Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Saving The Galaxy With Hope, The Blue Lantern Flash Figure Is A Wonderful Figure For An Obscure, Temporary, Character!


The Good: Good sculpt, Decent Accessory, Generally good coloring, Wonderful balance
The Bad: Could use just a little more articulation.
The Basics: At the climax of Blackest Night, the Flash was deputized as a Blue Lantern and now, DC Direct has made an impressive (but not flawless) figure of him.


Even if this were not my Flash Year, I think I would have wanted the Blackest Night Blue Lantern The Flash action figure. Out of nowhere, my collection of action figures embodying characters from the DC Universe has grown pretty substantially and when I was able to find the Blue Lantern Flash for $8 on sale at the back of a dingy little toy store my wife and I were visiting, I just could not turn it down. The DC Direct version of the very temporary character is so cool that left me very impressed and glad my wife picked it up for me.

For those unfamiliar with him, the Blue Lantern The Flash is a very impermanent incarnation of Barry Allen as the Flash. Near the very end of Blackest Night (reviewed here!), the Guardians of the Universe realize that the odds are tipping toward the utter destruction of life. They realize that the Black Lanterns are not more powerful than the other Lanterns, there are just more of them. To change the balance of the battle, the various Lantern Corps’ deputize recognizable heroes and villains to add their power to the massive battle for survival. Barry Allen is empowered with a blue ring of hope.

It is The Flash in his altered outfit that makes him into a Blue Lantern that is the subject of the DC Direct action figure of the character.

Basics

The Blue Lantern The Flash figure is a wonderful good sculpt, though it is not quite perfect, even on the sculpt level. The hopeful version of the fastest man alive stands 6 5/8" tall to the top of the figure's head. The Blue Lantern The Flash figure is available from DC Direct, though there is a lesser DC Universe version of the figure now on the market as well.

On the sculpt front, this version of the Flash looks much like every other action figure version of the character. He has silver wings molded to the sides of his hood and he has a sleek, aerodynamic look to him. He is wearing a unitard with big blue boots and a cowl that covers most of his face. Even so, DC Direct captured the heroic cut of Barry Allen’s jawline and made sure to include the blue power ring on the figure’s right hand. This version of the Flash is ripped with great muscle definition in the chest and abdomen.

Blue Lantern The Flash's costume is a very simple blue Blue Lantern uniform and on the surface, this blue and black outfit looks exceptional. The blue Blue Lantern symbol painted on the front of his chest combined with the white lightningbolt Flash symbol that usually is present on the Flash’s chest. The metallic blue on this outfit is very cool and this version of the Flash is not plagued by the discoloration that Saint Walker had, though Barry Allen’s right shoulder is just a little darker than the rest of the figure. DC Direct was even attentive enough to the details to put on the blue belt that the Flash appeared with when temporarily in this outfit!

Accessories

Blue Lantern The Flash, sudden acolyte of hope in an embattled universe, comes with only two accessories. He has his stand and his blue lantern. The stand is a blue and white disk with the Blue Lantern logo. It is 3 3/4" in diameter and 1/4” tall and it has a single peg which plugs into the hole in Blue Lantern The Flash's right foot. He is completely stable, especially on his base.

Blue Lantern The Flash also comes with a Blue Lantern battery, which is molded to be in the same scale as the figure. His four-pointed battery is 1 3/4” tall and 1” wide and 1 1/4" deep. It looks like a classic lantern with cylindrical ends and is molded bright metallic blue. It matches the figure very well. Unlike the early figures in the Blackest Night, the Blue Lantern Flash’s lantern actually holds up well; the handle does not come off it easily. Unfortunately, neither hand is molded to actually hold the lantern battery!

Playability

The DC Direct figures were designed more for display than play and this is good, but not flawless for this figure. On the plus side, the Blue Lantern Flash has decent balance, especially when he is flatfooted. Unfortunately, though, because he lacks a hinge joint on the ankle, the Blue Lantern The Flash figure is annoyingly limited in his posing and cannot take on as dynamic a running pose as one might hope. Even off the stand, though, Blue Lantern The Flash is a very stable action figure.

Blue Lantern The Flash comes with fifteen points of articulation, which is generally good, especially for a DC Direct figure. Blue Lantern The Flash has joints at the calves, knees, groin socket, shoulders, biceps, elbows, wrists and head. The shoulders are proper ball and socket joints, while the elbows and knees are both hinge joints. The head is on a ball and socket joint, which allows him to look in virtually any direction! Oddly, the groin socket allows very little in the way of range of motion, with almost no ability to have the leg raised behind the Flash, which is problematic for posing him in running positions.

The only other real strike against Blue Lantern The Flash on the playability front is that both of his hands are molded as fists. This makes it difficult for The Flash to hold his blue lantern and even when one wedges the accessory between the wrist and the loop, it looks pretty ridiculous there.

Collectibility

Blue Lantern The Flash is part of the DC Direct Blackest Night Series 6 line which was fairly common, though it was usually only distributed through comic book shops and specialty stores like FYE. Blue Lantern The Flash is one of the many heroes in the Blackest Night line, but he seems to be one of the ones most fans were unenthusiastic about. The Blue Lantern The Flash figure is unique to this series and has not appreciated at all in value. In fact, the fact that I could find one for only $8 pretty well indicates how hard of a time poor Barry Allen is having in the marketplace!

Overview

Blue Lantern The Flash is a wonderful figure, though, and if this is the only Flash figure I come away from for my Flash Year, it seems like it would be enough!

For other Blackest Night figures, please check out my reviews of:
Wave 7 Arkillo
Wave 5 Nekron
Wave 1 Saint Walker

8/10

For other toy reviews, please check out my index page!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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