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<\/a>Our DC Universe Classics Wave 15 reviews continue with not one, but two Starmen figures this week – the GA Starman and his son and successor, Jack Knight. As a big fan of the DC Comics golden age and the legacy characters it spawned, I was excited for both, but only one met my expectations.<\/p>\nThe Golden Age Starman was Ted Knight, an inventor and astronomer that harnessed a special type of radiation in the early 40’s and used it to power the Gravity Rod, a device that fired bursts of energy and manipulated gravity (giving Ted the ability to fly). Ted quickly joins the Justice Society of America and the All-Star Squadron, but Ted runs into some troubles after World War II. First, his longtime girlfriend is murdered leaving him alone and then the use of the atomic bomb (which he helped create) and the destruction it caused weighs heavily on him. <\/p>\n
He’s institutionalized after suffering a nervous breakdown. He only dons his Starman persona on and off after that, ultimately retiring when Extant advanced him to his appropriate age in Zero Hour. He returns to the spotlight as a major supporting cast member of Robinson’s 90s Starman<\/em> series where we see him providing counsel (& sometimes aid) to his son Jack. Ted is the first of eight Starmen, with the sixth and seventh being his sons David and Jack respectively. We’ll get to Jack here in a minute.<\/p>\n Sometimes I’m really surprised that Mattel hasn’t already made more Golden Age characters. I’m a fan of just about every era in comics – I’m all for the occasional strap or pouch and I happen to think Perez worked some magic with his detailed character redesigns, but there’s also something wonderfully simple about most of the Golden Age costumes. That simplicity directly translates to Mattel being able to make a plethora of characters with very few new pieces needed. In other words, the GA characters are right up their alley. The original Starman is a great example. This is a perfect Starman sculpt and it only took… three new pieces. The head, the cape, and the belt.<\/p>\n The head sculpt is easily one of my favorite parts of the figure. There’s just something about those retro finned helmets, particularly when viewed from the side so you can fully appreciate it. Two sentences in and I haven’t even mentioned the face. I love painted faces. It’s like having a good colorist bringing out the inks in comics. The 4H’s Ted Knight sculpt really shines through the paint apps, much more than it would had the head been molded flesh tone and painted red.<\/p>\n As I mentioned in my recent Marvel Legends review, painted faces are almost always superior to molded flesh tone and the two Starmen in this review are a great example of that, with Ted being the good half of that comparison. Other than his face, Ted required very little paint work for the same reason he required so few new pieces. His buck is mostly molded in the appropriate colors, but a few areas did need a little paint. The green on the boots and hips is a little sloppy, but generally in the right place. The emblems on his chest and cape are well-painted. <\/p>\n Since Starman is built on a basic buck, he features all the articulation we’ve come to expect. My Starman did come with a stuck right hip joint – this seems to be pretty common across the Starman figures based on online ‘reports’. Ted does have some really nice range on his neck joint though. He’s got decent up range and some good side-to-side tilt that makes posing him that much more fun.<\/p>\n Starman features two accessories. His trademark cosmic rod and a “stellar energy pistol”. We asked the Four Horsemen about the origins of the pistol and you can read about it here<\/a>. But, boiled down, it’s a fun addition in a line where accessories are few and far between. The main accessory though is the Cosmic Rod. I love it and hate it. I love that it’s on model – it looks great – but my Starman can’t hold it. His buck hands are simply open to wide to grip the smaller rod. It sits in there loosely, but he’ll drop it if he’s held to far off from upright.<\/p>\n There is one other thing that comes up because of the cosmic rod; it’s the lack of an extra articulation point. It’s not just that Starman can’t hold the Cosmic Rod, but that he can’t hold in convincingly. The rod pulls Starman off the ground, it lights his way, it can be used as a firing weapon. The figure really can’t be posed in any of those actions because of the standard swivel cut wrist. Mattel is always talking about adding articulation only when it’s called for (though the new bucks seem to have a ball wrist standard) and Starman could’ve really benefited from a ball-wrist. As it i, all he can do is hole the star rod like a popsicle and loosely at that. Continue to Jack Knight…<\/a><\/P><\/p>\n <\/p>\n As we mentioned in Ted’s biography, he had two boys, David & Jack. David, the older brother, took his father’s legacy to heart and set out early in life to be Starman one day while Jack had no interest