The countdown is over…

Spoiler Alert: On the off chance you haven’t read ‘The Watchmen yet or if you don’t want to know the truth about Ozymandias, stop reading now.

Who watches the Watchmen? Even crime fighters need to be held accountable… more than ever in a world where they themselves are the outlaws! One of the greatest graphic novels of all time, this long-awaited collection features the Watchmen heroes as 6” fully articulated figures. Created just for collectors in first-ever comic book style, this line features unique book-type packaging, original Watchmen “oversized” trading cards, and all-new art and character bios.

This is a limited series inspired by one of the all-time greatest comics and will include all six Watchmen team members by year’s end. When the series is complete, the iconic graffiti-style Watchmen logo will be revealed when all packages are placed side-by-side and the Doomsday clock will count down to zero when viewed from the front.

This week we get the final piece in Mattel’s “The Watchmen” line of 6″ action figures.   As with any line there are some hits and misses.   Some folks didn’t like the scale of the figures since the use the DCUC 4HM bucks didn’t reflect the size of the characters in the books.  Some characters such as Rorschach came out too tall and some characters such as Dr. Manhattan came out too short.  Also some fans believe that Mattel made them look like the general characters, but didn’t work hard enough to really capture the art style of the book and how Dave Gibbons drew them.   All that aside, I think we are ALL amazed that a big company like Mattel took a chance and made these figures at ALL.

As many of you will recall, over a decade ago, DC Direct showed a series of four prototypes of Watchmen figures sculpted by Tim Bruckner based on the original comic series by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.   The 4 characters were: The Comedian, Silk Spectre and two version of Dr. Manhattan (regular and translucent).   These were to be for the 15th Anniversary of “The Watchmen” but tension between DC and Moore led to no celebration of that anniversary to happen at all.    Every year fans asked DC Direct what the future of those figures would be and every year we were told “no plans.”    I even asked about them at the newly reformed DC Collectibles panel at Comic Con 2012 since the Before Watchmen books were still on the forefront of everyone’s mind.

Naturally I was bowled over when I went to the ‘Mattel and DC: A Heroic Partnership’ panel the very next day and told that there would be a 6 figure subscription in 2013 focusing on 6″ scale, DCUC-ish, comic book style line based on the Watchmen.  Six figures, the main team, were released every other month with the final figure being Ozymandias.

Ozymandias looses a bit of articulation in the arms because of his overshirt, but he used his mind more than his fists, so he doesn’t need to make a lot of big movements.  He features the standard DCUC type articulation and sports a new head (x2), shins, fore-arms and overshirt/cape.   Ozymandias comes with two heads, both masked and unmasked.   Many fans were hoping that his accessory would be his companion, his genetically-engineered pet lynx, Bubastis, but that would have been an expensive accessory.

It’s a shame this series didn’t sell better as Mattel said if it had they would have looked at expanding this series a second year with other characters from the main storyline, the Minutemen backstory and maybe even from the “Tales from the Black Freighter” comic with-in the comic.

As it stands the Club Black Freighter subscription ends here with the smartest man in the world – Ozymandias… much like the comic ended.

He’ll take Doctor Manhattan, the Night Owl and Silk Spectre too… he’ll take them out, that is, along with anyone else he sees as an enemy to his twisted plan to destroy/save the world! This fully articulated 6” figure comes in unique book-type packaging, and arrives with both masked and unmasked heads and yellow base with black Watchmen logo. Also includes an original Watchmen “oversized” trading card with all-new art and character bio.

This is a limited series inspired by one of the all-time greatest comics and will include all six Watchmen team members by year’s end. When the series is complete, the iconic graffiti-style Watchmen logo will be revealed when all packages are placed side-by-side and the Doomsday clock will count down to zero when viewed from the front.

You can order your own Ozymandias November 15th, 2013 on MattyCollector.com.

This sample was provided by Mattel.