We’re all just babes in toyland this week, aren’t we?
Pictures of action figures have been flying down from Toy Fair like meteors off an asteroid and, now, DC Direct’s released its catalog of statues, busts and replicas for May to Comics Continuum. Check out the full listing for yourself, there - - I'm going to comment on the ones that particularly tickle me.
If there's a DC character out there who better deserves her own bust than Power Girl, I'm positively stumped. This is probably the only item where double-D most definitely does NOT stand for diorama nor diecast.
Great protein in a shake! Obviously, it's a central conceit in superheroics that EVERY character has to have really defined musculature but, MAN... the Atom is jacked! I don't know, maybe I'm small minded, but the thought of a pint-sized hero being so big and him somehow fitting in time for weights amidst advanced subatomic research study just makes... me... feel... inadequate.
Seeing this figures draws my mind back to years 1996-98 (or thereabouts). To how poorly received the electro-suit was as an attempt to update Superman's image. To how the whole Superman Red/Blue storyline was even more poorly received. People were LIVID, as I recall. And yet, here we are, almost a decade and a half later, and it's getting honored with an elaborately-detailed, finely sculpted action figure. I guess everybody turns around after long enough, huh?
I don't have snarky comments for this one, except to say that it's totally awesome that this Man-Bat sculpture was designed by comics legend Neal Adams. I got to see some of his pure inks in the ESSENTIAL KILLRAVEN recently and I'm always in awe of how far ahead of his time the man was. I wish more of his work was coming out these days.
-- Tom Pinchuk is the writer of UNIMAGINABLE for Arcana Comics and HYBRID BASTARDS! for Archaia Comics. Watch out for the HYBRID BASTARDS! hardcover collection this March - - available for pre-order now on Amazon.com.