On July 12th, as anticipated, the Collectors Edition Ragman figure went up for pre-order on the McFarlane website alongside the others in the "wave", Clock King as well as the classic Red Hood. I had personally planned on pre-ordering the figure on Big Bad Toy Store but the figure wasn't available there. Not even a placeholder page. So I instead went directly to McFarlane's website to pre-order.
I don't know what time these figures went live for pre-order, but that classic Red Hood must have been HOTLY anticipated because it was already sold out, as was Clock King quickly thereafter. But the pre-order button was still active for Ragman so I acted fast. Initially I had told friends that I was planning on getting like SIX of these figures. But McFarlane offers an option to buy six of them. It's called a CASE, and it's $180 before you even CONSIDER shipping and taxes. So I quickly thought better of that plan and instead opted for three.
When buying a case it's guaranteed to come with one of them being the chase, but because I had no idea at the time what the chase was supposed to be representing, I could live without it. So I settled for the possibility that one of the three I order COULD be a randomly inserted chase. So I finalized my checkout for three figures. The idea being, one for display out of box, one to keep in box, and a "just in case" figure. Maybe I do a giveaway on this blog if someday I get more intentional about keeping it active? Maybe I take it around to conventions and have various past Ragman creators sign the box? Who knows? But "one for safety" didn't sound too bad!
But after I ordered I started poking around the McFarlane website. All of the photos concerning this figure hadn't been "official" just yet so this is the first time we were seeing web store quality production stills of the figure. Naturally I saved them all to my desktop for use here and I'll post them at the end of this entry in the interest of being thorough.
Beyond the figure stills though, I noticed other things. The first being that the figure is listed as being: "Ragman (Shadowpact) McFarlane Collector Edition 7" Figure (PRE-ORDER ships August)" The word there that caught my eye is Shadowpact. I had previously been working under the assumption that the basis for this Ragman figures design was the post-Crisis Pat Broderick design. Mostly because of the lengthy tendril-esque nature of the ties around the cloak as well as the tattered cloak itself. But when McFarlane puts the parenthesis around the description of a character, that typically is meant to signify the version of the character they're adapting. So I turned to my left while sitting at the computer and grabbed my first of four volumes of my Shadowpact trades off the shelf to confirm. And, well, as you can see...
...yep. On the first page, not even in the story proper yet, there he is. So it's Shadowpact Ragman. But hey, his design in Shadowpact is just a continuation of what Pat Broderick started so no offense to the Shadowpact creative team but this is the Pat Broderick Ragman figure for me from here on out. Sorry.
I keep checking out the listing for this figure as I scroll and I see two tabs. The first is a default. A link to a 12 second YouTube video showing a 360 degree look at the figure out of the box, equipped with accessories. Take a look:
But the other tab says "Description". We learn it's a 7" figure. We learn it's based on the Shadowpact series. We learn it has "22 moving parts for full range of posing and play." We learn it has a fabric cape, a display base, a collectible card and a card stand as well as "two Arm Rag effects". So I called that right on interpreting what those accessories were supposed to be and why (though not the stuff of Sherlock Holmes if you're even a casual Ragman fan). But the actual description of who the character of Ragman is and his background is what tells you everything you need to know about the variant. "But Chad! The description should be about the character as a whole! So it should apply to the most widely produced version of the character. Not just the variant." Well my friends, let's read together and you be the judge.
From McFarlane's page for this figure DIRECTLY: "War veteran Rory Regan was the only survivor of his unit. His buddies died and were sucked into the Suit of Souls they found in an ancient desert vault. They stayed inside Regan's head when he returned to Gotham City, followed by an army of demons seeking to reclaim the rags that had bonded with him. Regan was now inextricably linked to a Mantle of Hell: demonic armor that absorbed souls to generate power. Able to steal the life of living and never-born humans and demons, Rory, his ex-wife, and child were prey for various factions trying to retrieve it. Determined to atone for his sins, Regan began fighting evil, where it became clear that all he could depend on were his instincts and the advice of the dead soldiers in his head."
Hmmmm. Only survivor? Ancient desert vault? Army of demons? Mantle of hell? Demonic armor? Never-borns? Ex-wife? Child? That is the plot not of Rory Regan of the post-Crisis Keith Giffen and Pat Broderick series. That's not Rorys story from Shadowpact from which the common version of this figure derives its design. No. That's the re-interpretation of Ragman for the "modern" era as told by writer Ray Fawkes and artist Inaki Miranda!
Let's take a look at all of the photos for the variant specifically as published on McFarlane's website. (Click each to view full size)
Ok now let's go back to 2017 and checkout the CLEANEST look you're going to get of Inaki Miranda's redesign for this mini-series. The design images Inaki posted on his OWN Twitter account as the book released in October of that year!
That's the darkest color that character looked. In the series proper sometimes the rags, which in this interpretation were more like strips of cloth like one would see on a mummy, would be more lightly colored. Like a grayish green or slightly paler than that. But the story was set in Gotham, largely during the night, so of course shadow played its part. As you can tell though, even in Inaki's design concept drawings, it was never BLACK.
Because of the strips of cloth, there was more texture and a, well, tattered effect to his suit in that version. Strands not sticking down and their ends sort of floating with an ethereal energy. The figure? Buttery smooth. We see the orange/yellow parts of the figure that break up the flat black, and you can tell the placement of those PRECISELY match the 2017 design. So from the description pointing me to the right series, I was able to figure out what they were going for, despite them getting it REALLY wrong. Because the biggest detractor? The 2017 Ragman did away with the hooded cloak altogether! Yet on the variant we have the same cloak as the regular figure, just the black version. Don't get me wrong. Getting rid of the cloak was stylistically, my least favorite of the modern changes, and said as much at the time. It turns out I was right. Keeping it makes it look better to me!
But a non-textured, nearly entirely BLACK figure, with a black hooded cloak that its inspiration never had on the page to begin with? No wonder I had no idea on my first several glances what one earth this variant was supposed to be. I mean if one ends up in my order of 3? I'll take it! It's still Ragman...but it's not one that ever existed on the comic page.
Here are the photos, as promised, of the regular figure BTW! Same as the variant photos above, just...the regular version.
Thanks for reading Tatters! And if you don't hear from me sooner, the next post will be a link to my YouTube video unboxing the figure! Speak soon!
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