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<\/a>This year, I’ve only had the opportunity to review two C&Cs – Darkseid in March & Trigon in July. That’s it for the whole year<\/em>. But, after some serious delays, waves 15 and 14 have finally hit store shelves (virtually on top of each other). So this review has a double dose of C&Cs today: Validus & the Ultra-Humanite. <\/p>\nIf you read my Tyr review, then you already know that I’m not the most well-versed when it comes to Legion of Super-Heroes characters. They weren’t really featured in the reprint material of my youth and since I’ve been reading comics as an adult, I tend to stay away because they get screwed with a lot. Validus is a good example of that. If we want to say that this Validus figures represents the Pre-Zero Hour<\/em> version, then he has an interesting back story. If it’s the Post-Zero Hour version, then not so much.<\/p>\n Validus was created by Jim Shooter in 1967. His purpose? He needed someone in the story stronger than Superboy. That’s it. His origin is even given as unknown so it could be glossed over quickly. But through the years, Validus was given a rather fanciful history. When the Legion defeated Darkseid in The Great Darkness Saga<\/em> one of his long-term plans for revenge (Darkseid knows how to hold grudges) resulted in the creation of Validus. See, sometime in the Legion’s future, Lightning Lad & Saturn Girl would give birth to twin boys. Darkseid, still sore from his prior defeat, kidnapped one of the children and after mutating him into that handsome purple fellow in the picture below, sent him back in time to be a Legion villain. That’ll screw you up. This Validus was incredibly strong, near invulnerable, and capable of emanating “mental lightning” (a combination of his parent\u2019s powers) from his brain. The only side effect was that he was rather mindless, emotionally stunted, and easily manipulated. After Zero Hour<\/em>, that all was pretty much mopped up, tossed, and Validus went back to just being that simple-minded, really strong guy with mental lightning that Shooter had created years before.<\/p>\n The first thing you notice about Validus is that we’ve seen most of this figure before. I have to admit; I always feel a bit cheated when a C&C has a lot of recycled parts, but Validus utilizes this body much better than his two pre-paints. He’s the first of the three where the left hip doesn’t give me problems and he can stand up straighter than the others. Second, he’s got a few more unique pieces – his feet & hands, biceps & shoulders, the torso, and his head. I love all the new pieces; I know it’s not possible, but I feel like this buck was made for Validus and then shoehorned into reuse for the other two. He’s that well done.<\/p>\n The only complaint I have on the sculpt is the size. It’s a moot point for me because we all know the size limit imposed by the packaging (but those 2011 packages are inspiringly larger) and Validus is very near to the limit. In reality, he should be at least 15″ to be in-scale with the line though he’s been depicted as even larger than that as well. Ironically, if there were a 1:18 Legion this figure would look great with them. <\/p>\n My favorite part of the figure in the head sculpt. If you’ve ever seen a picture of Validus, I doubt it was one where his mouth was closed, so this look was really the only way to go. The Four Horsemen even one upped most of his appearances because he’s not always drawn as ferocious as he should be, being an angry mindless beast and all. The 4H have given him this great Alien<\/em> vibe and it’s the best I’ve seen Validus look.<\/p>\n His see-through skull is captured here with the brain matter molded and painted on the head with a clear shell glued over it. It really looks great, but I am curious to see how it would’ve turned out if the brain matter wasn’t molded in relief on the underside of the shell. This may have had to have been done for “logistics” and it does still look good, but I’m wondering if there could have been some way to portray his mental lightning as etchings on the undersize instead of simply matching the grooves in his brain. <\/p>\n For a figure missing thigh cuts (another sad truth about this “universal” buck), I’m still going to call him well-articulated and surprisingly stable. Validus has ball-joints at the head and shoulders, the Mattel hips, hinges at the elbows, knees, and ankles, swivels at the bicep (limited), wrists, and waist, and rocker ankles. All of which work great. Right now, he’s on my desk, balanced on one foot and rearing back to throw a little 1:12 pineapple at the Ultra-Humanite who is holding Alan Scott upside down (I love my job). He’s perfectly balanced on that back foot and the pose successfully captures a pitcher coming out of a windup. I probably should take another picture of it for the review.<\/p>\n I also want to talk a little bit about the head in particular. When I got this wave in, I opened Martian Manhunter first. On my first look at the Validus head, I noticed that base of the skull was sculpted flat and I was expecting limited range because of it. I was wrong. There\u2019s no tilt, but there is plenty of up and down range and it really helps sell the poses you\u2019ll be putting him in.