Mr. Freeze is the second figure to be released by DC Collectibles (formerly DC Direct) in its Arkham City Deluxe figure line. He was actually released just this week, the same time as Killer Croc. A lot of fans have wondered, and rightly so, why a character like Mr. Freeze warrants a deluxe price, when he’s practically a normal sized character.
Last year, at New York Comic-Con, someone at the DC Direct booth actually explained it. It turns out that Mr. Freeze was too expensive to put under the basic figure SKU (stock keeping unit – a number or code used to identify each unique product or item for sale in a store or other business). Like everything else, toy lines have budgets. They have a certain amount of money allotted to them, and only have enough budget for a certain amount of SKU’s.
At the time they were working on the Arkham City line, they had the budget for two SKU’s. The basic figure SKU and the Deluxe figure SKU. Due to Mr. Freeze’s larger than normal size (his design dictates this, due to his freeze suit adding height to him), mixed with other elements such as his accessories, he just came in too expensive to be put under the basic figure SKU. So they were left with two options. Either cancel him outright, or place him in the deluxe line. Since they couldn’t just create a new SKU specifically for Freeze, or raise the price of him as a basic figure (they all have to be the same price under one SKU), those were their only options. And they did not want to cancel Mr. Freeze, since to many fans he was the best boss fight in the entire Arkham City game, and many fans have been waiting for a really good Mr. Freeze action figure. So they put him in the deluxe line and now here we are.
Many fans have been criticizing this decision though, thinking that DC Direct is just abusing the deluxe price, but if you look at every figure they’re going to be releasing in the deluxe line, Mr. Freeze is the only one arguably not a deluxe. If they wanted to abuse it, they could have just made every single figure in the line a deluxe. But toy companies are not out to alienate its market. That’s just bad business. I hope the above helps explain to some the decision to make Mr. Freeze a deluxe figure.
Enough of that though, you guys came for a review and pictures right? Well let’s get to that, shall we?
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Thanks to the website Marshallalloc.blog, we now can see the images of the new Batman Play Arts Kai Figures that had been displayed at this year’s Tokyo Game Show. Some of them, such as the Play Arts Dark Knight Rises Catwoman, were teased back at SDCC. Others, we saw some early unpainted prototypes of.
It seems DC Direct has added some figures to their display booth, including new Arkham City figures. Shown are the new Joker clown thug, which is the exact same sculpt as the one previously revealed, only with a different paint job. Also shown were the prototypes for Azrael and Ra’s Al Ghul, which were only previously revealed as concept art.