GREEN LANTERN

DC PRIMAL AGE (FUNKO)

Funko, holders of the licenses to everything you care about, have a tendency to slide from style to style, for anything that’s not Pops, anyway.  From 2018 to mid-2019, that style was Masters of the Universe knock-offs.  They did a bunch of horror icons and the Thundercats under the Savage World imprint, before moving DC into the style with their Primal Age line.  Me being me, I of course have the Green Lantern figure, and I’m gonna take a look at him today.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Green Lantern was part of the first basic assortment of the DC: Primal Age line, which was initially exclusive to Target, before showing up through a few other retailers.  So far, Primal Age has been the only of these Masters-inspired lines to get more than one series, so I guess Target backing them right out of the gate probably helped with that.  The figure stands 5 1/2 inches tall and he has 6 points of articulation.  Continuing the trend of the figures I’ve looked at from these line’s so far, GL is an all-new sculpt, rather than falling back on the usual heavy re-use of such a style of figure.  Of the two lines I’ve looked at, he falls more into the horror line’s style, being a more complete re-imagining of the character design through this new lens.  The standard GL elements are all there, but rather than a sleek super hero costume, it’s more battle-ready armor.  He’s got a breast plate instead of the green unitard thing, and a chain with a lantern charm on it instead of a logo.  Of course, he’s still just strait up got a domino mask, which does ruin the immersion ever so slightly, but what else are you going to do?  Though the chest armor is not removable in the usual Masters fashion, there’s a shoulder pad and leg piece that are, and it kind of recalls Man-at-Arms in its stylings.  The paintwork on this guy is pretty basic, but it does the job it needs to.  He has the usual colors for a GL, and that works pretty well.  He’s packed with an axe, mace, and shield, which are all molded in translucent green, so as to look like constructs, which is a pretty cool touch.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Something I’ve recently discovered about myself is that I actually don’t like the vintage Masters aesthetic all that much, so I really haven’t been pulled in by these take-offs of the style.  This guy almost got me, especially when they got really cheap, but I never did get one.  Max, on the other hand, did, and he decided that it ultimately wasn’t a figure he *needed* and since I’m the resident GL fan, he passed it onto me.  It doesn’t really change my opinion on this style of figure, but this guy’s pretty cool on his own.