Mafex Hush Robin

 After being delayed (like most Mafex figures), their Hush Tim Drake Robin finally saw the light of day. This is one that many fans have been anticipating, and now that he's here, the final product has generated a bit of talk and controversy, mostly due to some questionable choices Mafex chose for certain joints. Let's probe further.

Robin is a little shorter than most of the Mafex Hush figures, definitely shorter than Batman. Sculpt-wise, he looks great, pretty faithful to how he was in the comic. The paint is also surprisingly nice. While the promo pics showed a little shading, having the actual figure in hand really shows it. They appear to have used a black wash on his torso and legs, helping to highlight his muscular build. Because of this, he actually looks better than those promos. Kudos to Mafex for that. His accessories include an alternate gritting teeth face, six pairs of hands (fists, holding, relaxed, open palm, clutching and thumbs up), his bo staff weapon, and a base and stand. Honestly, for the price, they should've included a few more things, maybe some R shaped shurikens or some Birdarangs (his version of a Batarang).

And, now, the articulation. While the figure is very fluid and can achieve some really cool action poses, some of the engineering choices are rather odd. The way his arms connect to his shoulders does leave a bit of a gap, but it's not too bad. The butterfly joints allow the arms to go so far forward that they can cross, so that's great. However, he has no upper bicep cut. Instead, they gave him these weird ball joint elbows that can rotate and do all the heavy lifting as far articulating his arms, but dang, they're kinda ugly. When you bend his elbows all the way in they leave an odd gap that stands out like a sore thumb. Why they chose those awful joints is beyond me. It almost makes him look like a cheap Chinese knock-off. If you look at the promo pics, they clearly used poses and angles that really hid them. Those shady mofos. His thighs also do not have a drop down feature, but you still can get his legs to spread and kick, just with a little bit less range. His waist and torso are great, as are his knees and ankles. His cape sports bendy wire, so that helps to add extra expression when posing him. He's still fun to mess with, but a few tweaks could have made him look better. I'm hoping that the lazy route they took with Robin's engineering is just for this figure and not a sign of things to come.

Mafex Hush Robin is a pretty good figure, despite some questionable design and engineering choices. You can still get some expressive poses out of it, and the paint and sculpt make it look good on your shelf. Still, for as long as fans waited for this release since it was delayed, Mafex could've gone with the old "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality and given him drop down thighs and upper arm swivel instead of those eyesore Revoltech-like elbows. Despite that, I still like this Robin figure, and I'm glad that my Hush Batman now has his trusty sidekicks.