BLACK MANTA

SUPER POWERS (MCFARLANE)

“Aquaman’s greatest enemy is the scourge of the seven seas, David Hyde whose heart is as cold as the ocean depths he hunts.”

Last week, I was talking about Challenge of the Super Friends in reference to its impact on the toy world.  Though the Super Friends and the Legion of Doom were in many ways meant to be parallels, right down to their membership, the Legion came up short on most of their toy coverage.  Much like Sinestro, Aquaman’s opposite number Black Manta, wouldn’t get his first figure until DC Direct came along.  Humorously, it was in a throw-back to a vintage line, Pocket Super Heroes, which, I feel, makes a solid lead-in to today’s DC Direct branded throw-back to a vintage line Black Manta figure.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Black Manta is part of Series 8 of McFarlane’s Super Powers line, under the DC Direct banner.  Manta’s actually been in the line before, as a purely Walmart-exclusive figure that wasn’t part of the assortment structure, and was on the rarer side of the Walmart releases.  So, he’s effectively new.  The figure stands 4 3/4 inches tall and he has 7 points of articulation.  The scaling is pretty good again; he’s a little taller, but it’s easy to write that off as being the helmet.  The articulation is pretty much the line’s standard, but the neck’s restricted by the cords running from the helmet to the backpack, which causes it to kind of spring back to a point just off of center.  The construction of this figure is using the same base body as Vigilante, with a modified torso to add the collar for the helmet, as well as unique parts for the head and lower legs.  The head is pretty spot-on for the classic Manta helmet, filtered through the Kenner aesthetic.  The paint work for this figure differentiates him from the prior release; the last one was lots of blues, while this one goes for actually black for the suit, as well as giving him red lenses on his eyes, rather than the yellow of the last one.  Generally, application is pretty cleanly handled, and he fits in well with the rest of the line, as well as the vintage stuff.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

So, um, I don’t think I’ve ever bought a Black Manta figure before?  It’s that whole Aquaman thing, where my dad has the whole collection devoted to the guy, so he just naturally winds up with all of the Manta figures.  It’s not that I *don’t* want a Black Manta, just I’ve never happed to get one.  Even this Manta was a bit of an impulse purchase, honestly.  I was ordering Booster, and I decided to see who else was available.  I knew I wanted Kilowog for sure, and since I was ordering, and I’d already gotten one Legion of Doom member from this run, I threw this guy in too.  He’s rather by the numbers, but he turned out pretty nicely, and he’s certainly a sensible fit for continuing the line, and a great counterpart for the original Aquaman.