Tag Archives: Justice

#3622: Justice

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , , , ,

JUSTICE

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

Fun FiQ Fact #0101: Vance Astrovik was originally introduced purely as the “present day” counterpart of Guardians of the Galaxy member Vance Astro.  After a split in the timeline, he became the second Marvel Boy, and eventually Justice.

As a kid, my earliest interactions with Marvel comics were largely through my dad’s ’70s and ’80s books.  My first real interaction with “current” books, at least as far as the mainstream line, was Busiek and Perez’s run on Avengers.  After the big launch that brought every living member of the team up to that point back for a reality-warping adventure fighting Morgan le Fay, they settled into a line-up of mainstays, joined by former New Warriors Firestar and Justice.  There was a poster of this new line-up, drawn by Perez, included in the issue that introduced it, which my dad pulled out of his copy and gave to me.  It hung over my bed for a good many years and only further cemented the run as definitive for me.  I’ve longed to build that version of the team in toy form since that poster came out, and it’s been a slow-going experience to say the least.  A particular hang-up has been Justice, who has, up to this point, not gotten any figure coverage that wasn’t “Vance Astro.”  Hey, look, a Justice figure!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Justice (or “New Warriors Justice” as he’s listed on the box) is figure 3 in the Void Series of Marvel Legends, which is the first Avengers-based line-up of 2024.  Vance has had a number of different looks over the years.  This one specifically goes for his second look from New Warriors Vol. 5, which was right around the Marvel Now! era.  It takes elements from his prior designs and is notably pretty similar to his Perez era costume, while still being a little different.  I’m still partial to the Perez look, of course, but this one’s not bad, and it’s technically “current.”  The figure stands 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation.  He’s based on the 2099 base body, which is a respectable match for Vance’s usual build.  It’s interesting that it’s not using the modified versions of the arms and legs, without the visible pins, but there seems to be some sort of strategy to which version gets used for which figure.  Justice gets a new head, upper torso, and cape, all courtesy of sculptor Dan Mitchell.  The head is decidedly dialed into the 2014 Vance look, which is, as noted, no my go-to, but I can’t help but like this sculpt nonetheless.  I feel it does a really nice job of matching the energy of Speedball sculpt in particular, and I really liked that one too.  The new upper torso is designed to work in tandem with the cape sculpt, to give him one seamless design.  It’s very clean and concise, and works well to capture the design.  Justice’s color work goes for a slightly more reserved take on his look, which works well for the specific design they’re aiming for.  Paint application is all pretty sharp and clean, which is definitely key for a design as simplistic as this one.  Justice is packed with two sets of hands, in fists and relaxed, as well as the tendrils to the Void Build-A-Figure.

THE ME REMAINDER OF THE EQUATION

With each New Warrior we’ve gotten in Legends, I’ve hoped we might be that much closer to getting Justice.  It’s been a wait, for sure, but I kept hoping.  I knew he’d be the last proper member I added to my Avengers line-up, and sure enough he was.  He’s not in the right costume, but, honestly, I don’t care.  I got a Justice figure, and he’s really, really nice.  I’ll take what I can get, especially when what I get is as solid as this figure.

Thanks to my sponsors over at All Time Toys for setting me up with this figure to review.  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay storefront.

#1209: The Flash

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , ,

THE FLASH

JUSTICE (DC DIRECT)

flashjust1

A quick glance around the internet tells me that this may be a slightly controversial opinion, but I really love the work of Alex Ross.  Marvels and Kingdom Come are obviously the standouts, but in the late ‘90s/early ‘00s, his work was the best source of classic DC Comics material out there, which was something of a godsend for me, a classic comics fan born into the wrong era. In that regard, his 12-issue maxi-series Justice, which was effectively Challenge of the Superfriends on an even more epic scale, was right up my alley.  The fact that it got a whole line of figures courtesy of DC Direct?  Icing on the cake.  Today, I’ll be looking at my first figure from the line, Barry Allen, aka the Flash!

