About a month ago, right after Bane Week, I found GL Classics Series II. Star Sapphire was painted like crap, so I left her. Over the last month, I waited patiently for a second case to show up. No luck. And I’m tired of these guys clogging up my desk. Thus, Armless Stel Week! Let’s kick off with Sodam Yat.
The plan for Armless Stel Week is to review one of the figures I have bought each day, culminating in my “Armless Stel” review on Friday. Some people have told me I’m crazy to review an incomplete C&C, but why not? It can be a nod to all of us who have incomplete Gigantas, Brimstones, or Validus figures. Sometimes, you just don’t find all the pieces in a timely manner. Or, maybe the toy gods will shine on me and I’ll find Sapphire before Friday (it could happen?). Either way, if all goes to plan this week, look for Stel’s “I’m way too big” review on Friday.
So Sodam Yat. I should tell you guys, I kinda loathe him. A good friend always reminds me to not hate characters because of the writers that handle him, but man, it’s hard with Sodam Yat.
His humble origins begin with a brief (and unobjectionable) appearance back in the mid-eighties that makes him the product of Alan Moore & Kevin O’Neill. He’s shown as part of a prophecy, the destruction of Oa and the Green Lantern Corps. His death comes in this final battle: “Sodam Yat, a Daxamite* hailed as the ultimate Green Lantern, will perish battling the lobe-spawn.” Moore’s plan was to use Yat again in a proposed limited series “Twilight of the Gods” where he would ultimately kill Superman, but that story never came to fruition and Sodam Yat fell into obscurity pretty quickly.
* – If you’re not familiar with your DC Aliens, Daxamites descended from ancient Kryptonians. Put one under a yellow sun and you get another Superman. Though their weakness is to lead, not kryptonite. Think Mon-El of the Legion of Super-Heroes.
As Green Lantern exploded from character to franchise over the last few years, Sodam Yat made his in-continuity debut as a new recruit in the reformed Green Lantern Corps. You could say that his rise was meteoric. In a few short issues, he went from being a rookie, to a phenom, to Ion (host of the green willpower entity), and then after a time, he became a sun-reigniting messiah for his people. It really felt like we were all supposed to go “Cool! Superman with a Green Lantern ring!” and embrace him. I wasn’t able to and I just kinda groan when he shows up at this point. Don’t worry, I won’t harp on poor Sodam Yat after this (at least not in the text) as it’s not really relevant to the figure.
Sodam Yat is one of those figures were a new head and deco were sufficient to capture his look. He’s depicted here in his Ion costume which makes sense in regard to the majority of his appearances. He does feature a ring hand, but he’s still Hal Jordan’s sculpt from the neck down like most of the GLs so far. I thought he was a little taller at first, but it’s just that his head sits a tad higher and then there’s his hair.
Since the sculpt is really just about the head, it’s good that it’s well done. The face almost looks like a young Superman in a way and his face has this nice expression of disapproval. His hair is a little crazy. He generally has more of a crew cut, but the artist who drew him battling Superboy Prime did tend to draw him with the extra tuft of hair at the top. Maybe it’s a call back to the mohawk/mullet he sported in the prophecy? Either way, it’s odd, but you get used to it.Continue to Page 2…
“He’ll be the sun-reigniting messiah in the back”.
You know I love your reviews, and we share similar DC likes and dislikes, comic-wise, so to say I enjoyed this review is something of an understatement. But the quoted line above had me rolling. Thanks for that Noisy!!
Thanks, Sephron! I’m always glad to here when the jokes are funny. I worry sometimes. LOL
I don’t find him to be a likable character, either. He comes off a lot like Superboy-Prime… a major douchebag! And on top of all that, Arisia, arguably the hottest GL babe ever, is smitten with him. I’m glad he got a super groin punch.
You hit the nail on the head. Sodam Yat is like Marvel’s Sentry character. They irk and vex me. The Arisia love interest/crush thing is the most irritating.
Yeah, Arisia, I almost wrote that into the review. I hate that too!
Agreed on the overall dislike of Yat!
Great review and great toons as always, I am struck by the cheapness of this figure. Your pictures do a really good job of highlighting his problems, especially next to other figures that I take for granted as being solid (Supes and Hal).
The GLC line feels more cheap than regular DCUC waves overall. I’m at a real low point here. I need to here some good DCUC19 news…
I don’t know who he is, but I can’t resist laughing at “maybe Alan Moore should have created him with a cup.” Heh heh. ^^
😀
I dig Mon-El because of the Silver Age wackiness of his origin story and being stuck in the Phantom Zone and even his LoSH appearances, but I agree that Yat is just…..not good. I could do with less Daxamites or if I have to have them someone please take care of them with lead. Please.
The only thing worse than Sodam Yat is his people! I do enjoy Mon-El quite a bit though. Why wasn’t he in the Legion 12pk??
Total agreement on my part. How we receive Yat before Mon-El is rather annoying considering the history of Mon-El and his relation to both the Legion and Superman.
Whoa. Back the trolley up. Stel’s “way too big”. No way. They should have made him bigger. The height is alright, but he should be broader across the chest. I mean he’s robot. Why settle for puny human size when he can be awesome. And don’t try to feed me any bullmalarkey about comic book accuracy. Comic book fans are the bane of the DCUC experience. They would choose mediocre over awesome just because they saw it in a picture book.
Sorry, Fire King, I’m not a scale nazi, but Stel is just too big. He’s a normal sized robot. If he were Kilowog size or shorter, I could’ve lived with it, but it’s dumb to have him that big. Particularly when Mattel knew how big he was supposed to be and didn’t care just to save money on shared tooling.
I love the figure, but I hate his size. It’s cheap and, yeah, it’s inaccurate by more than I can tolerate.
Rumor is, Stel’s body is going to be re-used for another CnC. Biggest/best guess is STRIPE, but the tooling is wrong. Next guess would be Girder or maybe a “war machine”-type of Cyborg (Vic not Henshaw). I dunno. we’ll see, soon enough.
as for Yat, I’m surprised you didn’t go for the DBZ reference with that hair! LOL That’s the first thing I thought of in the first picture. that and too dark green for the body.
Yat’s currently featured in the GL: Emerald Warriors book with Guy, and the villain is some telepathic psycho, so Moore’s prophecy might be coming to a conclusion EXCEPT for the fact we’ve already seen Sodam in LoSH with a mohawk/ponytail, no less!
The tooling is wrong, but Mattel cut the difference with Stel’s height, so who’s to say that didn’t cut the difference with Stripe’s design? Personally, I’d be happy if it wasn’t Stripe, but I’m pulling a blank on who else it could be. Always more than happy to be wrong about things I don’t like though.
I’ll probably talk more about it in the Stel review because I’m saving any GL group shots for that one, but I’ve been dissatisfied with the varying shades of green used on the figures and the constructs. It’s like Mattel has never heard of pantone.