Articulation is standard for the line (I’m gonna be saying that a lot this week): ball-joints for the neck & shoulders, swivels at the biceps, wrists, waist, thighs, and calves, hinges at the elbows, knees, and ankles, the ab crunch, and the 4H hips. I had no issues with stuck joints (though the right knee was warped due to packaging), but there were a few blockages by design elements. The sculpted edge of Courtney’s top blocks forward movement on the ab crunch while the hair limits the range on the neck. It’s a shame because Sandman had no reason for blockage but his neck only feature swivel action. Courtney’s capable of more, but the hair gets in the way. She’s another figure to lament the loss of the rocker ankles too – the double swivel cuts in her legs really opens up her ability to be posed, but the ankles being simple hinges cancels out most of what they can do.
For the most part, I got a relatively slop free Courtney. The metallic blue looks spectacular and the white star tampos were clean throughout. I also enjoyed the high gloss on the belt and the boots. There is some slop though, the seam down the outside of the thigh are visible through the white paint and the flesh paint on the face and torso doesn’t do a great job of following the sculpted lines. It’s nothing too terrible, I’d fix the yellow line through her teeth before any of these. Like the teeth, there are a few cosmetic annoyances here, the eyes (while painted well) are painted looking upward instead of being centered and the hip pegs are flesh colored which isn’t a big deal, but the flash of fleshtone in there does look a bit odd in certain poses.
Courtney reuses Jack Knight’s Star Rod which is appropriate since thats’s exactly what she uses in the comics. I’m not really sure why Mattel opted to mold it in clear yellow though. I like the idea of molding it yellow and then painting the handle gold to make the Rod seem “powered up”, but having it all clear yellow just makes it looks like something I should give to Sinestro or one of his goons.
My Courtney does have some problems holding the Star Rod as well. Her hands appear to have been molded for this specific purpose, but on my figure the Star Rod tends to find its way to the shelf floor before too long.
Overall, Stargirl isn’t my favorite figure in the wave, but she’s not a bad figure. I have a series of nitpicks like the yellow paint for the braces, the undersized belt, the sloppy face paint, but Mattel got the majority of things right, leaving her a good run of the mill figure for the line. If you’re an avid Stargirl fan, you might want a little more attention to detail. If you’ve been playing with Marvel Legends all week, you might want a little more articulation. But if you’ve been collecting DC Classics all year and are in need of some good relatively-longstanding characters to add to your shelf, then this Stargirl will work for you. She looks great with S.T.R.I.P.E., she looks great with the (still way undermanned) modern JSA display, and she makes you want more of the great JSA-related characters from Mattel.
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don’t know if this’ll make you feel any better about j.s.a. but they revisited the “time bubble” where the modern hourman was stuck and he was alive, they patched him up and brought him back, and he eventually married jesse quick/liberty belle.
The Hourman in that story, the one running around with the JSA pre-new52 is the second Hourman from the 80s! There was a third Hourman that I was referring too, another legacy character knocked off to get the original back. I need to be more careful about the word modern, that was almost a decade ago…
You’re probably thinking of the android Hourman. I can’t remember exactly what happened, it was a bit wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey, but Rick Tyler came along afterwards, then swapped with his Dad Rex in the time bubble when he was nearly killed. They got him back out again…actually, that’s where the android died, he swapped places and was killed in Rex’s place by Extant. I’m too lazy to do proper research at the moment.
I love the JSA legacy feel, its what really started me reading DC comics. I’ve got a real soft spot for Courtney, and I think its a real shame that we’ll never get Sand, Kendra, Jakeem and Dr. Midnite.
*sigh*
Jo
All this Hourman talk is confusing. Which is funny in a Stargirl review.
Rick is the second Hourman and (technically) the fourth Hourman before and after Matthew, the android.
I’ve never been a fan of Rick and always wished Johns had just kept using the Matthew in the JSA, but he brought back Rick instead. Matthew is the one that puts Rex in the ‘time bubble’ for Rick to have some last time with, but then Rick switches places with him like you say. When the time comes for someone to die during Rex’s final moments, Johns had Matthew swoop in, opting to kill off the legacy character and retain the older characters.
I want all the ones you mention, but we have got to have a Pieter Cross Mid-Nite!
Rick Tyler didn’t come “after” the android (Matthew), he was a member of Infinity Inc, and wore that garish red and purple thing designed by McFarland, I think? He joined about the same time as Dr. Mid-Nite III, who was the black woman and McNider’s protege or something?
Then we found out Rick had become addicted to Miracle and it gave him cancer. I think it was Zero Hour where he was finally cured and his dad died. or so we thought.
