FLASH

JUSTICE LEAGUE (MATTEL)

Yeah, so I’m kinda running out of things to say about the DCAU. It was really good. Far better than anything else DC’s done in a very long time. There, I got that out of the way. When the DCAU’s fourth series, Justice League, premiered most of the cast were not household names. While the Flash was decently well-known, the show undoubtedly contributed to character’s current state of popularity. During Hasbro’s run with the DC license, they only released three Flash figures over the course of a decade (and two of them were the same figure with a slight change in paint). Thanks to Justice League , when Mattel took over, Flash was amongst the earliest figures they released. I’ll be looking at that particular figure today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Flash was released in the first half of the first series of Mattel’s Justice League line, alongside Superman, Batman, and Green Lantern. Both he and Green Lantern were short packed to two per case in initial shipments, so they were initially quite scarce. However, this basic Flash figure was released numerous times over the course of Mattel’s later Justice League line with virtually no changes. The figure stands 4 ½ inches tall and has 5 points of articulation. That articulation count was low even in 2002 (heck, ESPECIALLY in 2002, since that’s when Marvel Legends was started), but it both kept the figures somewhat consistent with the Kenner/Hasbro animated figures that preceded, and also preserved the figure’s overall aesthetic. The sculpt for Flash (and all of the other initial Justice League figures) was done not by anyone at Mattel, but rather by DC Direct (prior to Mattel’s holding of the DC license), who down-scaled their larger scale animation maquettes for the first seven figures. The end result is a figure that is quite faithful to Flash’s depiction on the show…mostly. Something’s always bugged me about the head, and I’ve never been quite able to put my finger on it. Other than that, the figure’s spot-on though. Flash’s paint is fairly simple. He’s molded in red, with painted details for the various yellow and white bits, as well as his face. The application is generally pretty clean, though he does have a bit of slop around the edge of his mask. In his initial release, Flash was packed with one of the light blue connecting stands that the first seven figures all came with, as well as a lenticular trading card.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Boy were the Justice League figures a long wait. Even after they finally made it to shelves (a year after the show’s premier), getting a hold of them, especially the short-packed Flash and Green Lantern, was no easy feat. I ended up lucking into Flash: there was a comic book store near the church where my aunt was getting married. My dad and I went there to kill some time and the store had just gotten in their case of these figures and had one each of the short-packs. He’s not a perfect figure, but he was the figure I wanted, and he was one of my favorite Flash figures for a few years. Even with the lessened articulation, he still looks pretty good.