[ryan]

I've actually always been a fan of the DCUC hips, because they do give a great range of mobility, but they do look goofy when open. The ab crunches don't go forward much, but back usually has good range, I'd say it's pretty comparable to the Rising Might Kuuga I'm playing with right now, and Kuuga's joint is completely hidden under the armor so it's better.

DCUC's ankle joints are really crippled compared to most SHFs, like Kuuga. Emperor Kiva's inferior ankles are about on par with DCUC, maybe a little better. And no DCUC that I know of has toe joints.

And as you pointed out, most DCUCs don't have double jointed knees or elbows, and I've actually not played much with the ones that do. I have a bunch of Marvel figures, mostly the newer Hasbro stuff, and I really haven't played much around with the articulation, I tend to display my Marvel and DC figures in pretty static poses, whereas these Figuarts have such better mobility, they'll see much more interesting poses on the shelf.

On an only semi-related note, I have a hell of a lot of DCUCs. I've always been pretty proud of the fact that I'm a mostly completist of the line, but I didn't really realize what that meant until Saturday as I was arranging some of my not-displayed figures, I have a large box full of three or four waves worth (or more) of loose DCUCs that I need to find a place to display, and it's about 30 figures or so. In addition to the four large bookshelve shelves completely stuffed with figures. And by comparison I have about 15-ish SHFs all together.

I guess i should finish this off by saying I was already kinda loosing interest in DCUC and Marvel, in part due to Transformers, last year, but after getting into SHFs I think Mattel will be lucky if I buy a single DCUC figure this year (excluding the Crime Syndicate set I bought last week). SHFs are so much more fun to play with, better poseability, much better accessory count, and for some strange reason, the increased price is easier to justify on SHF than DCUC (which apparently just went up to $17 a piece locally, hell no).