IMPULSE

JLA (HASBRO)

“Bart Allen, the 30th century grandson of The Flash, Barry Allen, inherited his bloodline’s powers but no ability to control his super-speed. After reaching the age of 14 in only two years, he was brought to the 20th century. Having been raised in an artificial environment, Bart is just learning the ways of the real world as he attends Junior High School in Smalltown Alabama.”

While the Golden Age Flash didn’t have a sidekick in the traditional sense (though he did have a trio of comedic “sidekicks” for a little while, much like Plastic Man, Alan Scott, and Wonder Woman did during the same period), Barry Allen got one relatively quickly in the form of Wally West, aka Kid Flash.  Wally remained in the role until Barry’s death in Crisis, at which point Wally got promoted to just “Flash.”  It was almost a decade before Wally would get his own sidekick, a revamp of the Kid Flash idea, Bart Allen, aka Impulse.  Bart wound up rather successful in his own right, eventually taking on both the Kid Flash and Flash monickers.  But Impulse was always his coolest, and it got him the action figures first.  Let’s take a look at one of those!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Impulse was released in the third series of Hasbro’s JLA line in 1999.  Like Superboy, he was also available in the fourth boxed set, released through comic book stores and the like, along with Robin, the other piece of the “Young Justice” trio from the assortment.  This was Bart’s first figure, albeit only by a slight bit, as DC Direct also released one very close behind.  The figure stands 5 inches tall and he has 5 points of articulation.  As with the rest of the line, he’s heavy on the re-use.  He gets a new head, but his torso is the frequently re-used retool of Superman’s, and he’s also got the arms from Black Lightning and the legs from the Flash.  The head is sort of an attempt at approximating a few different artist’s looks for Bart into one, along with folding him into the general line aesthetic, and it’s not awful, but it does feel a little small.  The Black Lightning arms are a little long for the body, but the gloves at least match pretty well with Impulse’s design.  The legs have a good running sort of pose to them, but the boots are definitely *not* Bart’s from the comics.  To be fair, they really weren’t Wally’s either, so it’s kind of whatever.  In general, like Superboy, the figure is really bulky for Bart, who was always pretty skinny and appropriately teen (in fact even pre-teen) like in the comics at the time.  This appears to be some sort of imaginary older Bart as Impulse sort of figure.  His color work is decent enough, but the biggest issue is definitely that the orange of the outer portions of his lightning bolts is too close to the red, so the distinction is largely lost.  Also, he’s got no pupils for some reason.  Beyond that, the application is pretty clean, so there’s at least that.  Impulse is packed with a display stand, this time in white.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

My first exposure to Impulse was an issue of his solo series, which got handed to me as a free give-away at an early Baltimore Comic-Con I attended, more than likely *in* 1999.  I loved the issue, and it got me into the whole series (which I had a subscription to until its cancellation years later).  I developed a particular attachment to the character, and ended up getting this figure, I feel almost confident at the same time as Superboy.  He’s never been a perfect figure, but he’s always been one I very much appreciated.