DC Universe Classics Color of Fear Two-Pack Romat-Ru and Karu-Sil

The DC Universe Classics Color of Fear set is the penultimate (nice word, right?) 2-pack to be offered on MattyCollector.com.  The previous 2-packs, Space Heroes and Battle for Earth 3 didn’t quite meet Mattel’s expectations (they are still available as of this writing) so after this set and next month’s Animal Instincts 2-pack, there’s nothing planned for the forseeable future.

The good news is that this has been the fastest-selling 2-pack thus far.  If this and Animal Instincts do well, we might see more down the line.

Like most MattyCollector.com items, this 2-pack comes shipped in a white mailer box. It’s adorned with only the DCUC logo and some legal copy, and a set number that probably means something just to Mattel. I wonder if next month’s set will have the title printed on the white box, since they’re starting to do that for Masters of the Universe Classics.

Inside is the actual toy package, just like the 2-packs that came before them. For those of you familiar with my write-ups, this may be old hat, but I’ll keep saying it as long as Mattel keeps doing it – action poses in package do more harm than good. In this case we get an ok pose for Romat-Ru, but Karu Sil just looks kind of forlorn. What’s worse, the packaging warps her left leg. Yes, the hot water treatment will correct it, but it’s just a pain.

Romat-Ru

I’m fairly bad when it comes to identifying the base bodies that are used, but I was expecting Romat Ru to line up with Hal Jordan – but he’s a little bit bigger.  As such, he will tower over the production Sinestros.  It’s the standard DCUC articulation, so I won’t go through the regular harping on needing double elbows and knees.  And unfortunately, Romat-Ru is afflicted with the neck problems that recent DCUCs have – he can’t really look up or down.  His head is made of softer plastic, so you might find his fin and ears bent in funny shapes – just heat him up in some hot water and you can straighten those out.

The paint is pretty standard too.  Compared to Sinestro, there’s a little more fuzziness on the separations between yellow and black.  But the tampos on Romat-Ru (and Karu-Sil) are even tighter and more precise.

Karu-Sil

In contrast, Karu-Sil is a bit smaller than some of the recent female characters.  Her head is appropriately spooky, but the attached hair piece is not very flexible, so you’re not going to be getting a lot of good motion, either up or down or side to side.  You’ll see some differences from figure to figure on how the belt is glued on – most I’ve seen aren’t aligned well, and you may find some glue residue on the torso.

Karu-Sil comes with one of her “fathers three” – the constructs she created to replace her adoptive pack.  It has a swivel its neck, but no other articulation.

Some people, including me, have bought multiples of this set for the purposes of bolstering their Sinestro Corps.  Up till now, Sinestro has been a solo act, and that wasn’t going to fly with the Green Lantern-heavy DC Universe Classics wave 11 hitting retail.

Unfortunately, I don’t think a Sinestro head swap will work with Romat-Ru – both the head and hands of the original Sinestro figure are too small. (FYI – the Sinestro pictured here has been modified at the waist to give him more height.)

The head swap between Romat-Ru and Abin Sur yields a conversion for Amon Sur on the yellow side and Tomar Re or Tomar Tu on the green.  Though the heads fit just fine, there’s still a little more work than I wanted to make that completely work.  Since Romat-Ru has three fingers per hand, I tried swapping the hands as well – the pegs are different lengths (the Abin Sur pegs are shorter).  So the pegs will need some work, if you want to swap the hands.

Overall, I like this set.  It’s pretty much standard DCUC, and with some exceptions here and there you know what to expect.  You can still pick up the Color of Fear 2-pack on MattyCollector.com.