Midnighter

Second pop quiz: This hero dresses in black to better blend in with the night, where he uses his fists and his brain to fight superstitious and cowardly criminals. Wrong again. He prowls the night, a masked force for justice... served up in hard-knuckle fashion. A fierce leader, Midnighter expects nothing less than the best from the members of the Authority. And when reality splits open and spews forth the deadliest creatures in creation to menace mankind, Midnighter is there on the front lines. Rather than simply being a pale imitation, Midnighter was Batman taken to the Nth degree. He had fight enhancements such as a replaced nervous system, advanced carbons in muscle and bone, as well as mental induction and nueral implantation, allowing him to run a fight a million times from every angle before a punch has even been thrown. He was night's bringer of war. And he was gay. Perhaps that was part of the reason that DC Comics mistreated The Authority the way they did; Apollo and the Midnighter were an openly gay couple, and perhaps the editorial office was reluctant to publish someone who looked like Batman kissing someone who looked like Superman. All the more unlikely, then, that Authority action figures have just been released. I love Midnighter's look. A trenchcoat is much more realistic than a cape, and his boots just look cool. There's no real upper edge to them - they just blend into the legs - but they have laces on the top of the foot, padding on the toes and heels and even hints of a detailed sole. The musculature is well done, and there are various pads on the costume - pads on his shins and knees, and matching pieces on the outside of his thighs. The triangular designs on his chest are sculpted in, as is the crescent moon insignia. He's got a nice scowl (yeah, you read that right) on his face, and the fabric of his coat is wrinkled right. Even his belt is detailed just as well as everything else about him. Of course, it's really hard to see the sculpt, because he's painted all in black. The only spots of color are on his face, insignia, the spiked knuckles on his gloves and a few buckles on the sleeves. Mostly the black is matte, though there's a bit of gloss around his moon for contrast. Fortunately the lines are all clean: with this little paint to worry about, any flaws would be magnified. Midnighter stands 6⅜" tall, and has 11 points of articulation: knees, neck, hips, shoulders, elbows and wrists. He doesn't have any accessories, but since his super power is the ability to hit things, does he really need anything? Sure, if they really wanted to they could have given him the metal pole he uses sometimes, but it's not necessary. Although he's an ersatz copy of Batman, Midnighter is his own character. He'd easily be a villain, if he hadn't fallen in with a good crowd, and instead of being a badass normal guy, he's a cyborg supersoldier with a computerized brain. It's unlikely there will ever be another toy of him, and while this one isn't jaw-dropping, it's just as good as you can reasonably expect. -- 08/28/02