DCClassics.Com:
Superboy & Donna Troy

NoisyDvL5

Superboy (Kon-El)

Short and sweet I said, right? Okay… when Superman died in the early 90s, he was replaced by 4 new Supermen. One of them, a partial-clone of Superman (& later, Luthor), broke out of his accelerated growing chamber early and took on the mantle of Superboy after the real Superman returned from death. Superboy has most of the powers of Superman, but due to his mixed up DNA, he’s missing a few while having a few others that Superman doesn’t possess. In recent years, his costume has been simplified to a black t-shirt and jeans. I want a figure of that too, but I’m happy to get this one first. And to just throw in some complicatedness, his dead body is in the Fortress of Solitude while he’s running around in the books right now.

Superboy is based on the Sinestro buck, but he has plenty of new pieces: calves, a leg belt, a regular belt, a jacket, new arms, and a new head. First, I should talk about the height. Using the Sinestro buck is exactly what I wanted Mattel to do. It may be just a tad bit tall, but it’s closer than the young teen body used incorrectly on the college-age version of the Tim Drake Robin.


Of the new pieces, I like most of them. All those wonderful 90s straps and belts are well done. The head sculpt and separate glasses look great right down to the raised eyebrow. You can’t pose him this way unaided, but if you push his head down and tilt the sunglasses so that he can look at you over the rims, you’ll see just how good this head sculpt is. I tried to snap a picture of it, but I just couldn’t capture it on the camera. Just don’t press down to hard on the glasses of course – we’re not responsible for broken toys! He is missing his earring, but I guess that’s okay in the larger scheme of things. Finally, the jacket and new arms have good detailing throughout and it’s a nice change to the mostly “spandex” line.

There is really nothing to report on the paintwork for this figure. Everything is pretty clean. Initial press pics featured a blue neck and shoulders, but Mattel caught it and had him fixed before he got too far along in production. On the back of the jacket, though, is a different odd paint choice. The symbol back here is a yellow emblem on a black background. It looks good and I like it, but to be accurate to the original look, it should be solid yellow with stitching details (as seen on the MOS figure on the far left). As I said, it looks good as is, so it’s a minor complaint.

Articulation is standard for the line with two things of note. One, the bicep swivels are sculpted to look like folds in the fabric which is pretty cool. And two, the head sculpt has some really good range. It’s not where I want it to be just yet, but he’s much improved over the previous couple waves which ended up with restricted swivel joints.

I’ll have to add a picture of the buttons later, because I forgot and because I know we all care so deeply about them. I haven’t been able to determine the origin of the Superboy button, which features an out-of-costume Superboy lifting the Kent’s tractor over his head, but Donna’s button features cover art from New Teen Titans #1 (1980).

Overall, these two figures have different destinies on my shelves. Donna’s a couple mistakes shy of being a decent figure. Plus, she’s not in my favorite Donna Troy costume, and that’s going to leave her destined for the middle ranks of the shelf where I can’t see the attached lasso or her crazy eyes.

Superboy is from one of my favorite eras of comics and is part of one my favorite childhood storylines and he still managed to meet my expectations. I’m happy with the height, the sculpted details, and the head sculpt in particular. I really treasure my DC Direct Reign of the Superman figures.*

I initially missed the Cyborg Superman, but my future wife found him at a comic shop, still at regular price, long after his price had skyrocketed and grabbed him for me. I picked up the other three while I was working on my first big corporate assignment in Oklahoma City.

Because of my connection to the DCD ones and the sharpness of the DCUC set, I think I’ll be keeping all eight figures out for display right now. The Mattel Cyborg Superman leaves a little to be desired, but the DCSH Steel makes up for him. This new Superboy finishes off that set and has earned a spot near the front of my DC shelves. The kid looks great.

For more DCUC reviews, check out our DC Classics Collector’s Guide.

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29 thoughts on “DCClassics.Com:
Superboy & Donna Troy”

  1. Mattel really needs to get on the ball with the Teen Titans. Dick is going to be a problem because I want a young one to go with Batman and an older one to go with the Titans.

    There’s no way Mattel redoes Wally though.

    1. If we’re only going to get one, I think I want a Robin on the Sinestro buck because

      -it best represents his SP height.
      -He’ll fit better with the Titans.
      -I don’t like the little buck.

      The little buck won’t be wrong – it’s the right height for the green/red Robin III in the 2pk and it would be right for an early Robin too, but at that size he’ll go with Kid Flash to make an original TT lineup. I don’t think we’ll ever get the original Donna Troy look (I’d want one though), so I’m against Mattel making any of the others in their original, younger costumes.

  2. I kinda need a Dick Robin… One that can go well with Wave one Batman… But back unto these two… Kinda feeling the urge to buy a Superboy.

    1. Superboy is one of the nicer figures in the wave. I’ve been having trouble picking a favorite.

      For Robin, how tall are you thinking?

      1. a Young Robin (Pixie boots green speedo), but not using the little buck cause it looks strange… I can’t quite put my finger on it but something looks off.
        So the Sinestro buck is the better choice… small but not freakishly small.

    1. That’d be a cool setup. Who else would you like to see? My biggest want right now is a Linda Danvers Supergirl (before they went the animated route).

  4. They should have made Kon in the modern uni. The 90s one is a disgrace to the shield. But I do have to admit, the Four Horsemen captured the look well.

  5. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think that Donna looks bad in her closeup. You should have more closeups too.

