This is a guest review by SalemCrow. He last reviewed the Hot Toys Wolverine from X-Men Origins: Wolverine. His previous Mattel WWE reviews include the Mattel WWE Entrance Greats Triple H and Elite Series 1 Undertaker, CM Punk, and Rey Mysterio Jr.
You can check out more from SalemCrow at http://www.darrahdesigns.com/.
Hello all, I’m back with another review of Mattel’s new WWE figures. This time I’m going to cover the Elite Series 3 figures of John Cena and The Heart Break Kid, Shawn Michaels.
As I mentioned in my previous Elites review, Mattel has kept the style of packaging close to that of the Jakks Deluxe Aggression box packaging, but added their spin on it. The sides and top of the package come apart easily enough, and fold down so you can free the figures from their prisons. Each figure also comes with a figure stand with a tiny paper name plate that sticks in front of it.
The articulation breakdown is as follows:
- Ball jointed head
- Ball shoulders
- Cut biceps above the actual bicep
- Single hinge elbows
- Cut writs with hinges
- Cut waist
- Ab crunch with a fairly good range of motion
- Hips are similar to DCUC hips, but are rounded off, I would call them ball and hinge hips
- Cut joint right below the hips
- Double jointed knees; this was truly unexpected
- Rocker and hinge ankles
First up is John Cena’s figure. He comes with his baseball cap, dog tags, and his trademark black t-shirt. The hat fits well, and doesn’t seem to leave a mark on his head, but continued removal might cause some wear. His dog tags fit over his head and hang nicely, but I wonder how well a real chain in this scale would have looked. On my figure, the chain left a small smudge on the left side of his neck, and I didn’t notice it in the store, so I would be careful with the figure you purchase. The shirt is hemmed nicely, and looks better than C.M. Punk’s from wave 1, but the end of the sleeves are still a little rough, but I’m confident they’ll get the hang of this at some point.
He has sculpted baggy shorts that’s he’s never seen out of, and Mattel also included hints of his kneepads poking out from underneath. He also has his trusty sneakers, but sadly has painted on arm bands, which with the parts reuse is a given I guess. The shorts look a little plain with the one color, but the articulation works well the way they designed it. The rest of the articulation works as well as the figures from the first wave, and Cena himself didn’t have any loose joints.
HBK is on a smaller buck, and looks great proportionally next to Cena. He comes with one of his newer mainstays, a cowboy hat, with an HBK logo front and center. The hat has a nice texture to it, and fits his head well. The hair on my figure where the hat fits had a little smudge, which may have been from the hat, but I can’t be sure. I would suggest caution just in case, but he looks great with it on, and I’m sure it would fit a Basic HBK’s head just as well if you decide to go that route. He also comes with a sleeveless pullover t-shirt, in the same style of Rey Mysterio’s from the first wave. This fits him well, and you can tilt his head forward enough to tuck the back of the shirt under his hair.
Speaking of Shawn’s hair, it does tend to limit the amount you can move his head, which is always a problem with figures that have long hair. You can either get the normal flat hair, or take a risk with a more windswept sculpt. I’ll take the limited movement of the flat hair. He also has wonderfully sculpted chaps, which are painted nice and clean, with some nice details. I’d eventually like to see a figure of him in his old school tights, and not just these wrestling chaps, but all of the details like where the chaps latch on his sides, are great. Shawn’s articulation allows him to get him into some of his signature poses or wrestling moves. I tried to include a few for reference, but the one pose that he can’t pull off is the DX arms crossed “X” due to the shoulder articulation. That’s a small price to pay though, because I think including the type of articulation this would need would likely disrupt the upper chest sculpt these figures have.
With that said, I am looking forward to a few of the upcoming releases, including the SDCC Undertaker figure, and continue to hope that Mattel will release some actual championship belts, so I can display some of these guys with their titles.
Thanks for reading.
Nice review!