I was flipping the the JLU comic books and noticed this on the back of the book that came w/ the Green Arrow/Black Canary/Superman 3 pack.



Let's ignore the fact that Brainiac is blue and and Sinestro is pink fleshed skinned. Check out the added articulations!

Elongated Man, Brainiac, the Atom Amazo, and Starman have elbow joints and swivel waists. Starman also has knee joints.

Check out all the gold on Aquaman, Dr Fate and Wonder Woman. WW even has added arm and leg bling on her right side.

I'm glad they fixed Atom Smashers hands and Waverider's hair.

Sure, some look like they're held together with crazy glue and wishful thinking. But whatever happened to THESE prototypes?

I'm happier with my figures they way they are to be honest.

sorry, this is a non-issue for me.

I remember these. There was also a Supergirl V1 designed this way too. I wish they would have never wasted the time and money on those and used it toward other sculpts and designs. I wish Aquaman would have lost the added articulation too.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining that these were scrapped nor am I feeling the need to hunt them down. I'm just curious about how Mattel went from advertising these to giving us what they gave us.

I would assume that they themselves weren't too pleased with the added articulations once they saw them - GL was very loose if I recall.

For my money, the added articulations in these prototypes were amazing. I'm very sad we never got to see this Green Arrow (especially since they also got his colors right!) Dr Fate also looks terrific here.

The only figure from this wave that I think wouldn't have benefitted from the extra articulations would be Supergirl...because they made her so tiny. Otherwise, this was a big step forward for the line overall.

I still believe if they'd used tougher plastics, the joints would have been tighter, and this new style would have stuck around. And for those who think it gets in the way of the style of the figures...be honest and look at these. None of them look bad at all!

(FYI - Brainiac isn't blue here, he's that bluish purple from S:TAS)

Thank you tuning4k for posting this pic. I think those are amazing.

If proper procedure was followed at Mattel, these actually would have been destroyed. Sadly.

Yeah, I think companies only hold onto things like this for a year or so, before destroying them. SO NO ONE ELSE CAN HAVE THEM!

Silly and wasteful. They should just sell them on Ebay to us

Are you sure?
'Cause it wouldn't hurt for my Superman to start doing more squats at the Gym.



The only figure I liked with extra articulation, was the Flash. On everyone else, it looked bad; and the quality was such that they often broke right out of the box. I for one, am glad Mattel got rid of it.

Put me down for hating the 10 POA too. Loose, floppy, and I also had some that snapped apart. I actually weeded through my customizing bins and disposed of all the 10 POA figures a couple of years ago. I tried to give them out at Halloween, but kids wouldn't take them, so I ended up just giving them to my comic shop.

I thought Superman looked horrible with it, but I did like the extra articulation on Batman, Flash & Aquaman

Fair points. But my custom Metron wouldn't be able to sit in his Mobius Chair without the knee joints. So I'm glad Mattel at least took a swing at it.

Mattel's execution of the articulation was poor, because Mattel opted not to make any of these figures with strong plastics. It wasn't this 10 POA idea that was to blame, it was Quality Control, which continued to be an issue with the company long after we went back to 5 POA.

As for Superman, yes, he looks pretty bad in that photo Red Ricky, but lets be honest...he was the ugliest of the main seven characters in figure form. Mattel's sculpt for him was never that good to begin with (sorry 4H, if you're the ones who did it!) so adding joints and shrinking his thighs down like that only makes it worse.

If you take a look at the Elongated Man 10 POA prototype, you'll see that they used really tiny pins for the elbows, making the joints practically invisible. That's what got me so excited when I first saw them...the design of the figures wasn't being affected at all! (Also, look at Starman in the front row - he looks great!)

If they'd upped the quality of the figures overall, it would have worked out nicely. But that's a "woulda, coulda, didn't" situation...

I actually like that Booster better. Just looks better to me. But I was never much of a fan of the 9POA. Glad they finally switched.

Ahh nostalgia! lol Is that AMAZO between Atom Smasher and Hawkgirl? And for whomever pointed it out, I think DB, they did release a "color corrected" Green Arrow. He was one of the late Orange cards that didnt get a wide distribution.http://dchallofjustice.wikia.com/wiki/Green_Arrow_ver_2

The Horsemen had nothing to do with JLU. The original seven were sculpted by Karen Palinko of DC Direct.

The reason the articulation was dropped was because they opted to put the money into more characters rather than more articulation. Additional articulation means an additional tool, which means an additional cost of production. There weren't a whole lot of people upset with this decision, either, as I recall.