Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom may not have made the biggest splash at the box office, but it left us with enough cool new designs for several waves of toys. The current one to emerge (okay, enough ocean puns), at least at Hot Toys, is the redesigned Black Manta.
After capturing the trident of King Kordax, he no longer needs modified Atlantean power armor to enhance his abilities. He then adjusts his costume to a more form-fitting dive suit, truer to the comics.
Mano e Manta
Thanks to LED lights, the figure’s backpack and helmet eye lasers light up. The trade-off there is that the mask is non-removable, with no alternate Yahya Abdul-Mateen II likeness. Perhaps fans who didn’t care for the movie can more easily display it with comics-based figures without a realistic headsculpt. After all, it comes pretty close to the way he’s often drawn on the page.
According to Hot Toys’ product description, this figure, “features a newly crafted metallic silver Black Manta helmet with red LED light-up function, also interchangeable battle damaged eyes. His iconic suit is skillfully tailored through specialized material to enhance articulation range, comes with a LED lighted accelerator backpack which is an essential part of his outfit design. Along with a splittable Trident in black and an additional one in translucent green that mimics the activation of the trident, interchangeable hands and a base for display.”
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom was considered the final film in the DCEU — or the “Snyderverse,” as some prefer. It at least ended on a high note for one of the grimdark era’s happiest heroes, with Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa) in a good place. Rumor has it he’ll be back in some form in James Gunn’s new cinematic DCU. Whatever the case, we’ll never forget that in at least one movie, he made the much-maligned underwater hero cool again.
Check out more official images of his nemesis Black Manta below. He costs $255 to preorder.