THE FIGURE ITSELF

flashjust2The Flash was released in the first series of Justice figures from DCD.  This was only the second Barry Allen Flash we’d gotten from them, and the first time he’d been released solo.  The figure stands about 6 1/2 inches tall and has 9 points of articulation.  Not a ton of movement, but it was an incredible step up from the prior Kingdom Come figures, which had what can be described as “minimal” movement at best.  He’s based, of course, on Alex Ross’s depiction of Barry from not just Justice, but also the tabloid-sized specials DC put in the early ‘00s.  It’s really just Barry’s classic costume styled as if it were made from real fabrics and worn by a real person, but that’s a pretty good look.  The sculpt on this guy was handled by DCD’s main sculptor at the time, Tim Bruckner, and it’s not a bad stab at this particular design.  The main issues I would cite with this figure come from its desire to be two different things simultaneously.  They wanted him to be in a sort of a running pose (something no Flash figure they’d released up to that point was capable of pulling off), but also be able to stand up relatively straight, like the rest of the line.  The end result is a figure with a rather static and stiff upper half, and a lower half that looks to be mid-lunge.  With a bit of careful posing, you can get him to look fine (which is more than can be said for some of DCD’s later output), but he always seems ever so slightly off.  On the plus side, there’s a lot of fun detail work on the sculpt.  The costume sports plenty of wrinkles and stretched fabric, to make it more convincing that he’s not just sporting body paint, and there’s even a seam running down the front, showing how he gets the costume on and off.  The boots are heavily wrinkled and very obviously a different material than the rest of the costume, and there’s even the appropriate treading on the soles.  The head is some pretty solid work as well; the face under the mask displays Barry’s goofy charm pretty well, and the mask has a seam running across the forehead, much like Adam West’s Batman Cowl.  The paintwork on Flash is pretty good, but I have one small complaint: they used gold in place of yellow.  It’s not an uncommon practice, and this is far from the first Flash to do so, but when companies do this, they almost always use this dark and rather dull gold.  In the case of the Flash, this robs him of some of his costume’s boldness and clash, and on this particular figure, it has the unintended effect of sort of reversing the dynamic of his costume and making the red the lighter color in most lighting.  A more vibrant gold would have looked a bit better.  Apart from that, the application is all pretty clean, and I do really like the slightly pearlescent red they’ve gone with.  Barry’s only accessory was a rather large and unruly display stand, which was the same one included with every figure in this line.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Despite getting most of my DC Direct figures from Cosmic Comix, I actually got Flash from a Suncoast.  I think CCX had sold out of Flash by the time I got there, so I ended up finding him while on a mall outing with my Grandmother and my cousins.  I think he may have even been on sale.  I was quite excited to get him, since I didn’t yet have a Barry Allen in this scale.  He remained my go-to Flash figure until he was eventually supplanted by the Darwyn Cooke-styled Flash from New Frontier.  He’s not a perfect figure, but he’s a pretty solid one, and he definitely brings back some fond memories.

#0036: Green Lantern – Armored

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , ,

GREEN LANTERN – ARMORED

JUSTICE (DC DIRECT)

Today’s review is a piece of my quite large Green Lantern collection.  I’m a huge Green Lantern fan, so I have a tendency to buy figures based solely on the fact that they’re Green Lantern.  That’s kinda the case with today’s figure, based on Green Lantern’s armored appearance in Justice.  For those of you who don’t know, Justice was a 12 issue Maxi-Series released by DC Comics a few years ago.  It featured art by Alex Ross and was effectively a more modern day take on Challenge of the Superfriends.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Armored GL was released in the sixth series of DC Direct’s Justice line.  He stands just shy of 7 inches tall, and has 15 points of articulation.  Like I said above, he’s based on Green Lantern’s armored appearance from towards the end of the series, when the Justice League has their final showdown with the Legion of Doom.  It’s a neat design, and also very unique, which helps to break up some of the monotony of some of the other Green Lanterns.  The figure is an all new sculpt, which isn’t surprising given there was little room for reuse.  The body is pretty well done, though like many other DC Direct figures of the same time period, he has a slight pre-posed nature to him that doesn’t really work too well with the articulation given.  Granted, it’s nowhere near as bad here as it was on some others, so it doesn’t bother me too much.  There aren’t really any facial features to depict, but the faceplate looks cool.  Also, a really cool touch on the head is the face on the back of it.  In the comic, GL’s suit was actually Metal Men member Iron wrapping himself around GL for protection, so Iron’s face is shown in the back.  It’s a cool feature and adds a lot to the figure, almost making it a two-in-one figure!  The paint on the figure is solid, with little slop or bleed over.  GL’s only accessory was a stand, which is somewhere in a large box of stands from other DC Direct figures.  It was identical to the stand that was included with every other figure in the line.  It looked fine if you only had one figure on display, but any more and it just becomes overly large and cumbersome.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I got Armored GL from my local comic store Cosmic Comix during the store’s annual year end sale.  He was one of about 15 DC direct figures that I bought for 45% off of their original price (which brought his price to about $8.50).  I had held off on the figure before, but for that price it was definitely worth it.  He’s a fairly fun figure and I was glad to add him to my collection!