Welcome back to another edition of Demanded Characters. This week I decided to take a little bit of a different take on the column. Mattel asked at the panel on Saturday at the NYCC that if the fans wanted a figure they had to be vocal and give them ammo to go back to the board room with. The Movie Masters line starts with the Dark Knight, but can it go further? This week we will take a look at a figure that would for sure be a must- have, but let’s give Mattel our support and get a Christopher Reeve figure.
Last week the masses called for a Starry Red version of Donna Troy first in the Classics line.
The tagline of one of the most popular movies in the Superhero genre was, “You will believe a man will fly”. Nothing was truer than when I first saw Superman: I thought he was real. As Clark Kent, Reeve was a klutz and hid his physique well. When he put on his spandex suit he became the Man of Steel. While George Reeves had a gut, and Dean Cain was a little too tan, Christopher Reeves was the comic book character come to life. While most would say parts 3 and 4 of the movie franchise were awful, parts 1 and 2 will live in movie history as 2 of the best movies ever made.
From Lex Luthor being played by a young Gene Hackman, to Terrence Stamp playing General Zod, the movies were full of images that seemed to just jump off a comic book page. In the present when characters are either taken to the extreme in comic style like Sin City or brought into the real word and made human like in Batman Begins, they all owe their success to the symbol of Apple Pie and the American flag that Superman brought to the big screen.
Reeve would forever be remembered as the Man of Steel, even in his last years in a wheelchair. He did not always want to be part of the Superman mythos, but in his last years he acted as a mentor to a young Clark Kent as Dr. Virgil Swann on Smallville; continuing his Kryptonian legacy to a new generation of fans. Many looked at the scene shared by the present and past Clarks and saw the resemblance between the actors.
While there was an attempt to revive the Superman franchise with Superman Returns, it did not live up to the expectations set so high by the first two movies. The new movie was too heavily influenced and it seemed like we were watching Part One all over except our beloved Clark and Superman were just too cgi and too much over-stylized copy. Lines were repeated without the same emotion or wonder which left us speechless in the past decades.
The bottom line is we need a Christopher Reeve figure, possibly as a box set or a four figure wave. I would say Lex, Zod, and Lois are must-haves for this wave of movie figures. But for me this is not to have another toy on the shelf. This is so when I look at the toy, I remember the great man it was fashioned after, and remember the day I thought a man could really fly.
Should Mattel continue the Movie line with the original Superman movie waves?
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