The android (Matthew) went back and took Rex’s place when the other JSA’ers are killed by Extant (then Hank Hall). Rex did his time bubble thing, and then Rick allowed him to live in normal time again. rick then married Jesse Quick II aka Liberty Belle II and they announced her pregnancy right as DC was announcing the DCnU, so we don’t know what happened or what she had.
Thanks, Brainlock!
I think someone retconned out the second Dr. Mid-Nite somewhere a couple years ago. I remember a panel showing her and another female legacy character and the line being something like “they were rumored to have taken up the mantle, but that didn’t happen”.
One thing to watch out for: The ab crunch will tear her upper torso with very little effort, I already need to fix mine.
I’m also working on improving it. I shaved off the muffin top, and there was a big overhang on the ab crunch join, which I’ve fixed. Now I need to rebuild her belt, and torso area.
Did she ever wear goggles? I’m thinking of sculpting goggles on her.
Thanks for the tip and good luck on your custom.
It seems like she did wear goggles, I might be thinking of when she was temporarily made an adult in JLA: World Without Grown-Ups. I think she had a more Starman VII based costume in that mini.
yep, that was the only time she appeared wearing goggles, that I remember. I never bothered with her introductory 8 issue (mini?)series, tho. The Elseworld’s finest Supergirl has the PERFECT head for that, tho. 😉
I always wanted to grab that figure (& the Batgirl too).
If it makes you feel better, we know that, pre-nu52 at least, Tyler eventually got fixed at some point in the future by Rex. I get the feeling Geoff intended to bring him back but never got around to it.
Also, the braces are a great detail executed hilariously badly.
Yeah, Johns had so many plot points dangling in JSA, I couldn’t keep up. Did we ever solve the riddle of Jay’s baby? Was Wildcat related to the Bee dude? It seemed like there were so many…
And, yeah, the braces are a great example of good intentions…
Jay and Joan’s son died (tuberculosis?), and they quietly swept that under the rug. I forgot about Ted’s possible relation to…Yellowjacket, was it? That was another attempt at the same time to build on the whole “Legacy” theme, and that thankfully got lost in the shuffle of 168 other plots Johns was trying to juggle.
I think I remember that about their baby. And yeah, Yellowjacket! There were lots of unresolved plot points there. I really got bored with the book after Johns left – I’m still confused by the Fury/Dove thing and I’m still dumbfounded they killed off Hector/Fate.
For the most part, I got a relatively slop free Courtney
……I’m not even going to make the joke, this ain’t the Mess after all. 😀
LOL 😀
I never realized that she was wearing Yankee Poodle’s costume. Now I can’t UNSEE it!
I was trying to think of a couple customs for her recently, esp LoSH, but now I can’t think of a single one except Jenni “XS” Ognats. :/
One thing you did forget to mention was that every so often, Johns would have her narrate a story, and it always hinted that she and Al aka Nuklon aka Atom-Smasher were together in the future. Then they brought in Billy Batson for the whole love triangle action, which had the senior members on edge, because he hadn’t revealed his 13yo secret identity to them and came off as a total perv. LOLZ!
What book title and issue numbers were that JSA book you mentioned? I’ve been dying to read some JSA stuff recently and I haven’t found much worth reading.
If you were asking me, it was random issues during the “JSA” run, not the “Justice Society of America” run. I think one was toward the end of the Khandaq mess, when Al was working with Black Adam. I don’t know if Mile High/another site would have a single issue synopsis or any of the collected JSA trades would point it out on Amazon.
Like Brainlock says, you have to jump back to 99-05 for the “JSA” title. The first six or seven trades are the best stuff collecting the first 50 or so issues. I haven’t read it in years, but I think it will still hold up.
I also recommend “The Justice Society Returns” which was an 5th week event that preceeded the title. And, of course, “The Golden Age”.
If you want to go really old school, and I am admittedly subject to a huge childhood blind spot on these, but the Crisis on Multiple Earths trades featuring the 70s JSA/JLA team-ups also rock. When I talk about the comics that I learned to read with, those were a big part of it.
Thanks for the replies guys. I’ve been wanting to track down some JSA material since I read the beginning of the last Johns run but I haven’t been able to find out what’s good and worth reading. There’s something about the JSA that is just awesome to me. I hope their New 52 book succeeds and is well done.
So were all twenty eight variants of Hal too busy to hit on Kara and Courtney, or is there a similar dark side to his Brave and Bold partner Barry that I’m not yet aware of?
Those aren’t the DCSH white t-shirt Supergirl’s boots? And possibly lower legs?
They look so similar I’m surprised they’re new sculpts.