First Look – DC Club Infinite Earths Starman

Greetings, DC fans! Welcome to our First Look at the brand new Club Infinite Earths Starman. No, not *that* Starman, the other one. No, no, not him–the other one! No, ah, never mind. The latest Starman to arrive on the DC Classics scene is Thom Kallor, the Legionnaire turned Justice Society member, and he marks the third official Starman to be released in the Mattel DC six-inch universe. He is also the last of the “original three” figures shown at SDCC last year as the pitch for the potential Club subscription. While he, Jay, and Atrocitus barely got the job done in terms of selling enough subscriptions to make the whole Club thing happen, they did pull through and the roster for 2012 has grown to be very strong. Here is to hoping that 2013 will continue with the strong collector-friendly characters and will be a cinch to move forward. While we wait for SDCC to see what the future holds, let’s take a look at the sparkly man from the future with a visage that you can literally “see right through.”

I am not going to lie, when faced with the offerings of the potential DC sub last July, the Jay Garrick and Metron figures are what really sold me. Atrocitus was fine, but I was (and still am) all Lanterned out and Thom Starman was a completely viable choice, but he has never been one of my favorite characters. I have never really been a “Legion guy” for some reason, but I have enjoyed some arcs here and there so I got a chance to get back into Thom when he showed up in Geoff Johns’ Justice Society of America run. Obviously, Johns’ take on the character was not what most people were used to when dealing with this Starman, but I suppose if you had traveled across time and several different Earths, you might be hearing voices in your head, too. That being said, once a character is indoctrinated into my personal superhero team, I am willing to give them chance in their new digs, and, truth be told, he was actually pretty funny.

However, from a little plastic man standpoint, being an interesting character doesn’t always mean your action figure will be exciting. The good thing for Thom, though, is that he has one of the coolest (in my opinion!) costume concepts in all of comicdom, and getting that star field pattern to translate into plastic takes a very basically-composed figure and makes him pop. Oh, and he also has the most virile beard of anyone in Classics up to this point. The former was most certainly present in the Four Horsemen’s two-up sculpt at SDCC last year, but the latter was added after a fan suggestion that Starman would be the perfect place to start the practice of providing an alternate head where appropriate. Club Infinite Earths is all about giving the collectors what they what, and Starman fans demanded an extra head!

Let’s go back to the star field costume for a moment, though. As I said, the Horsemen were able to cast the SDCC 2011 two-up in a translucent and almost smoky black with glitter to represent the star pattern throughout the body sculpt. These things added a lot of interesting visual cues to Starman’s designs, but as I am sure you are quite aware, there is a big difference between a handmade two-up and finished factory figure. As is often the case, a few people were able to get their hands on some factory sample rejects of this figure, so pictures have been popping up online for the past several weeks. It is always a good rule of thumb to take these (not always legally procured) samples with a grain of salt. I have a very early factory test shot of the DCUC series seven Blue Beetle figure and I can tell you, there are a lot of things that changed between test and final production. The same appears to be true for Starman.

Once the pictures started making the rounds, the question was raised as to whether or not Starman was made of a translucent plastic, as was displayed in the two-up. Be it the condition of the early samples or the pictures themselves, this has been unclear, but I want to put the question to bed right now–Starman IS cast in a black translucent plastic. The plastic in the (masked) head, torso, arms, thighs, and knees is semi-transparent and you can see the effect with the naked eye. I have provided a picture with the figure backlit (with high intensity) simply to make it easy to tell what is translucent. Please do not take it as an indication of see-through-ability (yeah, I made that up) under normal circumstances. So, yes, you can tell he is translucent, but maybe not as much as, say, Chemo. From what I can tell, though, the star glitter is superficial and not mixed throughout the plastic. I know that gave the figure some depth at SDCC, but since the actual production figure has a hollow torso, it probably does not make that much of a difference. I *think* the lower knees/shins are not made of the translucent plastic, but since the white boots are painted on, it might just be hard to tell. Overall, I think the translucence is a nice effect but I can understand if some don’t find it to be clear enough.

Taking those points, along with a solid masked head sculpt, Thom makes for a very strong JSA representation of himself, and if I were betting, I would say that is the look that they were going for when creating this figure. He is built on the standard medium base body (as opposed to the teen buck used for most of the male Legion figures). He is called StarMAN after all; he was StarBOY for most his LoSH run, if I am not mistaken. However, getting the extra head with the figure is a very nice touch and it certainly feels like something that was accommodated due to fan demand, so it is nice to see results of them listening. I really like the unmasked head; the eyes are very expressively painted, the hair style is right-on and he has the manliest beard in Classics yet. I like it so much that I am going to display two of this figure–one with the JSA and now one with the Legion (unmasked). I might also note that if you are a customizer of even basic ability, this head would make for a fantastic Niles Caulder (you know, from the Doom Patrol) likeness slapped on a compatible suit body. I am just stating the obvious here.

Ah, but I know some of you are pulling your hair out because you know that the figure does not have a sculpted Legion Flight Ring on his right hand. Well, I cannot do anything to soothe your pain because you are right–it is not present in the sculpt. For those of you who were looking for an exclusive LoSH Starman, that kind of stinks, but I do go back to my previous assertion that this figure was originally intended to be the JSA representation of the character, the bio on the back of the box even supports that. However, I realize that does not make it any better for my LoSH pals. I know we already got an alternate head, but man, I think an alternate fist would have just sealed the deal on this one; that way, collectors would have more display options and people might even go in multiples. I will say again that I am glad Mattel is listening to requests, and maybe this one just came too late or it would have put the figure over budget, but it tells me that we should remain vigilant and vocal about making realistic suggestions to figures in the sub. It is being branded as OUR sub after all. Hopefully someone can cast an Ultra Boy or Booster Gold fist so we can have Starman rings for all!

Overall, I think this figure actually turned out to be a strong offering. The translucent effect with the glitter is very nice and he looks sharp standing on the shelf. I will guess that JSA fans like myself will be more pleased with this figure that the LoSH faithful, but I do hope that the inclusion of the alternate head (along with Mirror Master’s corrected guns) is a sign that the collector crowd will be catered to with this line. That does not mean everyone is going to love every figure offered (yeah, I have Rocket Red up next), but I am pleased with what I have seen in person so far (Starman, Jay, Metron and to a slightly lesser extent, Atrocitus), and offerings like Mirror Master and Platinum make me very happy. I think Mattel is showing they are moving in the right direction with the Club IE, I just really hope SDCC delivers big time for 2013. Starman will be up for sale in July and I think most will find him a solid addition to their DCUC roster. Oh, and don’t forget that Jay Garrick goes on sale tomorrow–the Club is finally getting started!

*Thanks for reading and thanks to Toy Guru and DC brethren for sending this figure along. We have Rocket Red up next, I am sure that will be a juicy one…

Additional Links

• Discuss this article