UPDATE - I Finally Figured Out What the Chase is for the McFarlane Ragman Figure!

Welcome back Tatters! We're talking again, yes again, about the McFarlane Ragman figure. Because I'm pretty sure I know what version of Ragman the McFarlane team is going for here. This is supposed to be the 2017 Ragman as written by Ray Fawkes w/ art by Inaki Miranda. Let's get into it...

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!

BREAKING NEWS - McFarlane Toys to release FIRST EVER Ragman Action Figure!

Welcome back Tatters! A scant 24 hours after America's 248th Independence Day, news surfaced of another monumental announcement. On July 5th, 2024, news began breaking that McFarlane Toys (who currently hold the primary license to produce figures for DC Comics) would be releasing the FIRST EVER OFFICIAL Ragman action figure!

Ragman, created by Robert Kanigher and Joe Kubert and published by DC Comics starting in 1976, has had one and ONLY ONE iota of merchandise featuring his visage. Two entries in the Heroclix game for which he was granted two "tokens". Beyond which Ragman has only ever been seen outside of the comic page in the occasional trading card release, and the new 'Justice League Dark' game from Cryptozoic in the DC Deck Building line they offer (To be discussed on this blog in a future post). Which is shocking given Joe Dinicol's performance as Rory Regan on ARROW beginning in 2016. So many characters from that show, including interpretations of them in the popular FUNKO POP line, were turned into merchandise, but even with prime time television exposure, never Ragman.

But on Friday, July 12th, 2024, the pre-orders for McFarlane's Collector Edition Ragman figure will go live. The first ever official Ragman figure will be available in TWO different versions! Let's talk about them.

The first is the regular general release collector's edition figure. At the present moment, these collector's edition figures go for $29.99 retail. That should remain consistent with this upcoming release, though of course anything is possible. Collectors edition figures come with a DC Comics display stand which, interestingly is NOT for the figure, but rather for the collectors trading card that comes with the figure. This particular card features the cover artwork of Jesús Saíz that was released in 2010 with the Ragman One-Shot issue published that year.

As you can see, the figure comes with two translucent green-ish spirals that look like they snap in place around Ragman's wrists instead of his hands directly. I believe this is meant to portray those times when Ragman has used the ability of his rags to envelop an evildoer and absorb their soul into the patchwork of his suit. We usually see that artistically portrayed as a spiral of patches flowing out of his suit, as seen below.

As for the figure itself, the articulation seems consistent with most McFarlane figures, if not more so given how lithe and flexible Ragman is usually pictured in the comics. His design seems to be taking inspiration more from his early 1990s design by Pat Broderick as opposed to his first interpretation in 1976. I say this largely because of the tendrils and ties of his cloak. Pat always made the cloak of Ragman tattered and frayed, as he should, but he also made those tendrils tying the cloak around Rory's neck EXCESSIVELY long. Add that to the colors chosen for the patchwork on this figure, and the fact that it looks like the tip of the hood isn't as pronounced as it was in 1976? I'm very confident this is the early 90's, post-Crisis, Pat Broderick Ragman in action figure form! But you tell me, here's the cover for issue one of the Broderick/Giffen series:

Beyond that, it seems in recent years that McFarlane has taken to the notion of "chase figures" which are MOST often the same figure and packaging, but with a different paint job on the figure to (typically) signify a different version of the character at some point in publication. These figures are not available for purchase directly, but can be "randomly inserted" into boxes when one places an order online from an official retailer. This Ragman figure it seems will indeed have a chase figure, though at present I cannot figure out what "version" of Ragman it is supposed to be reflecting.

The figure seems to be sporting a significant amount of black, including the hood and cloak, with some pale lime green accents underneath. My first thought was Ragman from ARROW but I do not believe that will be the case on closer inspection. One might then jump to more modern Ragman interpretations, those that reflect a more mummy-esque design, but none of those interpretations had a hood/cloak along with them. It also looks as if the translucent rags accessories for this figure are darker as well, but that could just be the lighting in the photograph. But if anyone has any notions of where this chase Ragman figure draws inspiration for its design, please let me know!

Bottom line? I'm SO very excited for this figure. You can bet I'm definitely purchasing more than one for my collection! And I do indeed plan to do a video review on YouTube! I'll be posting it over on the LanternCast's YouTube account (LanterncastVIDS) so be on the lookout for that when these figures start showing up in collectors hands!

