{"id":13095,"date":"2011-06-29T00:19:33","date_gmt":"2011-06-29T05:19:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=13095"},"modified":"2011-07-21T12:55:56","modified_gmt":"2011-07-21T17:55:56","slug":"dcclassics-com-review-lex-luthor-orange-lantern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=13095","title":{"rendered":"DCClassics.Com Review:
Lex Luthor (Orange Lantern)"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a> Anti-Monitor Week rolls on with a review of Lex Luthor during his brief stint as an Orange Lantern Deputy. Normally, I wouldn’t be too excited for this particular figure. Two things though: orange is one of my favorite colors. And I love translucent figures. Now, if only I enjoyed crazy, armored up Lex Luthor… <\/p>\n

My first introduction to Lex Luthor was more or less the Super Friends version, but he never really appealed to me in those days. Well, in some ways, he has never appealed to me. I like the idea of Lex Luthor, but it has always seemed to me that Superman is better showcased when he’s fighting Darkseids, Doomsdays, & Brainiacs. Luthor always remains unbeatable in a way – a mental invincibility against Superman, perhaps – and I’ve never liked it.<\/p>\n

I did come to appreciate him as a corporate villain only to be disappointed by his rise to the Presidency and the subsequent implosion of his character (perhaps the DCnU Lex Luthor will do away with most of that unfortunate turn of events). Anyway, Luthor has been a bit more interesting in the last year after temporarily receiving an orange ring as Larfleeze’s “deputy” during Blackest Night. <\/p>\n

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Lex Luthor getting an orange ring was pretty interesting, but was also ultimately futile. Instead of focusing on the task at hand – defeating Nekron, Luthor was first out to kill Superman and later to steal the rings of the other deputies. He successfully robs Scarecrow of his before he’s restrained by Wonder Woman & Flash. It was pretty interesting and fun until Wonder Woman’s lasso had him reveal he secretly wanted to be Superman. I thought that was pretty stupid. He might want the power or the adoration, but he’d never want to be Superman outright. I should thank my lucky stars that he didn’t talk about real estate though. Ugh.<\/p>\n

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Luthor is largely a “retool” of his original DCSH figure. While I prefer my Luthor in a business suit, I do have a soft spot for his battlesuit from the mid-80s. It might be important to note that the DCSH figure caused a bit of controversy back in the day. He was originally shown with a classic\/rounded armor while the final figure ended up with the boxy armor seen in the picture above. So, when it came to do this figure, he needed a few new pieces to get back to that rounded armor – essentially a new loincloth, chest, and shoulder armor. These all look great, but I’m honestly waiting to see them in proper green & purple. We’re one new chest piece (with his ‘L’ symbol) from getting a proper Battlesuit Lex for Classics now. I still want my business suit Luthor, but I wouldn’t mine a proper Battlesuit Lex one bit.<\/p>\n

Luthor’s sculpt is rounded out with the head from the Gotham City 5pk and a new right hand featuring the orange lantern ring.<\/p>\n

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Hmm, well there’s not much to say about the paint, huh? Luthor is almost entirely cast in orange translucent plastic. Mattel wisely avoided any washes, so that he could look like the big orange-flavored gummy bear that he is. I do wonder why he’s clear though. I get that his armor’s a construct, but shouldn’t there be a naked Luthor in there? Not that I want to see a naked Luthor, far from it.<\/p>\n

The paint work is basically restricted to the head and it’s done well. Luthor essentially becomes the best painted figure in the wave by default. Continue to Page 2…<\/a><\/p>\n

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Articulation is a bit odd since this sculpt started out as a Mr. Freeze figure in the Batman line. That figure featured only a dozen or so points and they were almost all swivel cuts. As the Luthor figure has evolved, more articulation has been added – including ball-joints at the neck, shoulders, and mid-torso, swivels at the biceps, forearms, thighs, and calves\/boots, hinges at the elbows, knees, and ankles, and the Mattel hips. This makes him one of the better articulated figures in the whole line, though mine did end up with a fairly loose mid-torso joint and he tends to flop around a bit.<\/p>\n

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I have a bone to pick with Ethan Van Sciver & Geoff Johns. I grant that Larfleeze covets his lantern. I grant that he clutches it so tightly that it doesn’t need a handle. But I hate that it doesn’t have one (I also hate that the Indigo Tribe doesn’t have traditional lanterns either, so make of that what you will). If I run into Van Sciver at a con, I’m going to have to ask if he decided there shouldn’t be handle or someone told him it didn’t have one. Well, I’ll ask him that right after I ask, “what the hell did you do to Firestorm?!” Priorities, man, priorities…<\/em><\/p>\n

