I'm no expert on action figures, but is Mattel actually better than McFarlane Toys or Spin Master?
McFarlane Toys, depends on your opinion. Spin Masters? Most definitely.
Mattel had the DC figure license for quite a while. I want to say like 2002-2003 until like 2019-ish? I think the DC Universe line was pretty good for the most part. We got a good variety of characters and sculpts by the Four Horsemen. There were definite QC issues from time to time.
I think after a while McFarlane started making some good figures for DC Multiverse products, but there were a few problems. Characters couldn't come with guns. IE Grifter, Peacemaker, and Sgt. Rock come with goofy accessories or no guns when guns are part of their gimmicks.
I'm personally not a fan of the crotch pieces for McFarlane's DC Multiverse line. They have these like flexible plastic crotch pieces rather than traditional t-joints or ball-jointed hips to hide the joint articulation. What I don't like about that is sometimes it looks like characters have these like diaper pieces around their waists that look goofy. So unless a character is wearing like a utility belt it just looks awkward.
Also, even though they can't pack the characters with guns, McFarlane's figures are still packed with swappable hands that are basically posed for holding a gun. Like Animal Man comes with a gun holding swappable hand that makes no sense.
Sometimes I think McFarlane makes questionable decisions for certain waves. Like the 1990s Grant Morrison Justice League wave. Superman Blue was almost impossible to find. Justice League Batman I think received a poor head sculpt. The head sculpt on Batman/Spawn two-pack looked ridiculous.
It took a while but eventually McFarlane released a new Spawn/Batman crossover figure that comes with a much more accurate headsculpt to the 1996 comic crossover.
Honestly, I'm not upset about Mattel getting the license back, and I'm curious to see what they do with it.
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