The articulation is standard for the line. The neck articulation is a ball-joint, but has limited up and down rage. The figure features the usual complement: ball-joints at the shoulders, swivels at the biceps, wrists, waist, and thighs, hinges in the elbows, knees, and ankles, the ab crunch, and the 4H hips. Nothing too much of note here other than my continued whining about the lack of rocker ankles.
The paintwork was almost exemplarity here, but I did get a couple of odd spots on the chest. Overlooking those, the silver on the buckles is great, the wash/detail on the “leather” parts of the costume looks sharp and makes for a really nice looking figure. The only color aberration here is the decision to mold the upper legs brown and paint them to match the flesh molded calf piece. The two parts of the knee aren’t even close to matching. I’d prefer the whole thing to be molded flesh and paint or to be molded in the secondary color and both painted flesh, either way would look better than this, but it’s a small nitpick on the figure.
Atom included no accessories which is fine by me, but I do lament that this figure wasn’t included in a wave that had variants. I skipped over it before to save it for this very paragraph, but the Atom is a figure that screams out for a variant. While the Atom initially didn’t have any powers, he did gain some later in his career. The Atom fought the reluctant, radioactive villain known as Cyclotron (which has nothing to do with the Super Powers Cyclotron) and, as a result, gained super-strength & endurance, invulnerability to radiation, and the ability to throw an atomic punch (ouch!).
Once he gained those powers, Al redesigned his costume to feature some elements of Cylcotron’s (who had previously given his life in an attempt to stop the Ultra-Humanite once-and-for-all). Mattel could’ve easily produced a variant with a new head, gauntlets, and deco changes, but this figure came in a year where the variant concept was pretty much dropped (unless you’re Hal Jordan). Just a shame really, I’m not sure I want the second Atom costume in the subscription, but I wish Mattel would get to it somewhere.
Overall, this is a simple figure, but I’m so glad to finally have it. The new pieces and paintwork really did their job and made for a great figure. Yes, he’s over an inch too tall for the sake of accuracy, but I don’t think he’d look right if he had been made that short. I might’ve liked to see him closer to 5.75″, but I’m just not going to quibble over fractions of inch. Plus, this figure is such a vast improvement over those awful DC Direct figures that any Atom fan should be at least half-satisfied. We just need to get the later costume and we’ll be all set.
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By the time of Al’s demise in Zero Hour, his height had been diminished to the point where he was lampooned as being “Puck from Alpha Flight.” So this figure is just fine by me. I wouldn’t mind seeing the 60’s suit variant as well, hopefully in the sub given that his chances of being revisited in the main line are not looking good at all nowadays.
I saw a link to a panel of Al talking to two kids, both of which were taller than him. It’s kinda the opposite of Nekron where bad artists drew him bigger than intended and stuck us with a C&C.
I don’t have much hope for the main line at this point, particularly after the contrast between the sub choices and the retail choices post-NYTF.
I remember in Nekron’s first appearance in the GL Corps mini (c.83?) that he was over 50ft tall, definitely towering over Jordan, Katma, and Chumukk. In Blackest Night, he was shown closer to twenty feet, depending on the issue/artist, but definitely a minimum of 2x larger than the average hero.
The old Nekron was definitely huge, but his Blackest Night height just never appeared that big to me (and I read the whole 100+ mess). The two shots that I usually get pointed out to me are the initial appearance (an exceptionally foreshortened shot) and another one in #6 (I think) where he’s standing at a gate and appears vastly taller than the people that are actually really far behind him. Neither convinces me for obvious reasons. The problem is the height is wildly inconsistent in Blackest #4-8. His head and torso is comparable to the average hero, but he is sometimes taller and sometimes not. His head is comparable to the Guardian he slays, his upper body similar in stature to Barry when he gets close, he’s barely taller than the Black Lantern Bart, his heart is the size of a normal human fist, he’s the equivalent size to Sinestro in some panels, but then dwarfing him in others.
I still don’t have him in hand (I need to get around to shipping that crappy wave out of my BBTS Pile of Loot), but I’m positive that C&C is just too big based Reis’ own artwork. I assume, like Swamp Thing, that Nekron could grow to be that size (the only way to playoff Reis drawing him all funky sizes), but I still don’t want him that big. Swamp Thing, Nekron, STEL, & Rocket Red all have to go on a shelf a few feet behind the other figures. 😛
Reverse Flash comes up to the lower exposed rib on Nekron’s chest/mid-bicep.
Granted, this is the Blackest Night version and you note that he’s a different height in nearly every panel, so…?
(huh. just noticed Thawne’s Chinese coding is on the inside of his left foot, and the third line was too low and smeared across his treads. lol)
Great review. I just have to smile at all the JSA goodness in this wave and the group pics are amazing. I do really wish that Jay was coming with two alternate heads though. One young head for him and one older head for Alan. They’re going to be mismatched.
Agreed. We need those guys younger. Alan could almost fake it, but Jay will definitely be too old. It’s a shame Mattel can’t have a larger plan, even if parts of it never come to fruition.
if it’s just white paint at the temples, Jay could be corrected with a dash of brown paint to his hair. The possible aged facial sculpt, will be another matter.
