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Moto Superman

September 23, 2013 | By Errex More

If asked what action figure line was the most disappointing in 2013, it would be hard to come up with any other than Mattel’s 4-inch scale line for the Man of Steel movie.

It was not that the toys were actually irredeemably bad, but the failures in the line were almost a copy of what happened with the line for The Dark Night Rises. We got loads of differently colored/sculpted Supermen, a couple of versions of the same villain and very little else.

For Man of Steel, Mattel produced 4-inch figures in two presentations, a bare bones basic assortment with just a figure and slightly more interesting one where the figure has an accessory composed at most of two pieces of plastic.

While both formats had a version of the red and blue hero, only the version with the accessory actually resembled the look of Superman on the new movie, so that’s the one I ended up getting once these things started to hit the clearance bins.

This Superman was labeled as “Moto Superman” on the package, although I would be surprised if there was any sign of consistency in the naming for these toys. However, as you can surmise, this is the one that comes with a gray/silver motorcycle accessory to pull apart.

Superman is actually very nicely sculpted. The body proportions seem mostly correct, very muscular and detailed. The costume is completely covered in a very intricate texture pattern that mimics fairly well the new costume, although the head sculpt is decidedly generic with no effor to even attempt a passing resemblance to actor Henry Cavill. Whom, may I add, already looked somewhat like Superman, so it is not a big deal.

The cape is made of cloth and not removable. While length of the cape is good, it should probably be a little wider, but then again, the fabric is probably too thick to drape correctly at this scale.

And now comes the part were we discuss articulation. Even though Mattel has shown a certain proclivity to mix things up a bit when it comes to design articulation for their DC based action figures, they still don’t include a lot of articulation points in these Man of Steel toys. Superman (and every other character in this line) has:

• Barbell mounted neck.

• Pegged hinge shoulders.

• Hinged elbows.

• Swivel hips.

And that’s it. No, seriously, that’s all these figures have, which I guess deserves a more in depth look at what there is. The neck actually functions as a simple swivel. The barbell is there just to make sure you can’t remove the head easily, which I guess is fine if you plan on giving these toys to small children.

Shoulders work as well as one would expect and I find that having elbows on these Superman toys is way more useful/fun than having knees on the Batman figures, although the ideal would be having both types of joints on one figure.

The hips are OK, but due to the way the figure comes packaged, right out of the blister Superman’s center of gravity is slightly forward, requiring dipping the figure in hot water to adjust the ankles so Superman can actually stand upright.

The paint applications on these is minimal, but not without issues. The “S” symbol is neatly applied, but the red on the boots and the flesh colored paint applications were applied rather thick and on most of the figures I saw there was some slop at the edges.
The motorcycle accessory was molded entirely in dark silvery plastic. It comes apart and has a gripping point on each piece for Superman to hold on to. Neither the wheels nor the handlebars turn and overall, it feels like a very cheap capsule toy.

In the end, I think this Superman makes for an interesting keepsake from a fairly entertaining movie and I also found it to be a pretty decent toy if you can find it at a decent discount.