Don't forget to like, comment, and share the content on this blog! We Ragman fans are a small group, so we can't afford to not try and build a community devoted to the Ragman! Thanks for reading and tell your friends! See you next time!

Everything We Know About the Earth-13 RAGMAN - PART TWO of TWO!

Did the first entry into this short series pique your curiosity at all? Well good because we're back ALREADY with the most significant info dump yet on the Ragman from the 'League of Shadows' of Earth-13!

Oddly enough the information comes from a blink-and-you-miss-it holiday special released in 2021. Holiday specials are interesting publications in comics. They're almost always oversized anthology issues that garner varying degrees of interest from the comics community. We get them around Valentines Day, Halloween, Christmas, etc and the sales can vary wildly. Sometimes they sell based on cover art, sometimes on creative teams, and sometimes simply based on the characters chosen to be featured. Especially if one of the stories launches a new series or features a beloved character with a devoted fanbase that hasn't had the spotlight in awhile.

The 2021 'DC's Very Merry Multiverse Special' was most definitely an assortment of characters that could have escaped the notice of many regular comic buyers. There were the usual bait characters: a Harley story and a Batman story. But then we had Teen Justice, President Superman, Batman Beyond, The Injustice League of Unamerica, Booster Gold, Prez, and Lobo (and of course the League of Shadows story we're recapping here today).

Creator wise the rabid fan appeal wasn't all there, at least for those who primarily only follow trending creators. The Lobo story was written by DC powerhouse Tom King with art by Scott Koblish, which most certainly would have attracted some, but the rest hadn't yet attracted the same attention (though most of them certainly should). That being said our story of the League of Shadows featured a name not unfamiliar for Ragman fans, writer Sholly Fisch.

If you're paying attention, Sholly wrote the only other Ragman holiday story ever told in 'Batman: The Brave and the Bold #14' which is based on the popular animated series of the same name (I reviewed that issue back in 2015 here if you wish to read that). Sholly is actually a huge Ragman fan himself as he told me when I had the pleasure of interviewing him awhile back. So it's perhaps kismet that Sholly was tapped to give us the origin of the latest individual to wear rags in the multiverse in yet another holiday story, this time with art by Vanesa Del Rey, colors by Tamra Bonvillain, and lettered by Ferran Delgado.

Our story, titled NIGHT OF THE MAGI opens on the holiday of Saturnalia in progress on Earth-13. Ragman and the League of Shadows are engaged in what seems to be an annual bought of ritualistic combat against one another, fueled by the Lord of Misrule and Mother Destruction. The League is pitted against one another, seemingly as aware of the strings pulling them as they are of their puppeteers, and are none too happy with this tiresome tradition, though seemingly unable to do anything overtly to prevent it. While engaged in unwilling combat with his peers, Ragman's mind drifts back to ancient Egypt.

There we've met a Hebrew slave named Ya'akov who slips away from servitude as well as family to become another man entirely, passing himself off as an Egyptian named Amun. Time passes and Amun is now among his former persecuters, passing as one of them in Egyptian clothing, forcing the Hebrew slaves to toil beneath him to maintain his new identity. A slave recognizes him and in Hebrew calls out to him...the man he recognizes as his own son.

Back in the "present" the League struggles to stay alive as they unwillingly fight one another. But the Lord of Misrules spell cannot be broken as all must obey during Saturnalia. However Ragman claims he his Jewish and therefore under no such rules as he makes his move toward the Lord of Misrule. When suddenly Mother Destruction strikes at him claiming that he is now "also dead!" To which he retorts, "Yes, I am. For LONGER than you know." And we get another flashback...

Amun/Ya'akov gets to serve the Pharaoh as he so desperately wanted, but in the vein of "be careful what you wish for" as he was killed and mummified to accompany the decently deceased Pharaoh into the afterlife. But coming face to face with the Egyptian Gods of Osiris and Anubis he finds himself turned away from a holy afterlife. Instead punished to walk the Earth, abandoned by Heaven, forced to serve others. "You shall walk the Earth for eons, bearing the weight of your transgressions in the wrappings you wear. Defending those who have no defenders. Delivering retribution to the unholy, until the day your merits outweigh your sins and you earn your final reward."