    Superboy looks like the real deal. I’m gonna have to pick him up. The shot with the facing off against their DCD dupes would make a great wallpaper.

    1. Yeah, I need more. That’s one of the reasons we came up with the layered pictures for Iron Man. Would you like to see something like that for our DC reviews?

      I love the shot with all 8 together.

  6. Actually a lot of your pics would make great wallpapers. You should do that.

  7. You were far kinder to Donna then I was expecting. Superboy got some well deserved props though.

    1. I think she teeters right on that edge where there are things that could make you like or hate her. Nothing makes you love her, of course.

  8. That Reign of the Supermen line is one that DC Direct hit out of the park. It is too bad those figures command so much now on the secondary market. I know DC Direct doesn’t go back and do re-releases, but if they’ve got one series that demands it is this one. I wasn’t doing much collecting back in 04 when they came out so I don’t have any of them.

    1. Agreed. They’d be perfect for a 4pk. I wouldn’t mind either since, while I enjoy the memories associated with them, there’s a couple reglued breaks in that picture. LOL

  9. Wonder Girl looks like Megan Fox and Superboy looks like a young Charlie Sheen.

    Do the sculptors do that on purpose?

    1. LOL. I wish I’d thought of that angle when I was taking the pic, I’d have put a prop microphone in there. I had to photoshop in that mic when my idea for the pic changed.

  11. I wish my Superboy’s head had good range. It can tilt down and return, but up from the starting position is impossible and I’m afraid he’ll decapitate if I try to swivel.

    His hips only go up about halfway, too. Maybe three-quarters. They don’t seem to be stuck, so I don’t think it’s mine, but I haven’t seen anyone mention it. Is that a standard defect of the Sinestro body? His hip range is almost as bad as Harley’s.

  12. Those pics remind me of how irritating it is that the Walmart Eradicator doesn’t have translucent shades in what was a bargain basement wave in the tooling department.

    A lame thing about Donna? Goofy, gummy elbows that don’t bend past 45 degrees.

    I don’t mind the eyes on mine, but the new cards’ large photos of the gorgeous two-ups make all of the actual figures look lacking by comparison, like buying a Burger with a photo of a steak on the wrapper. Still delicious, but…

  13. Yeah I still can’t get over the elbows on the female teen body, most of the time I can’t even figure out which way to turn the arm so that the elbow is posed right since there’s so little definition.

    Still, despite the bad reviews we usually see I do still want to pick her up. I’ve got Superboy already and he’s marvelous, though it’s also one figure I wouldn’t have minded giving a little character. How about that classic trademark smirk he used to have in the 90s? I think it would have captured the fun and silliness of that era. Well, the stuff that wasn’t brooding and dark and had “Death” or “Blood” in the title 🙂

  14. Good point there. While it’s kind of silly, I love the character that the permanent expression gives to Copperhead. Keep the major characters stoic, maybe give them some expression in one of their endless variants. The lower tier guys who may be unknown to many could use some character! To their credit, they’ve done a nice job giving expressions or other extra details into more obscure characters that often end up outshining the big guns.

  15. My Donna Troy’s hips were stuck…So i tried the freezer trick. I was working them, and herd a satisfying crack! I thought, oh her leg was only stuck! But then I looked and…He pelvis had cleanly broken on the seam on the bottom. The pegs were all there, and her belt holds it together. BUT the good thing is that now her hops move, and are not loose or anything because of the shape of the peg. This is one time I was actually glad a figure broke! 🙂

  17. a- did you swap those Eradicator specs with the DCD? or did the initial release have the clear specs? (I don’t think they did, the MC re-release are solid.)

    b- you forgot to add the original Titans kidnapped “chosen” kids and trained them, only to give them time-locked memory blocks of their training, which is why Donna chose the name Troy. This also played into her “rebirth” in the DT mini (which also featured the first new DC ‘spinning star’ logo).

    c- did the DCD Superboy have shades? I’ve still got mine on the shelf for now (no w13 up here, yet) and I guess I either left them in the package (& lost in storage) or lost them in the last move?

    d- did you not take pics of the cardback origins for Donna or Superboy? does it even mention “Kon”? The issue he gets that name is one of a few I didn’t get before DiDio took over and ruined him as landlord of a brownstone. (WTF???)

    e- I totally want some of those HyperCrisis Superboys, including Black Zero.

    f- my vote for Robin I goes for the Sinestro buck (and again for Kid Flash do-over!). also, I wouldn’t mind them re-decoing the Flash into metallic red and changing Wally’s belt. better that than no Wally-Flash at all.

    g- any chance those F DCUC arms could swap with DCD arms? I keep looking at “jazz hands” Donna (black/Infinite Crisis) and thinking they need to go.

    h- rumored box set: Titans?
    classic TT? Robin, Donna, Kid Flash (Sin.buck), Speedy, Aqualad

    or NTT: FA Nightwing, Flash III, adult Donna (WW/F buck, Donna head), Changeling (red/white), Starfire/Blackfire, Cyborg (gold?), Raven (white), Jericho, Terra
    (aka Judas Contract? = NW, Donna, Gar, Jericho, Terra)

    or modern Titans: Nightwing, Donna (black), Flash, Arsenal (DCIH/Outsiders, altho I still want the yellow vest!), Tempest, Damage (FA)

    i- need a life if I’m wanting an all Titans wave with CnC Mallah (Grodd redo) and Brain (reuse DCIH)

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