{"id":11110,"date":"2011-01-13T02:33:00","date_gmt":"2011-01-13T08:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=11110"},"modified":"2011-01-13T02:33:24","modified_gmt":"2011-01-13T08:33:24","slug":"dcclassics-com-black-hand-abin-sur-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=11110","title":{"rendered":"DCClassics.Com
Black Hand & Abin Sur Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a> I\u2019m still making my way through Green Lantern Classics reviews and today I\u2019m looking at the two Black Lanterns from the first wave: Black Hand & Abin Sur. Well, it’s not really a figure of Abin Sur, but I have to call him that in the title so folks can find the review on Google. Don’t worry, I’ll explain it all after the jump. <\/p>\n

If you’ve been under a rock, Mattel has jumped into the Blackest Night fray with two waves of Green Lantern Classics and DC Universe Classics Wave 17 featuring the deputy lanterns from the new Corps. We’re currently in the beginning of this Green Lantern gauntlet and DC Classics collectors are going to see their collections get very modern and very Green Lantern for the first half of the year. <\/P><\/p>\n

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The thing is, even though I enjoyed Blackest Night<\/em> (except that quick and out ending), I haven’t been feeling as much excitement for these figures as usual. I’ve always said I was an “all-in” fan – that no corner of the DCU should be overlooked outright, but I find myself really challenged when faced with rank & file Yellow Lanterns, fabricated Red Lanterns, and zombie Black Lanterns. Particularly, Black Lanterns that we haven’t gotten living versions of yet… because the first figure up for review isn’t Abin Sur.<\/p>\n

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Abin Sur, as every comic book fan should know, is the dying alien that gave Hal Jordan a Green Lantern ring. Amon Sur is his wayward son. He’s not the nicest guy. He grew up hating Green Lanterns because he felt his Dad loved being a GL more than him. So he turned into a criminal and fought Kyle & Hal. His life choices led to him becoming a Yellow Lantern (Abin’s head on a SC body and boom, Amon Sur figure) and, ultimately, to his death. During Blackest Night, both Amon & Abin were resurrected. And, hey, both fought Hal Jordan because the other GLs were busy. But the father & son pair didn’t look the same and somewhere along the line, someone at Mattel got confuzzled.<\/p>\n

Truthfully, this nameswap really isn’t a big deal. There’s really no more clamor for one figure over the other and the figure ended up being a nice depiction of Amon Sur, but this goes down as one of those weird little Mattelisms. For the rest of the review, I’m calling him Amon though.<\/p>\n

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Amon’s mostly new, but he does reuse Deadman’s legs and shares a few parts with Mattel’s latest attempt at Sinestro. He has an appropriately creepy and accurate head sculpt. I was also really impressed by the hands. His left hand is sculpted to be grasping and is almost reaching for you. The left hand, while a simple fist, still has some decayed flesh detail and you can make out the Black Lantern symbol on the ring. That’s pretty cool.<\/p>\n

His arms are new as is his torso, though it\u2019s a bit weird. The front is sculpted somewhat similar to Deadman’s with some muscle striations stretched across his chest, but the back is relatively smooth and features a sculpted collar. Kinda odd. Anyway, the overall sculpt is nice and since Amon wasn’t terribly decayed (he was incinerated when he died, so not sure how that works anyway) the buck doesn’t look that off for a zombie character, particularly with the Deadman legs and the unique torso helping to pull off the look.<\/p>\n

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The articulation is a mixed bag. I was excited when Mattel announced the increased articulation. I do think the double joints are uglier than the standard joints, but the range they add is impressive enough that I’ll take the good with the bad. The double elbows on the arms are fantastic here, as are the wrists. They’re much more expressive. I’m not sure what Mattel is doing with the articulation going forward, but all Lanterns should have a ball wrist on their ring hand. Amon is capable of some poses I wish all my other lantern figures could do.<\/p>\n

