{"id":2224,"date":"2009-10-26T02:35:51","date_gmt":"2009-10-26T07:35:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=2224"},"modified":"2012-04-18T21:54:22","modified_gmt":"2012-04-19T02:54:22","slug":"truetorial-dcuc-legion-the-buck-stops-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=2224","title":{"rendered":"Truetorial: DCUC Legion –
The Buck Stops Here"},"content":{"rendered":"

Upfront, I should say this is an article about scale more than it is about wanting the Legion. I want the Legion, but I also think they’re already somewhere in Mattel’s game plan. So this article is going to jump ahead to how <\/em> to do the Legion. Specifically, how tall to make them. My concern is born out of figures like Beast Boy, OYL Robin, and the Wonder Twins. Mattel’s few forays into teenaged characters has been troubled at best.<\/P><\/p>\n

Now, I know that scale can be a sensitive subject among toy collectors. Some of us don’t seem to mind at all while others can be downright unwilling to buy a figure that is out-of-scale with the others. For the most part, I don’t mind DC Classics handful of scale issues so far.<\/P><\/p>\n

I don’t mind that most of the figures are the same height. I don’t mind the figures that are near misses. I even don’t mind that some of the C&Cs are severely under-scaled (though a 2ft tall Chemo would have been sweet). Basically, I can live with a scale issue here and there, but with the teenage figures, it’s starting to become a problem. And if the Legion is on the way? Then a whole subset of DC Classics could end up woefully undersized. But there’s hope for a slightly bigger Legion of Super-Heroes and the solution comes from one of the line’s scale mistakes…<\/P>
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First, the small buck is not without merit. It’s more that it hasn’t been used in the best instances. It works great for Kid Flash as he appeared in the original Teen Titans, but most fans would probably prefer him at the NTT height. The small buck would work great for a young Dick Grayson or Damian Wayne, but not for the OYL Tim Drake where we first saw it used. It would have worked for a first appearance Beast Boy, but he came in his adult costume instead. It would even be great for the early days of Young Justice (except Superboy). So far, the body seems to have been misused and I think it the same could happen to the Legion of Super-Heroes figures.<\/p>\n

I’ve thought a lot about which Legion Mattel should produce. I imagine it’s not easy for them to decide. Even I have different wants from different eras. I’ve always liked Phantom Girl’s original costume. Starman looked best in his 80s adult costume. Saturn Girl’s best one was from the late seventies. Wildfire’s armor got cooler over time. Lightning Lad and Cosmic Boy looked sharpest Post Zero-Hour. Even the three-boot Legion had some nice redesigns. I don’t know which one they’ll pick, but I imagine the original version of the team is the most likely. That means Mattel needs to use a buck that will match the height of those original teenagers.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s difficult to find a canonical height for the original Legion though. By the time that Who\u2019s Who comics were in vogue, they’d grown up. Since the Post-Zero Hour secret files list most of the Legion members in the 5\u2019 5\u201d to 5\u2019 11\u201d range, it’s a safe bet the classic Legion characters were also in the the mid-to-upper five foot range. How tall should the figures be then? Well, some simple math can tell us.<\/P><\/p>\n

In DC Classics terms, let’s take Batman as the standard bearer. He is 6.25\u201d tall and usually listed as being 6\u2019 2\u201d in the comics. This establishes a rough DCUC scale of where one foot in the comics is equivalent to one inch in the toy line. So Legion figures should be between 5.5″-5.75″ tall. The buck Mattel has been using for teens is 5.25″. Now, with the small buck only being a quarter inch off, I start to feel like maybe I’m being too picky. But that’s because scale isn’t just about exact measurements, it’s also about how it looks on the shelf.<\/P><\/p>\n

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That buck, when placed next to an adult figure, looks equivalent to a 12yr old boy to me. Look at the picture above and imagine the Legion of Super-Heroes standing there with Batman. Would they look like mid-teens or pre-teens? You might disagree, but I say pre-teens. And I say that’s not good enough.<\/P><\/p>\n

The good news is that Mattel doesn’t need to make a new male buck for the Legion. They’ve already got one in the form of Sinestro. His buck clocks in at 5.75″ – and that’s with his taller head sculpt. With shortened heads, the male Legion members should be perfect. Mattel will still have to design a complimentary female body in the 5.5″ range, but they would have had to make one for the smaller size anyway. Here’s Sinestro with Batman:<\/P><\/p>\n

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The only drawback to Sinestro is that we haven’t seen that buck used again and I have to wonder why. If it’s still available, I say that’s the one we should try and convince Mattel to use. If it’s not, then Mattel should duplicate it for the teenaged figures going forward. The Legion will be better for it. The New Teen Titans will be better for it. Blue Beetle III and the modern Superboy need it too. More bucks can only make the line better.<\/P><\/p>\n

How do you feel about it? Do you want to see the Legion in DC Classics and if so, how big do you want them? The size of Sinestro? The size of Robin? Or a new size altogether? Let us know what you think in the comments section below. If the support is there, we’ll press this issue into one of our upcoming Q&A’s. <\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Upfront, I should say this is an article about scale more than it is about wanting the Legion. I want the Legion, but I also think they’re already somewhere in Mattel’s game plan. So this article is going to jump ahead to how to do the Legion. Specifically, how tall to make them. My concern […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"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":[10,201],"tags":[2557,330,203,2580],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pObc6-zS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":30900,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=30900","url_meta":{"origin":2224,"position":0},"title":"Legion of Dans Podcast Episode 2 \u2013 Childhood Favorites","date":"April 1, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"","rel":"","context":"In "Toys"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":31236,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=31236","url_meta":{"origin":2224,"position":1},"title":"Legion of Dans Podcast Episode 3 \u2013 White Whales","date":"June 11, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"","rel":"","context":"In "Toys"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":31977,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=31977","url_meta":{"origin":2224,"position":2},"title":"Legion of Dans Podcast Episode 4 \u2013 SDCC Recap","date":"October 12, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"","rel":"","context":"In "Toys"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":32135,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=32135","url_meta":{"origin":2224,"position":3},"title":"Legion of Dans Podcast Episode 5 \u2013 NYCC Recap","date":"October 26, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"","rel":"","context":"In "Truetorial"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":32377,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=32377","url_meta":{"origin":2224,"position":4},"title":"Legion of Dans Podcast Episode 6 \u2013 “The Dans Awaken”","date":"January 31, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"","rel":"","context":"In "Truetorial"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4098,"url":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=4098","url_meta":{"origin":2224,"position":5},"title":"True or False? Do the different DCUC and DCD Scales Bother You?","date":"February 23, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Vault snagged an Arisia figure from DC Direct's Blackest Night line on Friday and our discussion turned into a big debate about scale and how DCD and DCUC should or shouldn't share shelf space. Vault's got a mini-review of Arisia on our forums, I've added a handful of \"Usual Suspects\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Reviews"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2224"}],"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=2224"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18307,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2224\/revisions\/18307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}