Mr. Rant asks
“Where’s the JSA?”

Vault

As I stare at my shelf of about 100 DCUC figures and think about the ones that are confirmed for the next few waves, I try and figure out what rhyme or reason Mattel is using to decide on who they are going to make and when. Although Martian Manhunter is the glaring omission in all of our collections, he’s not one of the ones I’m talking about today.  What I don’t understand is how few JSA members, both golden age and modern, Mattel has produced so far.  Maybe things are more difficult than I understand, but what is the problem with putting one JSAer into every wave?  They’ve been doing it with the New Gods, and those are just the New Gods.  Some of the New Gods are nice to have, but Mattel is churning out some others that aren’t really in high demand.  So my shelf almost has a complete Fourth World, and still lacks enough members to make any decent semblance of a JSA.

The rumors for next year’s theme are Green Lantern or Super Powers, possibly both.  I hope this doesn’t lead Mattel into thinking they can keep ignoring the JSA.  If it is Green Lantern, we may get lucky since Alan Scott could fit in just fine.  I still haven’t heard any talk about a Jay Garrick though.  Let’s just hope that the truly classic characters in the DC Universe start getting a little more attention.

As an addendum to above, I just wanted to also mention one more thing to Mattel.  Stop wasting the variant figures!  Do we really need two Wildcats?  Can’t you just make one or the other? Maybe instead of making a useless color variant you could have made the second Wildcat without his mask on, since he walks around like that in the comics half the time anyway.  Or, you could have given Deadshot his variant head with his mask off, since he also walks around like that half the time.  Or, you could have made the modern equivalent of the Guardian, the Manhattan Guardian; new head, vest, shield, easy as cake.  But no, we get a useless second Wildcat.

This also brings me to another upcoming figure you are already ruining the variant of, the Spectre.  Although the identity of which character you are doing hasn’t been confirmed yet, it’s safe to say that the variant of that figure will just be a glow-in-the-dark version of that same character.  Really Mattel, this is the best you can do?  There have been three notable Spectres in DC comics, and we are only going to get one, even though a variant would be extremely easy.  I know there are a lot of people out there who want Jim Corrigan, and this is the character I assume we’ll be getting.  But, instead of giving us the glow-in-the-dark feature as a “bonus”, why not simply sculpt the Crispus Allen head for the exact same body, you know, ‘cause the costume is pretty much the same.  And then, to make it even cooler, if you were so inclined, you could make them both glow-in-the-dark, that way we get two very cool characters that can both be spooky.

Sure, these very small changes might cost a tiny bit more money to produce, but the fans would probably appreciate it more.  Hell, you could save a little cost by getting rid of that crappy blue stand that doesn’t work that well.  So c’mon Mattel, do like you did with Dr. Fate.  If the Golden Age and Modern character are similar, make both.

24 thoughts on “Mr. Rant asks
“Where’s the JSA?””

  2. Agreed, the actual DCUC stands do not work well at all. They are wasting the variant figures as well. Besides Doctor Fate’s variant and Dr. Impossible (a second rate character) but at least it was a seperate figure and a no brainer for the variant. Either way, I think as the line progresses into the next two years, we should be getting a few characters for JSA and actual “Classics” characters. We have Wildcat, Atom Smasher, Commander Steel (or citizen steel) Flash, Power Girl and Mr. Terrific for JSA already but think Sandman, Magog, Stargirl and Obisidian will probably fill a few more spots as well.

    1. I would love to see Sand circa 2001, but that’s probably not very likely.

      My main JSA wants right now are the modern Dr. Mid-Nite, a GA Sandman, and Starman VII.

      Though I’d love to see a Canary circa 2001 too.

  3. The JSA is really growing on me so I’d like to see those too. I’m ok with useless variants though…saves me money haha

  4. Has the Spectre variant type been confirmed? I was thinking the variant would have “vanishing” legs, like Gentleman Ghost and the upcoming Deadman (isn’t that the Deadman variant?) And I think GITD is a completely different type of plastic, as opposed to paint, so that would be a bit more expensive, making it seem less likely.

    1. It’s not “confirmed”, but it’s accepted. I’m expecting a completely GITD one, but I could be wrong – I wasn’t expecting JUST Deadman’s legs to be clear.

  5. There wasn’t a new god in wave 2 or 3 or 4 or 5. Waves 6,7,8,9 and 10 all have JSA members as well as new gods. 11 is lacking, but 12 is supposedly going to have 2 more JSA guys.

    I want more JSA as well, but they get almost as much love as the new gods(maybe a little less as the new gods variants seem more elaborate).

    1. If you check their Mattel numbers, is most cases the JSAer has a prod number one lower than the New God. JSA was a planned theme, even if unofficial.

      I think Rant is more keyed into Mattel building an MA JSA over a GA.

    2. There were no New Gods the first year, but they’ve more than made up for it.

      And having modern JSA characters? Who cares?

  6. as much as i ordinarily agree w/ mr rant 100%, in this case, while i’d like to see some JSA figs too for my dc-lovin’ brothers, true be told, you’re a LONG ways off from a complete New Gods roster. and as matt pointed out, there were several ways they COULD have crammed in another fig and chose not to. they keep talking about these theme years, and 2009 was “new gods” so you’re lucky your new gods collection isn’t five or six characters deeper already. and again, more JSA members are coming. i think this minor gripe will be easily absolved by this time next year, and the new gods fans will be crying about the 6 names they DON’T have yet, despite haivng a new gods theme year in ’09.

    1. Rant doesn’t care for the New Gods so you’ll have to forgive him!

      I look at what we have and I see Highfather, Metron, and Granny as the biggest missing pieces for the New Gods, but I know there’s still a ton more after them. Personally, I’d love to see Kanto.

  7. They definitely need to produce Jay Garrick! I agree about the wasted variant w/ the blue (or is black the variant?) Wildcat. Since 2010 is apparently the GL year, I hope they’ll finally add Guy Gardner to the mix. I’d prefer a modern sculpt along with a modern Hal.

    1. I resized your image in html to fit, but I might need to take it down since it belongs to ToyFare.

      It’s hotlinked, so technically, it’s okay I guess. Just don’t be surprised if it disappears.

  11. I would say that I’d be surprised if Mattel cared about sixty-year old characters since the “Classics” line is half-populated by the “hip, modern” characters.

    Then there’s that picture with two of the JSA, bringing us up to three of the original eight and four overall so I’ll hold off for now.

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