Crosscheck Figure's Matt Murdock Review (Patreon)

It’s been a while since I’ve talked about a Crosscheck fig! Last time I was a little let down… 

But will I get let down again? Let’s find out!

Right out of the mailer, I had a little chuckle to myself at the irony of the tinted clamshell and blind bags :P

Hardy har har Crosscheck, ya got me! I laughed at something that is no-doubt problematic packaging behavior.

…does this make me a terrible person?

Yes.

Yes it does.

But let’s not focus me and Crosscheck’s terrible sense of humor! Let’s talk about the fig!

Mister Mathew Murdock here is more or less just a guy in a suit, but man did CC nail the look of this guy to a tee! I mean the facial designs alone look almost 1:1 to Charlie Cox with those tinted glasses and the stubble and the bleeding and the angst and the drama-chiseled cheekbones and… well you get the idea.

The most impressive aspect to me is the printing of his eyes under the glasses using the darker red ink. Like that’s such a cool detail that other designers would have just printed the red over the glasses and called it a day! It’s something really faint, but adds so much!

In fact you could really say that about a majority of this fig! Little printed details so minute that add a ton to the overall look!

The disheveled wrinkles in the suit! The slightly messy tie! The blood on the backs of the hands!

From a design standpoint, I’m impressed! 

However I still have to mention that while the facial designs are my favorite part of the fig, it goes a little south of the traditional Lego graphic design after that. Be it personal taste or something else, the wrinkle work (say that ten times fast) is a bit too high contrast for me.

Maybe if the overall fig was printed over a dark grey fig inside of light grey it wouldn’t be so jarring?

I’m also a little jaded. While the contrast of the linework is strong, I don’t personally mind it. But from the responses I’ve heard around the community some disagree with me on that so… tomatoes, tamahtohs.

But back to those cool heads though!

It’s interesting as to why Crosscheck decided to go with a standard shade of brown for the hair instead of a more compelling dark brown. 

Also it’s interesting to note how it looks on LifeBrick’s Daredevil fig that I reviewed a little while back.

It also sheds some light on how dark the stubble is on LB’s Matt Murdock head (something I didn’t even pick up on until seeing these two next to each other)

Of course, while I was tinkering around with old figs, I did a bunch of hair swapping. It’s interesting as to why Crosscheck decided to go with a standard shade of brown for the hair instead of a more compelling dark brown. 

During all my part mixing and mingling, I found that no matter what fig the custom CC hair was on, it looked a little out of place. Not that the shaping is too “out there” in terms of the Lego aesthetic, but it’s just too darn bright.

To be fair, the hair really does wonders for the likeness of this fig! When you swap the hair out for an official Lego piece, it almost always looks better with a standard hair piece... maybe it's the matte finish to it that also messes with me?

idk

I also found it fun that CC (or XC as they used here) decided to put their logo on the inside of the custom element! It’s not super crazy clean like a Christo fig, but it still harkens back to the old days when Christo always had his initials on the insides of his custom parts. My, how the times have changed!

Finally there’s the custom walking cane!

The cane feels a little over designed. Like it’s got too many textures and wraps and notches that go a bit overboard.

I like the color blocking the most, and do I like the wrist strap added on the top, but the extra depth of each rivet and deep leather crosswrap for the handle is too much. The colors could have just been printed and that would have suited me just fine.

That and it’s a bit short and stubby looking (I completely forgot to photograph a comparison, but it’s just a wee bit shorter than a standard 3L Lego Bar)

Oh and before I forget, there’s the unfortunate bigger problem that it’s a bit too small for a fig to hold in a hand tightly. You can sorta get a hand to hold it if the wrist strap is facing inward, but if it’s flipped and faced out the other way, it’s far too loose and falls out every time.

But where the cane falls short, the hair is a little too bright, and the suit can be a bit too much to look at in some lights, I still really like it!

At $77 and a preorder wait time of around six months, all things said, it’s a pretty great fig coming from Crosscheck! And a personal surprise for me given my disappointment with their figs in the past!

So yeah, it might not be for everyone, but I like it :)

What do ya’ll think? Too much detail? Not enough accessories for the price?

Let me know, because I had a lot of fun with it!