<\/p>\n The paintwork was mostly well done. The only problems I had were with the white paint on the torso and the pink paint on the brain. In both cases, the issue is more about the production process then anything. The white paint is simply unforgiving, easily showing any scuff marks, dents, and dings the figures might have received while being packaged and shipped. And the paint on the brain wasn’t fully allowed to dry before the shell was applied leaving a few wet areas to transfer onto the clear shell. These are both minor issues and the majority of the figure is crisp with clean apps. Continue to the Ultra-Humanite…<\/a><\/P><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Ultra-Humanite might be the ultimate coulda been in comics history. He\u2019s widely credited as the first supervillain. And he’s the original of arch-enemy of Superman, debuting in Action Comics<\/em> #13, nearly full year ahead of Lex Luthor. In his earliest appearances, he was a bald mad scientist who was in failing health and bent on world domination. He would be presumed dead in those early appearances only to return a few months later, his brain now placed in the body of Dolores Winters, a beautiful actress (kinda creepy for a 40s comic, huh?). His appearances as Winters were brief because he was dropped in favor of Luthor soon after, but this added bit about brain swaps did set him up for his eventual return to continuity as a Justice Society villain decades later.<\/p>\n Ultra-Humanite went unused for over forty years after Luthor took his spotlight. It was E. Nelson Bridwell (a well-known treasure trove of comics trivia and continuity hound) brought the character back, still in Dolores Winters body, in the Superman Family<\/em> title in the early 80s* The following year, during one of the JLA\/JSA team-ups, the Ultra-Humanite had his brain transferred into the albino ape body this figure is based on. After Crisis<\/em> his last bit of status as a Superman villain is stripped away as his origin is left in the 40s and made into a JSA villain. He would go on to have a few appearances throughout the 80s, but he’s been mostly underused since then. That’s a far fall from Superman’s first arch-nemesis.<\/p>\n * – In that first 80s story, UH attempted to kidnap Bruce Wayne as his next body. You might think that was a mistake and you\u2019d be right \u2013 Lois Lane totally stepped in and saved the day.<\/em><\/p>\n The figure is a great depiction of the character. The sculpt does reuse Grodd’s arms, but they work great in concert with the all-new body. The uncovered parts of the figure are sculpted to match the arms and are sufficiently upright-apelike (if there is such a thing). The costume is also well recreated, but I find that I have to keep his ab crunch moved fully forward to be happy with his look. I’m glad that the articulation point is there and it’s well disguised, but it looks too mechanical when the figure’s torso is pulled back. The legs tend to push the figure into a crouched position, so this preference does tend to work out naturally.<\/p>\n The head is sculpted well with a nice sneer to it, but the paint on the eyes leaves him looking a little drunk or disinterested. The shaved cranium and veins in the scalp sell his trademark look, but it’s a bit marred by the mold lines. I’m not one to usually complain about that, but these are ill-placed with one seam running straight through the top of his head and another one visible in the fur across his brow.<\/p>\n I had no issues with the paint work on UH. The highlights on the fur help bring out the sculpt rather nicely and the uniform is created with very little paint work. <\/p>\n The articulation isn’t as fluid as Validus\u2019, but UH is better articulated on paper. He features ball joints on his head, shoulders, hips, wrists, and ankles, hinges on his elbows and knees, swivels on his bicep and waist, and the aforementioned ab crunch. All this articulation sounds great and most of it is, but I had trouble getting him into some poses for this shoot because the joints were tighter than normal. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, of course, and it did enable him to hold up Alan Scott for the picture below.<\/p>\n UH did include an accessory. Knowing the Horsemen, it surely has a basis from something in the comics, but I’m not immediately aware of it. It is sized to perfectly fit in his hand and is painted particularly well despite the small details. Even though I’m not sure what it is, accessories are always welcome in this line.<\/p>\n Overall, these are two nicer C&Cs in a field of good C&Cs. Ultra-Humanite has all the details right and looks like the figure walked off the page. He passes on all the technical details and it’s just kinda crazy to have a comic-accurate Ultra-Humanite figure. I’d like him more, but he’s a bit overshadowed by Validus in this review. Validus is similar \u2013 with a great sculpt (overlooking the reuse) and paint details, but Validus also captures this other intangible quality. I can’t quite describe it, but, in hand, he just becomes this great toy. If I were a kid, I could see busting out the Joe’s and using him as some new Cobra monster, or having him go rounds with Hellboy, or fight the Ghostbusters. He’s just fun. And, after that fun, he’s still an important villain for one the DCUC’s most storied teams. I do wish he were bigger, but he’s still one of my favorite C&Cs and that’s saying a lot because he’s far from my favorite character in the comics.<\/p>\n![](\"reviews\/dcimages\/2010\/huma01.JPG\")
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