What’s a little frustrating is that the double knees had to be scrapped for the Deadman legs. I like the legs for their sculpt, but it just makes the figure feel a little off. He has this great articulation on his arms, but his legs, with the single knees and removed rocker ankles, just feel inadequate to me (even though I’m normally fine with ’em).<\/p>\n

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Last but not least is the paint. There are a couple scratches and the white\/black lines are wobbly here and there, but I ended up with a relatively clean Amon. I love the black and white contrast, the symbol is sharp, and I’m really happy with the metallic paint used on the armbands. I’m not sure why they went for silver on the leg bands and white everywhere else, but it’s not that jarring. The eyes and teeth are well painted and help the head sculpt give off that scary cryptkeeper vibe. Continue to Black Hand…<\/a><\/p>\n

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The Black Hand. One thing that’s happened here and there in comics the last few years is attempts by now grown-up writers to rewrite lame characters of their youth into badasses. Morrison did a great job with the Key & the General (though shaving the Shaggy Man is sacrilege). Meltzer only managed to make Dr. Light an even crappier character. As it is, Johns’ Black Hand ended up in the middle of the road.<\/p>\n

Originally, William Hand was the genius black sheep of a wealthy family. He invented a device that absorbed and redirected GL energy and set off to being a criminal. He wasn’t a terribly remarkable villain (most of Hal’s old foes suffer similarly), but he was what he was. To facilitate Rebirth\/Blackest Night, John’s changed him to the black sheep of a coroner’s family that was obsessed with death (he killed & taxidermied the family dog). Atrocitus came looking for him some years back and, while fighting with Hal, dropped the device that William would use to become the Black Hand. That was a weird retcon, but it got weirder.<\/p>\n

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This Black Hand went on to be the same lame supervillain early on, but ended up getting his right hand amputated by Hal\/Spectre in more recent times. After that, he was abducted by gremlins that experimented on him and enhanced his powers (I said it got weirder). Then, he received a vision and a power surge from Nekron, went home to murder his family, and committed suicide.<\/p>\n

He’s resurrected as the first Black Lantern, digs up not-Batman’s skull, skulks around, vomits up some stuff, etc., etc. Really, it’s kinda wonky at that point and getting close to spoilers for what’s currently going on for the guy, so I\u2019ll leave it there. Anyway, this figure represents his look during Blackest Night when he was the undead patriarch of the Black Lanterns.<\/p>\n

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The sculpt is so good that I almost feel it’s wasted on Black Hand. He reuses Dr. Mid-Nite’s heavy cape (which is bothersome in some poses), but the rest of him is brand new. The seams of his uniform, the straps, the buckles, and the raised bands all look great from head to toe. His face and left arm are appropriately undead, but his right arm represents a bit of a problem. His wrist isn’t anywhere near flush with his forearm. The hand and arm are both new and are meant for each other (the veins would line up if the fist was sized correctly), so I’m not sure what went wrong there. The same effect is present on his left arm, but the straps on the costume do a better job of masking it.<\/p>\n

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I have to wonder if the articulation has something to do with it. Black Hand is all-new and should have the three added articulation areas, but he only has two: the double knees and double elbows. He doesn’t have the ball wrists, so I find myself wondering if there was a miscommunication with the vendor and the change in articulation to his wrists is in some way responsible for the pieces not lining up properly. The rest of the articulation is great. Again, like Amon Sur, it’s great that Black Hand is so articulated, but it makes me long for this articulation on a Batman or a Connor Hawke (hint, hint). These guys are zombies, they shouldn’t have more agile figures than the living.<\/p>\n

The paint on Black Hand is pretty decent. The extra detail requires a little more paintwork than usual and it’s solidly done for the most part. Mine is a little fuzzy where his mummified chin meets the cowl, but the rest of the buckles and straps are pretty sharp. The only real issues I had are again with that pesky right arm of his. I would like to see the fade to black handled a little better and I’ve yet to see a Black Hand that has a correctly painted right bicep. I feel really nitpicky for pointing this out but the costume should be painted grey on the inside of the bicep. It hasn’t been in any of the pics I’ve seen so far.<\/p>\n

