Welcome to the (current) conclusion to our DCUC series 14 First Looks. Today we will be checking out the son of our previously-reviewd Alan Scott – Obsidian! Despite the very unfortunate fact that, due to trade mark issues, Mattel had to put his alter ego name on the packaging, the son of a Green Lantern will always be OBSIDIAN to me. And probably most everyone else. With the addition of Obsidian, our JSA numbers just keep growing too, so that is always a positive note for me, and, of course, he helps you get one step closer the building up that Ultra-Humanite.
Obsidian has had an interesting go of it in his lengthy comic history. Introduced in 1983 as the aforementioned son of Alan Scott and Rose Canton (the villain Thorn) Todd here was a twin to his sister Jade (of Green Lantern fame) and put up for adoption at a very early age. He was then placed in an abusive home where he remained until he set out to find his long lost sister with whom he joined along side in Infinity Inc as a JSA legacy kid. With a touch of his mother’s mental illness, Obsidian has used his shadow powers for both good and evil and from a team affiliation standpoint, he has most recently been the head of security at the JSA brownstone. Importantly, he is also one of the first (and few) openly gay comic book characters residing in one of the “Big Two” universes.
I personally have always been a big fan of Obsidian’s costumed look. He did spend sometime as just kind of a black shadow outline, but it was never as interesting to me. I really like the design and color of his classic costume the figure captures them both quite well. The blue in particular is very nice and I can assure you that you don’t have that color on your DCUC shelf yet, so he is sure to stand out. His belt and cape clasp are also painted in a nice metallic blue that adds variety to costume and his gray cape is once again made of a nice soft plastic. This does bear repeating though: Mattel needs to make all capes (and hair for that matter) out of this material going forward. It is soft and very flexible but has the aesthetic value of keeping the sculpt intact.
Like his series pals, he is also very well made and has strong plastic and tight joints. His head sculpt is pretty dynamic in terms of expression and I think the 4 Horsemen were trying to represent the fact that Obsidian has been both a good and evil character, so in that regard it is successful. In fact, even though his face is mostly painted black due to the mask, there is a lot of facial detail with forehead lines and eye creases that bring out some plastic personality. His hands are also unique and posed in such a way that I can just see some dark shadows coming out of his finger tips.
Obsidian also comes with his button and monkey arm for his accessory so he does not score quite as high in those terms as the previous three figures, but he really is not known for having anything that would warrent an accessory. Unless you count some shadow power stuff, which would be cool, but I am not going to sweat something like that – makes me sound demanding, or something.
So, be sure to start scouring your Wal-Marts soon for Obsidian here, he makes for a colorful and unique presence in your display. Now, we just need his sister so we can play family renion, Mattel, you have a goldmine opportunity with the Green Lantern Classics line, I would love to see it extended past two series and Jade would be a great fit there.
We hope you have enjoyed these First Looks at [part of] DCUC series 14. Hopefully we will be able to procure Hourman, Zatanna, Tyr and their monkey chunks so we can bring you a full look at this assortment. In any case, these should all be hitting your local Wal-Marts in the next month or so.
*Big shout outs to Toy Guru and all of the gang at Mattel, thanks for making these little previews possible!
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