That’s what I’m wondering. I have an “younger” head for Alan that was cast for me, but I’ve never gotten around to painting it.
Who casted that?
Oh hoky cats that picture of the DC Direct figures!! You know the current Old Spice ad where the guy’s brain ejects from his head and then explodes, leaving the spokesmodel unable to speak? Yeah. Like that.
It’s really too bad Mattel overly relies on the buck system, I’m kinda thinking GA Atom needs to be a bit shorter. But yeah, in an imperfect world, better this than that…that… blablusnnnr bark! Bark! 🙂
I wish Mattel had shorter thighs to call on in the buck system. The buck system could be great, but it needs a little more investment.
When I was trying to find a good pic of the DCD Atoms (I should know to always check CTR first), I ran across some forum posts decrying this figure and telling fans to get the DCD instead!! O.o
As a character known for being short, why shouldn’t that be more of an issue? He doesn’t have to be as tiny as that Young Justice Robin, but he should at least be a full head shorter than the other heroes…
If folks want it to be a bigger issue, I wouldn’t object. When I mentioned accuracy vs aesthetics, I meant that sticklers would be stuck with a Robin-size Atom and that wouldn’t look good. There’s definitely room for it being better and still inaccurate though. A full head would be fine, that’s the 5.75″ that I think would be just about ideal.
I’d be more adamant, but he just looks great in that group shot.
I’d have to go a maximum 5.5″ for Al Pratt to look “right” compared to his teammates. that’s my only complaint about him.
(altho, if Mattel were to do a line of Minutemen for a Watchmen line to complement the upcoming “prequel” series….this body with a modified Hourman head would make an easy Hooded Justice. just saying. yeah, I’m in “custom mode” again, instead of “writing mode”. lol At least I don’t have the promise of an actual book hanging over my head like a certain large, recuperating friend of mine. 😉 but I digress….)
He’s not short enough. The best modern interpretation in comics was Mike Parobeck’s short-but-muscular, 60ish version in the 1980s JSA.
But at least he’s around in some version. And great pics and write-up, Daniel!
Sorry–I mean Dvl!
lol Either works!
He could definitely use to be a little bit shorter, I just didn’t want to make a… uh, mountain out of a molehill so to speak? I understand if it bugs some more than others. I’ve seen him drawn smaller than kids he’s talking to which kinda bugs me, but I’m happy with him a little taller than too short.
And thanks!
How old were the kids? I was over 5 feet by the time I was 8.
5′ 1″ is really, really short. Wolverine is supposed to be 5′ 2″ and he’s a midget, too (hence the term many villains use for him, “runt”).
Fun fact about Ray Palmer (This ties in with Al, just stay with me.)
Ray is named after science fiction editor Raymond Palmer, who edited the infamous Shaver’s Hoax, wherein Palmer and Richard Sharpe Shaver published some crazy stories about Shaver meeting a group of miniscule aliens. You might think the aliens are why Gardner Fox named the new Atom with shrinking powers Ray Palmer…
The real Raymond Palmer was four feet tall and a hunchback. Suddenly, the second Atom seems a lot meaner, eh? It even sort of calls back to Al, who was almost-but-not-quite a midget.
Anywho, I’m a colossal nerd who knows too much about comics and felt like sharing that bit of trivia. =P
Thanks! I’m pretty sure you need to post more… 😀
Hi is it just me or Atom Smasher and Al share the same head sculpt? I have them both and viewing them together they seem the same. Thanks.
So Big Barda, Starfire, Robin, and Kid Flash all end up way too short, while a guy who’s major physical attribute is his (lack of) height ends up normal sized?
Honestly, they probably could have gotten away with using the Robin/Kid Flash/Beast Boy body for this guy. Not only was that body really short (too damn short for most of the characters it was used for), but it was also too beefy for the characters it was used for. I think it would have looked much better for GA Atom than for Tim Drake.
Agreed. maybe keep the adult biceps to show off the “atomic guns”? lol
and I can’t believe you left Sinestro off your “too short!” list! gah!
;p
Well, it wasn’t meant to be a definitive list, just a few examples. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Or, it might be that Sinestro shipped in the same wave as the Tim Drake Robin, which somehow makes Sinestro not the most grossly undersized figure in that wave. Also, Mattel has at least made an effort to release a corrected Sinestro. They’ve made no such attempt with most of the other wrongly-scaled figures.
I’m with you, Noisy. The figure looks so good in every other respect that I don’t care that he’s not short enough (unlike the ridiculously too-small DCD monstrosities). If you’re really concerned about it, one can bend his knees a little, or stand him next to one of the taller JSA figures, like Starman.
Also, on my path to completing the All-Star Squadron, recently I did make a custom of Al in the later outfit:
http://www.criticalmess.net/index.php?topic=16374.0
It’s not rocket science, Mattel! But I’m not sure how they’d get this one out in the current release model.