I will also credit the Four Horsemen for doing their research and smartly being aware that Van Sciver draws Larfleeze’s lantern without a handle. And I’ll even credit Mattel for not being cheap and simply taking the “handled mold” they already have and making it orange.<\/p>\n

But I really wish Mattel would’ve been cheap this time. I hate that his lantern doesn’t have a handle. It looks dumb when they’re all lined up. I can only hope… no, I can only plead that when the time comes and Mattel makes a Larfleeze, that they’ll just give him a regular ol’ lantern with a handle. Neither Luthor nor the inevitable Larfleeze will be able to clutch his Lantern, so the toy versions need their handles. It’s that simple.<\/p>\n

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Though I pretty much hate the comic-accurate lantern sculpt, that’s about the only drawback to this figure. Some folks, Vault included, prefer the crazed head sculpt of the DC Direct figure, but not me. I like this Luthor head sculpt (it’d look great on a suit body, hint, hint) and I appreciate the updates that were made to bring this figure up to spec – heck, they even took time to add the ring. <\/p>\n

With the seemingly low desirability for this wave, it was important for Mattel to get the figures right, and they did for Lex. Not every figure in the wave is great, but this Luthor is one of the best figures in the wave for sure.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

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

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

Anti-Monitor Week rolls on with a review of Lex Luthor during his brief stint as an Orange Lantern Deputy. Normally, I wouldn’t be too excited for this particular figure. Two things though: orange is one of my favorite colors. And I love translucent figures. Now, if only I enjoyed crazy, armored up Lex Luthor…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":13096,"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":[6,47,10],"tags":[181,41,378,665,835,40,455,195,20,1066,50],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.itsalltrue.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/olexTN.jpg?fit=50%2C50&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pObc6-3pd","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4997,"url":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=4997","url_meta":{"origin":13095,"position":0},"title":"DC Direct Blackest Night Series 7 & 8","date":"April 19, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"As part of Monday's DC solicits, DC Direct announced two new waves of Blackest Night figures, wave seven in November and wave eight in December. With wave six already on the schedule for November 3rd, that's going to make for an avalanche of new figures right before the holidays. There's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "DCClassics.Com"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"newsimages\/dcd\/rlmer.jpg","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3869,"url":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=3869","url_meta":{"origin":13095,"position":1},"title":"Vault Review: Kryptonite Chaos 2pk","date":"February 11, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I got a surprise last week while checking e-mail. BigBadToyStore informed me that they were fulfulling my pre-order. I didn\u2019t remember pre-ordering anything from them recently, so you can probably understand my confusion. When I checked my account, lo and behold, I realized what had happened. Yup, a year ago\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "DCClassics.Com"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12594,"url":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=12594","url_meta":{"origin":13095,"position":2},"title":"Matty on Facebook: DC Universe Classics 17 in Package","date":"May 11, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Earlier this week, Mattel released images of the DC Universe Classics Wave 17. This wave stirred up a lot of controversy when it was announced, so how it sells in the next few weeks will be interesting. I'm buying because I want to build the Anti-Monitor and, hey, the figures\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "DCClassics.Com"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12517,"url":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=12517","url_meta":{"origin":13095,"position":3},"title":"Sponsor Announcement: Ka-Razy Kings of Toys","date":"May 4, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Hey there, folks! Spring has sprung, and we know it's been quite a while since you've heard from us; however, we do have some exciting news right now, involving an array of the Rainbow Lantern spectrum: Blackest Night Waves 6-8 and Green Lantern Classics Wave 2 are now in stock!\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Sponsors"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1189,"url":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=1189","url_meta":{"origin":13095,"position":4},"title":"DCClassiscs.Com Gotham City 5pk (Wal-Mart Exclusive)","date":"August 19, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Every once in awhile, living in Uncle Wally's backyard pays off. I had precious little to do this afternoon, so I grabbed the car keys and headed off to see how the Wal-Mart resets were coming along at the various stores around me. I hit up my eight closest Wal-Marts\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "DCClassics.Com"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":23,"url":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/?p=23","url_meta":{"origin":13095,"position":5},"title":"DC Universe Classics: Battle for Earth-3 2-Pack Review","date":"July 2, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"","rel":"","context":"In "DCClassics.Com"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13095"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13095"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13572,"href":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13095\/revisions\/13572"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itsalltrue.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}