MuddyRiverMinifgs - The Batman Beyond Wave (circa 2015) (Patreon)

Man, what a time to be a collector!

A fter nearly five years going quiet! After the great Flickr migration! After hell finally froze over! MuddyRiverMinifg’s is back! This is incredibly exciting!

You uh... you have no idea what I'm talking about do you... well let me get you up to speed!

Long story short, Beau here (aka iggs02, aka MuddyRiverMinifigs) has returned to the scene with re-releases of classic figs they used to produce as far back as 2016! Even crazier, is that MRM is selling them all at their original prices of just $25! With NO preorder wait time! Holy s---!

I genuinely haven’t seen custom figs go for that cheap in what feels like ages (probably since like 2016 no doubt)! And NEVER have I seen a resurgence of a brand after they go dark! Least of all MRM! One of the first big cornerstone customizers in the community! Dude, this is wild! 

Incredible stuff mostly on a meta "behind the culture" level, but how cool is this! I myself was floored when MRM even started posting publicly on their socials again, let alone firing up their Bricklink store once more! Not fully sure if they’ve got any new releases planned yet, but man am I pumped to see them back on the scene!

Naturally I picked up several of the figs I’m missing from their original production run! I felt like a kid on Christmas morning when I got these EIGHT figs in the mail less than a week after I paid for them all for less than $150!

Amazing! Just… wow! My brain is still struggling to process it!

I should preface this review that I’m going in to this with some nostalgia tinted glasses, but I’ll do my best to stay fairly neutral! So let’s get into it!

All of these figs stand the test of time in terms of their design. MRM was one of the pioneers in matching the Lego Videogame figs into a near 1:1 replication of them in the physical form! The designs in their own right are technically Lego Official (since they’re from Lego-Adapted properties) but they’re solid, and exactly what they’re intended to be!

It certainly helps that the Batman Beyond aesthetic certainly lends to the minimal print work that takes place on these figs. Out of the six BB figs, Blight suffers the most in its physical Lego adaptation by MRM. Though to be fair, it’s not like they could have made this fig look like a glowing irradiated skeleton *shrug*

The transparent head is no doubt what Lego would have also done if it was produced physically, but given how the torso is printed, I would have preferred to have seen a solid lime green head to match the torso.

The two big players here in terms of print and conversation, are Freeze and Inque. Both feature leg printing on two sides, as well as arm printing for Freeze (which I’ll be honest isn’t all that sharp if we’re looking at it critically)

The fuzziness on Freeze’s arms isn’t anywhere close to ideal, and the color difference on Inque’s torso vs her legs is a bit of a bummer. However looking at this in a 2016 perspective, Beau was printing these in his garage in his spare time and wasn’t on a mission for hyper-detailed prints. To be honest I believe that some of his earlier figs from 2011/12 were even commissioned prints by Christo before MRM started up their own “brand” retailing.

I’m getting off topic again... probably spreading rumors and talking out of my ass… honestly I’ve never heard directly from MRM that it’s true per say… but it’s still fun to think about!

Okay sorry, back to the figs!

Bruce here has a double sided head, strangely. It’s the exact same design front and back, only one of the sides looks to have had a second layer of print that thickens the linework. I’d be curious if that was intentional or not…?

Joker’s has the least to talk about, print wise, but the hair has that homemade feel to it that you just don’t get these days! At a glance I think this might have been a backyard spray paint + gloss job as you can see little paint clumps on the back of the head, as well as the speckles on the inside of the piece. (oh and no, before you ask I didn’t take photos of the rest of the included hair/parts as they were just official Lego elements)

Despite that however, for figs that were no doubt printed over half a decade ago, they’re great for their time!

They look good! Check! And they’re cheap! Double Check!

I am keen to hear what others think though! Is MuddyRiverMinifigs overrated? Does the quality match the price point for you? Is the preorder-shamble actually worth the time for figs cleaner than this? 

Let me know! :)

PS: I'll be reviewing Superman in his own post tomorrow ;)