Back in the present a portal to hell looses fire and tentacles onto the Lord of Misrule and Mother Destruction as the League now stands victorious. As they leave the embers of the fire remaining once the portal is closed, Enchantress asks after the wellbeing of Ragman whom replys, "It is said that saving a single life is akin to saving an entire world. In my youthful indifference, how many worlds did I destroy so long ago? With the lives I saved tonight another bandage dissolves and with it the burden of the sin it represents. Yet so many more remain. Perhaps the New Year that beckons on the horizon will be the one that strikes the balance and brings my journey to its end." And there our story ends.

And so we have learned MUCH more about the Ragman of Earth-13 than we have in any other appearance. Ragman is not modern Rory Regan, descendant of a family of Jewish lineage, protector of the downtrodden wearing a family relic of a suit of Rags cast into being by Rabbi capable of absorbing the souls of evildoers. But instead Ragman is one of the original Hebrew slaves out of Egypt, Ya'akov Ben Shimon who abandoned his people and his family in his own self interest, content with ruling over them instead. Murdered and buried beside a dead pharaoh and judged not by his own God but by the gods of Egypt to walk the Earth until he makes up for the misery he caused. The Rags he wears are the wraps he was mummified in, each now a sin to "work off" as we see flashbacks of him saving slaves from their captors all the way to taking on Nazi's.

Oddly enough his story mirrors more of that of the Phantom Stranger in the New 52 than it does Ragman of Earth-1. The Phantom Stranger in the New 52, as written by Dan DiDio, was revealed not to be a nameless stranger but instead Judas Iscariot, former disciple of Jesus Christ, who betrayed Jesus to the Romans for 30 pieces of silver. Standing in judgement before the council of wizards, Judas becomes the Phantom Stranger, his thirty pieces of silver now wrapped around him in a necklace, only to fall off one by one as he wanders in service to a higher calling. Given my fondness of the Phantom Stranger, I found it comforting to see some of his more recent core concepts adapted into the alternate version of another favorite character, Ragman.

So there you have it everyone! Everything we know of Ya'akov Ben Shimon, the Ragman of Earth-13! For now...

What do you think?! Let me know in the comments below!

Everything We Know About the Earth-13 RAGMAN - PART ONE of TWO!

The year is 2015. NCIS is the most popular TV show on air, avocado toast reigns supreme, "Uptown Funk" by Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars is everywhere, and Grant Morrison decides to drag comic readers waist deep into the frothing insanity of their storytelling via the continuing experiment from the prior year, 'The Multiversity'.

I'm going to be honest, I don't remember much from 'The Multiversity' or its collective of one-shots. There's good/tolerable Grant Morrison and there's "what the ever loving fuck did I just read" Grant Morrison. 'The Multiversity' fell into the latter for me, and as a result, I've wiped its memory and its plot from my brain.

That said, Morrisons bizarre fever dream births unto us a "definitive" (as much as something can be in the ever changing landscape of comics) Map of the Multiverse. A spherical rendering of the Earths in the DC multiverse, floating through the Bleed is the Orrery of Worlds. Bordered by the Speed Force, further bordered by the Sphere of the Gods (containing Heaven, Hell, New Genesis, etc), even further bounded by the Monitor Sphere, with the entire collective protected from the Source by the Source Wall itself.

Within the Orrery of Worlds we find a designation for Earth-13 and its DC "proper" counterparts. Here the 'League of Shadows' protects the Earth in its "permanent magical twilight". Comprising the team are some names you recognize, some you don't, including: Hellblazer, Annataz, Witchboy, Swamp-Man, Fate, Deadman, Enchantress, RAGMAN, and Superdemon. Superdemon of course being the Demon Etrigan rocketed to Earth from the doomed planet of Kamelot. Because why not?

Among the artistic rendering of Earth-13's League of Shadows within 'The Multiversity Guidebook' we see Ragman. As yet without a civilian identification, Ragman appears more mummy than anything we traditionally recognize as "Earth-1 Ragman". His wraps spiral off of him loosely in places, curling upward and away from him, as if drifting in some invisible etherial energies. His facial features are covered in the shadows of the only opening in his suit, red eyes bearing out at the reader.

Though some online resources note other issues from within 'The Multiversity' event as appearances of this new Ragman, the only one that is easily identified is from issue 2 of the main series (which serves as the end of the story proper). The issue actually opens with the League of Shadows on Earth-13 magically bound and guarded by what appear to be vampires. Superdemons human form says his rhyme to become his powered demon form and the League escapes. 