in his father’s superhero career. David would take up his father’s mantle only to be killed in short order by the son of Ted’s nemesis, the Mist. After an attempt on Jack’s own life and in an attempt to protect his father, Jack becomes Starman and avenges his brother’s death by killing his brother’s murderer. After that initial story, Jack agrees to continue being Starman only if his father begins working on new innovations for the future of mankind. The James Robinson Starman<\/em> title kicks off from there. The series, lasting 80 issues, chronicles Jack’s few years as Starman – protecting Opal City, coming to terms with both his brother’s death and his killing the Mist’s son, and understanding his father. The series ends with Jack retiring and, amazingly, he’s been more or less unused in the DC Universe since.<\/p>\n Jack features a mostly all-new buck despite being a variant. Mattel’s been a little unclear about their policy towards that. Originally, when collectors asked about getting GA\/MA versions as variants we were told they didn’t want to waste viable characters on variant slots. Then, just recently, Mattel said it was too logistically difficult<\/a> to do a variant significantly different from the main figure and they we won’t see this happen. And yet, here we have Jack Knight.<\/p>\n Anyway, Jack gives us a new, plainclothes body for the DC line. Overall, the sculpt is good. I’m going to knock it a bit, but that’s because it feels a little too bulky for Jack. He’s not built like your typical superhero. He’s a shopkeeper who occasionally puts on a jacket & goggles and fights crime. I know the sculpt is good because the figure looks sharp, but I just don’t see Jack as musclebound. The body feels more like Clark Kent on casual Friday than Jack Knight.<\/p>\n The head sculpt is good too, but, since I’ve gushed about painted heads a few times this week, you can guess that I have mixed feelings about it. It’s still a nice representation of Jack, but there are two things I’d change about it given the chance. One, there is room for interpretation with Jack’s facial hair. I always remember Jack with a mustache and goatee and I wish the figure was sporting that here. The figure isn’t inaccurate, it simply appears a number of different ways throughout the series. Second, I also wish the the goggles had been a separate, removable piece. It would’ve been nice to be able to have them sit up on his head (like they’re sculpted) and<\/em> be able to slide down and cover his eyes for some action poses.<\/p>\n The new buck features most of the standard articulation, but for some reason, the ab crunch has been removed. I’m always annoyed by articulation removal and particularly so here because I can’t figure out the reason behind it. It’s annoying because Jack’s, like his Dad, would look great on a flight stand, but his articulation makes that problematic. The missing ab crunch is just one aspect. The head doesn’t have as much range as Ted’s, the ankles are more limited than normal because of the pant legs and, as we mentioned with Ted, the lack of ball-wrists prevent the figure from being able to replicate some of the cooler action poses from the comics.<\/p>\n The paint on Jack was fine overall except for some quality control on his face where a thin black line of paint ran down his left cheek. I cleaned it up a bit when it got here, but it’s still somewhat visible in a few of the pictures. The goggles, the badge, and, perhaps most important, the tampo on the back are all sharp and really give the figure a nice look.<\/p>\n When Starman arrived from BBTS, I had to decide if I wanted to replace him or not. It wasn’t because of the paint on this face which cleaned up easily, but because he didn’t have his star rod. Oops. BBTS<\/a> took care of Mattel’s gaffe and hooked me up with a spare rod. He’s not Starman without it and it’s one of the best parts of the figure. It looks accurate to how I remember it and it’s good-sized, standing as tall as Jack.<\/p>\n Overall, it felt like a (k)night & day with this pair. I was happy with practically everything on the Golden Age Starman except for the fused hip and Mattel missing the opportunity to do a ball wrist. His costume is vibrant and striking on the shelf and he’s a welcome addition to the still way too small DCUC Golden Age section. <\/P><\/p>\n Jack is a different story. I’m glad to have him in the line and, at first glance, he’s an okay figure. But he just feels too bulky and muscular since he’s essentially a ‘civilian’ character. Since he has a unique buck, that’s more of an issue than he if were using another figure’s pieces. Removable goggles and better (or even standard) articulation would’ve probably helped me like the figure more. Still, there are positives – the nice head sculpt, the rod is great (let’s get to a Stargirl figure, Mattel) and it’s cool to finally<\/em> have an alternative to the permanently crouched DC Direct Jack Knight.<\/p>\n![](\"reviews\/dcimages\/2010\/star1.JPG\")
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