Whenever I get a Mattel figure with complicated paint work, I cringe a little bit. Surprisingly, Stel turned out really well. The metallic green is fantastic and the various little running lights, rivets, and pistons are painted well throughout. I did get a couple smidges of silver here and there, but it doesn’t detract from the figure. The only paint issue I had is an annoying one though. The black on the GL symbol doesn’t quite hit the mark. I also find myself wishing that Mattel would’ve opted to do the symbol area like they did Metallo – with the paint giving off a glowing effect. As it is, the symbol because the lesser of two annoyances about this figure.
I couldn’t do a mug shot because Stel clocks in a hair over 9″ tall which is a bit too big for my setup. I have included a shot of Stel from one of the comics in the photo above though. You can clearly make out Kilowog behind him – and significantly taller than him. But, as you can see, that’s not the case on the figure. Stel’s likely more than 2″ bigger than he needs to be. We recently asked Mattel about his height and they said:
He was designed to share parts with some other upcoming Collect and Connect figures and we cut the difference.
Now, the heavy rumor on these shared parts is for S.T.R.I.P.E. from the pages of JSA, but as you can see in the photo below, Neither of Stripe’s two looks match up well with Stel. I think this rumor is more about Stripe supposedly being the rumored DCUC19 C&C. That said, I don’t have any alternate suggestions either. He doesn’t look like any of the other large robots of the DCU like Brainiac 13, Mister Atom, or the Construct. There’s not really a dearth of them to choose from either. If it is S.T.R.I.P.E., then I hope there’s a lot of new tooling…
Overall, Stel is a great figure. He’s got an awesome sculpt and the crooked symbol aside, he’s painted really well for the complexity of the sculpt too. But his size does keep him being perfect. I understand the need for shared tooling, but knowingly making Stel a C&C when he should’ve been a roughly normal sized figure is just wrong to me. I’m not a scale freak by any means, but Stel being bigger than Kilowog is just plain wrong.
Still, the scale issue is just one aspect of the figure and it’s not enough to sour the whole thing for me. The sculpt and paint won me over and it’s cool that we’ve gotten nearly all the characters featured on the cover of Green Lantern #11. Hopefully, we won’t have to wait too long for Xax (if you’re not a GL fan, that’s the little grasshopper alien between Tomar & Nautkeloi), though I hope he’s a pack-in or accessory and not counted as a figure like Despotellis.
Hopefully, the wait for Star Sapphire won’t be too much longer (mostly for my sake) and we can get a few images of a completed Stel into this review. Thanks for putting up with the one armed review!
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Stel looks cool as hell, and I wouldn’t mind getting him myself. But I’m more than likely not buying most of the figures required to build him. Hey I have to eat too you know! As for the S.T.R.I.P.E. rumor, I agree that it would take some retooling and a new part or two, but it can be done. Great review man! Hope you find that Star Sapphire, because I feel your pain on these incomplete C&C’s. I have a few myself like Atom-Smasher, Ultra-Humanite, Darkseid, Trigon, and Validus. I just swap Validus and Ultra-Humanite heads on my original BAF Galactus, and make a weird-ass alien god. You know, to keep the other figures in line. HA!
Somewhere in the earlier days of IAT there’s a Chemo/Brimstone monstrosity from all the leftover/incomplete stuff I had at the time. 🙂
Wow, he’s huge, way out of scale. That sucks. Oh well, my set (including Star Sapphire) will be here Tuesday.
He is too big, but it is a good sculpt. I gotta find me a Star Sapphire. 😛
I guess the head is too big for MOTUC… If so there goes my plans to make a 200X Roboto out of that head…
It would’ve been perfect had he be the right size. LOL But now it is too big for a Roboto head. Good idea, though.
Way too much hyper anime detail in this sculpt . . .
That should be retired for DCUC as well.
Did you see Sodam Yat’s hair??
There’s just enough flaws to make this Stel another character, altogether, aren’t there? (now fighting urge to get another Robotman and bashing him with an extra GLC 5pk body…)
can’t decide whether to order w1 or w2 this wkd from BBTS. need to hit bank first, tho.
btw, did a body count. Stel makes Lucky #13 for the individual DCUC count.
wait, no. you don’t have GL Sinestro in that group pic. Nevermind.
One of things that I wish Mattel would have done is include a third head in the Nautkeloi/Medphyll set to make a classic Stel. It would’ve been a pretty sweet extra piece and been an incentive to buy one more GL base. Though, Stel doesn’t have bifurcated feet…
I had to go to EE to buy Sapphire, as BBTS sold out of her and w1. 🙁
by the by, Matty has most of the wave 2 figures already up for sale on May 16.
Maybe he’ll be reused for the Flash foe Girder?
http://www.hyperborea.org/flash/girder.html
I’ve heard Girder as a suggestion, but Girder always seem to be more chaotic and messy. Stel’s design is very structured and ordered. We’ll know by SDCC I imagine.
I love that group shot at the end, even with the missing arm. Who’d of thought we’d ever see this many Lanterns done so well?
It’s starting to shape up really nice. Getting more Lanterns and keeping the line diversity are conflicting wants of mine…
Perhaps Stel will be reused as some sort of battle suit or exo-type armor for a regular sized character. Lex battlesuit, etc.
That’s a cool idea. I could see it.
He’s a robot right? Just pretend the rebuilt him…only bigger.
LOL. Yeah.
@AmericanHyena I was gonna say something like that, lol. I think the bigger size makes him more badass. If ppl think he’s still too big you chould always use him as Titanium Man since the ML one is too small, lol.
If that Stel is wrong, then I hope to never see him right. Way too awesome. I guess it will take a lot of patience to hunt down all his parts on ebay.
I think he would still be a cool figure in his proper scale too though. Good luck with your piece hunt!
I was most disappointed by My Stel’s loose hip…Loose hips sink ships…Well he stands fine, but he doesn’t really want to stay in any poses and his leg falls off when you pick him up 😛 On a side note, the DC Direct Stel is closer to proper “scale” even if he looks like he doesn’t move at all…
Found the whole green lantern wave at Wal-Mart in Oldsmar, Fl. Great figures, I really don’t have a problem with Stel. He is perfect!
Got my GLC2 set in last night. Stel is amazing! The height can be bothersome, but he’s a robot, so I just assume he had an “upgrade”.
I love this Stel. My Stel also has an off-center GL logo, but luckily it’s not very noticeable. At first glance, he’s too tall. Then, you realize he’s an awesome giant robot, so who cares?
Yep, you can pry/peel the logo off the chest a bit and turn it, then glue it back down. It seems the square plug on the back was out of whack when it was molded.
I really can’t see any other character that share’s Stel’s fairly comic-accurate… aside from one of the X-men’s Sentinels. I mean they have the giant boots and everything! But that’s Marvel, heh. Looks like I have some customizing to do.
Finished stel today he is awesome I bought bothe the star sapphire and 3 pack just because I knew theose were first editions I know they’ll make more star sapphires but as waves get higher originals are scarce I like head swapping between red lanterns and green
I have access to 2 star sapphires, want 1?