There we go. Our first words from our new Ragman. "Now something wicked this way comes." Given the magical nature of the entirety of Earth-13, it's unclear based on language alone if Ragman is merely uttering a poetic phrase that simply would mean "I got a bad feeling about this" to anyone else, or if we're seeing our first glimpse of power from Ragman in the form of some sort of extrasensory perception for evil/ill intent. Maybe Rags has a magical spider sense on Earth-13? Who knows?

But the team goes through to face on Dark Sivana and his enthralled vampiric Justice League of Earth 43, the Blood League. True to his Earth-1 Gotham based counterpart, Ragman comes briefly face to face with the vampiric Batman before a spell from one of his teammates renders the vampires craving coffee instead of blood.

...annnnddddd that's the last we see of Ragman in 'The Multiversity' until a group shot on the final double page splash at the end of the issue. He's right up there in the upper righthand corner. 

We don't see the Ragman of Earth-13 again for two years until 2017's issue of Superman #15. Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason are telling the 'Multiplicity' arc of their Superman run. Superman is introduced (re-introduced? Who the hell knows anymore) to the Justice League Incarnate and goes on a recruiting mission to take on...whatever the big bad for the 'Multiplicity' arc is. Don't ask me, this is everything we know about Earth-13 Ragman, not everything we know about the events tangentially involving him. 

But of course as with any super hero meetup, the inevitable misunderstanding face-off happens on Earth-13 when Superman tries to recruit Superdemon. And the League of Shadows is there to assist their leader.

Here we get another glimpse into what the actual potential powerset of this Ragman is as he uses his rags to fully envelop and restrain Superman so that Superdemon can breathe hellfire at him. This is extremely interesting for several reasons. The first being that the rags extend off of him to fully encase another but he himself still remains covered in the rags, which you can see when Superman breaks free. Second, that he is powerful enough to restrain Superman, at least temporarily. And last but CERTAINLY not least, THIS Ragman seems to not have a weakness to fire! The Ragman we know and love has been documented as being weak to fire, but Earth-13 Ragman takes a FULL blast of hellfire from the mouth of not just a Demon, but SUPERDEMON, and comes out unscathed. 

THAT is most definitely important to note.

It's another three years until we see Ragman of Earth-13 again, this time in the pages of the 'Flash Forward' mini-series, issue number 4 in 2020. For the sake of brevity (and my own personal sanity) I'm again not going to bother recapping the plot of 'Flash Forward', let alone this specific issue. Ragman appears along with the rest of the League of Shadows as they face down other characters. He says nothing, and he exhibits no specific unique powers. But he's facing another powerhouse character which is an amalgam of Cheetah and the Creeper. So we can safely confirm that the strength we see exhibited in the Superman issue, holds true if he's able to handle someone of that power level.

It's in the following years Christmas Special where we REALLY get to know our new Ragman...but I'm not going to talk about that until Part Two, because this is ALREADY getting very long.

So let's fast forward another year to the 'Justice League Incarnate' series, issue number TWO! Here the Justice League Incarnate finds themselves on Earth-13 where they meet up with a contact for their current mission (again, go read it if you're curious. It's not important for our purposes). But here we find another parallel between the main DCU and Earth-13...a hidden bar for magicians and those connected to magic. In our world you'd know it as the OBLIVION BAR! But on Earth-13 we know it instead as THE TAVERN OF MYSTERY! Its name suggests that it COULD be part Oblivion Bar, part House of Mystery, but that's speculation for another time. Because here we see Ragman again in various shots around the bar.

And there you have it. Everything we know so far about the Earth-13 Ragman, except of course the plethora of details found in the 2021 'Very Merry Multiverse' one-shot, which we'll be covering next!

So let's recap what we know, or rather THINK we know!

1) Ragman is a part of the Earth-13 Justice League known as the 'League of Shadows'.

2) Ragman MIGHT have some sort of extrasensory perception for danger/evil.

3) Ragman can extend his rags to envelop another and restrain them.

4) Ragman and/or his rags are strong enough to restrain Superman (of Earth-1) and a multiversal amalgam character who includes the strength of the Cheetah.

5) This Ragman is NOT weak to fire as his Earth-1 counterpart is.

So what's next? Well I already told you...so are you ready to be introduced to YA'AKOV BEN SHIMON?! Come back next time for PART TWO!