SINESTRO

SUPER POWERS (MCFARLANE)

Though it served as the most visible media presence of DC’s heroes for a long stretch of time, Hanna Barbera’s Super Friends didn’t have any direct toy tie-ins. Both Mego’s World’s Greatest Superheroes and Kenner’s Super Powers were clearly drawing from the show’s influence, of course, but there were a great many characters, even notable ones from the comics, who didn’t get coverage. Green Lantern and his evil counterpart on the Legion of Doom, Sinestro, were both left out of Mego’s run, and while GL found his way into Super Powers, Sinestro remained unlucky, not getting his first figure until the DC Direct days. It’s fitting, then, that he would be added to Super Powers by (what remains of) DC Direct!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Sinestro was released in Series 6 of McFarlane’s Super Powers continuation, which they released under the DC Direct banner. He’s the first of two Sinestros released in close succession, this one based on the character’s classic blue and black, while the other is his more modern Corps uniform. He pairs off in Series 6 with an updated Hal Jordan. The figure stands about 4 3/4 inches tall and has 7 points of articulation. Sinestro has typically been depicted as tall and lithe, something this figure’s stature captures. He’s taller than the average Kenner Super Powers figure, but in the way he should be, rather than in an “out of scale” sense like some of the line’s earlier offerings. The sculpt is all-new, and pretty decent. It definitely feels like it captures the Kenner style pretty well. You can certainly see where elements of it were designed with re-use for the Corps model in mind, meaning he does ultimately wind up with some costume details that are a little outside of the intended era. The collar in particular is just a little too modernized in its shaping. His head is likewise a tad more modernized, calling to mind his DCAU appearances, and lacking the larger forehead typical of classic Sinestro. None of it’s bad, mind you, and Kenner wasn’t always 100% faithful in their own figures, so he doesn’t look entirely out of place. Sinestro’s color work is pretty solid, hitting the usual colors, and feeling pretty on the mark for what a Super Powers paint job should look like. Sinestro is packed with his power battery, which, like the figure is maybe just a touch too modern. In reality, Kenner would have probably just reused Hal’s, so getting something different at all isn’t so bad.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

After being won over so thoroughly by the Blue Beetle, I’ve gotten more invested in this line as a whole, so I’m looking more at some of the other figures that would fit well with my vintage set. I happened to find this guy at the Walmart close to my work. He’s not quite as on the mark as a few of the others I’ve looked at, but he’s still a marked improvement on the earlier releases, and a solid counterpart to my vintage Hal.