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Overall, these are two nice figures of characters that I don’t really care about. They both have great head sculpts – Hand’s grim visage makes him look cooler than any of his comic appearances – and the added articulation makes them standouts in the collection. But being in the middle of this Green Lantern onslaught really has me pining for more traditional DC figures. Another IATer, who shall remain nameless, found this wave at Toys R Us this week and passed on most of them. He has nearly all of them so far, but he left these behind today. I’m not going to get to that point anytime soon – I’ll be publicly slogging through DCUC17 to get that Anti-Monitor, but that gave me pause. Hopefully, I’ll have Bane’s wave in hand soon and that can tide me over until summer.<\/p>\n

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For more DC reviews, check out our DC Universe Classics Collector’s Guide<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We’re still making our way through Green Lantern Classics reviews and today we’re looking at the two Black Lanterns from the first wave: Black Hand & Abin Sur. Well, it’s not really a figure of Abin Sur, but I have to call him that in the title so folks can find the review. Don’t worry, I’ll explain it all after the jump.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":11112,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[6,34,10],"tags":[854,853,363,852,855,665,521,20,833],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.itsalltrue.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/hanTN.jpg?fit=50%2C50","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pObc6-2Tc","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10671,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=10671","url_meta":{"origin":11110,"position":0},"title":"Sponsor Announcement: Ka-Razy Kings of Toys","date":"December 24, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Hey there, folks! We hope you're enjoying the Christmas season. Though, while you're at it, we have some big & important news: As Zelda Rubinstein would say it best, \"they're heeeeeeee're!!!!!!!\" Yes, Green Lantern Classics Series 1 and DC Universe Wave 15 are both now in stock! Now's your chance\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Sponsors"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10621,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=10621","url_meta":{"origin":11110,"position":1},"title":"DCClassics.Com: Green Lantern Kyle Rayner Review","date":"December 21, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"For a line based on Green Lanterns, it's kinda funny that the first wave included only one. And an interesting one at that, with five Hals, 2 Johns, and 1 Guy already in the line, it was Kyle Rayner's turn. The modern costume wouldn't have been my first choice, but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "DCClassics.Com"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13068,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=13068","url_meta":{"origin":11110,"position":2},"title":"DCClassics.Com Review: Hal Jordan (White & Black Lanterns)","date":"June 27, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I found this review particularly difficult to write. Some figures you love right away, some figures make you love them, some figures just fill out the shelf a bit (or came with a critical C&C piece), and some figures you buy only because you maintain a DC Universe Classics Checklist.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "DCClassics.Com"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":20246,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=20246","url_meta":{"origin":11110,"position":3},"title":"DC Classics.Com Club Infinite Earths Atrocitus Review","date":"August 13, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Every once in awhile, time just gets away from me. I didn\u2019t realize how long I\u2019d had Atrocitus sitting here when a reader asked me to not skip Atrocitus last week. I was always planning on reviewing him, but somehow he snuck past my sense of urgency. Let\u2019s check him\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "DCClassics.Com"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12204,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=12204","url_meta":{"origin":11110,"position":4},"title":"DCClassics.Com Review: Nautkeloi & Medphyll","date":"April 5, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Our second entry in Armless Stel Week is a look at the combo figure Nautkeloi \/ Medphyll. There's just one figure in this review, but it includes alternate heads to be either of the two featured Green Lanterns. It's cool that these two guys have found their way into the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "DCClassics.Com"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5845,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=5845","url_meta":{"origin":11110,"position":5},"title":"ItsAllTrueReview: TRU Exclusive Hal Jordan","date":"May 28, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Back in February, IAT broke the story on the Toys R Us Exclusive Batman that had magically reached retail shelves before collectors knew it existed and it was in our April 15th Q&A that Mattel let us know the TRU program would continue with new versions of Green Lantern, Flash,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "DCClassics.Com"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11110"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11110"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11120,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11110\/revisions\/11120"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}