Review – DC Universe Justice League Unlimited Bizarro

“Bizarro was originally created by Lex Luthor to replace the Man of Steel. He now works for the Secret Society carrying out its leader’s evil wishes.
— from back of the card

Other than his wacky, Superman-like appearance — and the occasional comic I read as a child — I know very little of the Bizarro character. That didn’t matter at all, though, the minute I spotted Bizarro in Target: his unusual design, coupled with the 3.75″ scale size and low price (Bizarro was under $5), meant that Bizarro just had to follow me home. After all, he’s pretty damned cool-looking and I just knew he was gonna look great next to the other 3.75″ figures in my collection. (Maybe Bizarro could lead a force of stormtroopers against Hellboy.)

After I snapped a few pics of Bizarro in his plastic cage, and managed to deal with checking the mail, I ripped Bizarro out of his package and . . . immediately watched him topple over after I stood him on the table. After several moments of working at balancing the figure, I soon discovered that he was incapable of standing for more than one minute. Bizarro’s center of balance is . . . well, I can’t figure out where the hell it is. His feet and legs do not want to cooperate with his torso, and overall the figure has a serious problem when it comes to standing up.

Looking past the balance issues, Bizarro has one other minor problem: his articulation is kinda lame. For some reason that I cannot understand, Bizarro is a direct throwback to the Star Wars action figures of the eighties. He has a total of five points of articulation and that’s it. I’m normally not an articulation nut, but I expect a bit more out of action figures these days (hell, at least twisting at the waist should be minimum).

Poor Paint and a Lame Accessory

A sloppy paint job also hurts this figure, with the paint looking pretty messy (especially on the belt) and detracting from the excellent sculpting job. And Bizarro does come with one accessory — a twisted steel beam — but it’s pretty much worthless. I thought that maybe the beam would help balance him, but that theory was proven wrong as poor old Bizarro collapsed again.

He’s Not All Bad

I know I launched into this focusing on the negative, but it would be unfair of me to not point out that Bizarro is actually a great-looking toy. He’s got that hulking, lumbering look and — as you can tell if you click on one of the images and checkout the large version — the sculpting job on his face is excellent. For a 3.75″ action figure, Bizarro’s face has a lot of character.

Closing Thoughts

What could have been an awesome action figure was horribly disfigured and ruined by his legs — and there aren’t even holes in his feet so that you can stand him on a peg — and a nasty paint job. Maybe if I was an insane Bizarro fan I could look past the toy’s problems, but as it is I doubt I’ll pick up many more figures in this line (unless, of course, I happen to find a great one that makes me forget just how bad this toy is).

Poor Bizarro. He looked great in the package. This appears to be one of those rare cases where the toy would have been better off left in the package.

Philip Reed wishes Bizarro could stand for more than a few seconds. The poor lug, he just can’t hold up his own weight.