This is my third of the new McFarlane line of DC Multiverse figures. The weird thing is that McFarlane is owned by Todd McFarlane, the creator of the Spawn comics series published by Image (not DC) and who used to draw Spider-Man for Marvel. The McFarlane figures are bigger than the older Mattel ones (7 inches instead of 6) and they really have better detailing.
This is all really obvious with the Azrael figure. It's from the recent Elseworlds miniseries Curse of the White Knight, which was the sequel to the White Knight series about the Joker going sane and seeming to become a good guy. I haven't read the sequel, but apparently Azrael is brought into the mix.
Back in the early 90s, Azrael was created by Batman editor Denny O'Neil and future Marvel bigshot Joe Quesada as the latest in a line of assassins who serve the Order of St. Dumas. The Azrael of the that time, Jean-Paul Valley, eventually stepped down from being Azrael and became Batman for a little while. But then he became Azrael again before dying.
There was a DC Multiverse figure of that Azrael back in the 2000s or 2010s but it's not very good. For some weird reason the head is permanently tilted down, so he's basically always looking at his feet.
So while this White Knight version isn't the same as the 90s one, it's a lot better. The head isn't tilted down and there's a ton of detail. The little cape strands are even flexible to move around. The coolest feature is ironically the flame on his sword can be slid off to make it a regular sword.
If there's one complaint the figure's a little on the top-heavy side. It makes him a little harder to stand, even on the included stand. Still, overall it is an awesome figure and really the best version of Azrael that's commonly available.
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