rotation, but its’s not as bad as you’d think. He has an ab joint that provides both crunch and swivel, although the swivel is slightly constricted by the fact that the torso costume is attached as one piece to the leg portion of the costume. Double ball joints on the hips enable him to go almost full splits, double-knee stops just barely short of Bats kicking his own ass, and he has ball jointed ankles. The ankles do leave a little bit to be desired because the portion of the ball join that is exposed is quite shallow not allowing a whole lot of tilt to the foot. With all that said, Bruce can pull off most of the iconic bat poses you want, if not some of the more ninjitsu moves of younger iterations of the character.
Costume/Soft Goods
The grey body suit is stretchy and springs back into place after relieving Bruce from an action pose. If there is any restriction to his articulation, its minimal because of how stretchy the suit is. Of course, you won’t get full waist rotation or 360 degree bicep rotation, but that’s to be expected. The cape is a nice bold blue that matches nicely with the molded plastic blues of his suit, matte on the inside, glossy/sheen on the outside. There’s not wire in the cape, but the figure comes with a special stand I detail below in “Accessories” that can hold his cape out. Personally, I think I would have preferred a wire instead. The cape does have a nice heft to it that makes it fall nicely and naturally in most poses.
Accessories
Then, we have the accessories! Hoo boy are there a lot! First and foremost, Batman comes with his Batarangs. One version, he has ten of! This is the more simple, gold/brass version. Now, I’m not complaining that there are ten, it just seems strange. He can only really hold two at a time (one in each hand). I’ve seen poses where he’s holding two in a hand, so maybe four. Ten? He also has nowhere to stow them when he’s not holding them. My only thought is that Mezco expects you to lose these tiny suckers. Bats also comes with a second, larger, and more intricately detailed, black trim batarang. This provides a nice option.
He comes with his grappling gun which can be fitted with a hook on a string. The grappling gun hooks nicely into a holster behind Bruce’s back. Alternatively, he can wield his sonic disruptor. This does not fit in the holster behind his back.
Then there’s the Bat-Drone! This thing is like a little figure in itself. The sculpting is fantastic and crazy detailed. I could barely squint hard enough to make it all out. The wings have a ball joint each to provide some bonus articulation to make the drone seem even more realistic. The only problem is that the drone isn’t designed with any real in-flight posing mechanism. There is the stand attachment which I’ll get into next, but the clips on that are almost as big as the drone itself and it just looks clunky (see the pictures above). It’s really a shame because it brings down an otherwise awesome added piece. If there’s a better posing option for in-flight, chime up, I’d like to know.
Finally, there’s this wired stand attachment. I’m not entirely sure what I’m supposed to do with this, but best I could reckon it’s for holding up Bat’s cape in a dramatic wafting plume. This works, but I don’t think it works any better than a wired cape would have. That’s just a personal preference of mine, but this system seems clunky. In order to get the wires into the proper position, you need to bend them each in multiple places throughout the length of the wire. Additionally, it’s not like you can do this while Batman is strung up on the wires, he’ll spin around, potentially ripping the cape. I don’t know. Maybe I’m way out in the weeds here on some misguided path with this wire attachment thing.
Price/Value
Overall, Sovereign Knight is a strong addition to Mezco’s already healthy Batman and DC Comics lineup. Everybody has their personal definitive Batman version and this one is pretty close to mine. If you have other “Knights” from the One:12 Collective line, you’ll be as happy here as you were with the others. At retail, Sovereign Knight went for $90.00. If you can grab him for that price, he’s a steal of a deal! Four head sculpts, tons of accessories and a lot of playability and re-pose options.
You can pick Sovereign Knight up at your local comic shop or at these fine retailers while he lasts:
Thanks for reading! Go ahead and leave your thoughts in the comments! DrunkWooky out!
