Yee-ouch! Sorry, Jason. Didn't mean to set anything off, sir.

I agree, the JLU line lacks in quality and detail. Sometimes, it REALLY lacks in quality in detail, as when the only "new" part of a head goes horribly South, like Galatea, Vixen, Katma Tui, and the in-house sculpted Diana. But when we do get a new head that's decent, like Blue Devil, Nemisis, Sand, or so many others, at least it is something new. I'd love to see all new and accurate sculpts for ecah figure, but the economics of such halcyon days are in the past, along with it's shining example of Super Powers.

Again, I had no intent of starting a debate. But for those of us that love the Timm-verse, we'll take what little "new" we can get, even if that only means 50% of the heads. I'd hate to lose even that much.

I love the JLU line. For me, it's the continuation of a line that started in 1992. I only want to encourage Mattel to maintain the few remaining bastions of quality it has already established. But that's only my humble opinion.

We now return to your regularly schedule discussion of Showcase rules.

C.

That's part of what this showcase is all about. Why not leg swap Superman with some taller legs, and show Mattel how it could be done?

Or repaint MM to the right green?

And on and on.



Ahh, it's not you. When i just spent an hour trying to get my JLU figures to just stand by leaning on each other (a neighbor's kid knocked them all over) I'm not feeling terribly charitable toward Mattel right now.

I love what Matel is trying to do. And the thinking behind the line is fine for what it is (after all, the stubby Superman, too tall Manhunter, one leg longer syndrome can all be laid at Georg Brewer's door for the bad original sculpts that Mattel bought). But their QC is just flat out terrible.

And keep in mind I oversaw a line that did 5 unique toys a month, in quantities of over 10 million, and we never had QC problems. Why? Because a good part of every day was spent monitoring the factory and fixing mistakes up until they shipped. If Mattel needs to save money so badly then they need to fire a whole bunch of their wildly overstuffed staff (and I'm not saying the Action Play staff is overstuffed, just that Mattel has more employees than any other toy company. And that doesn't necessarily translate into better product).

OK, this needs to be a blog post. Grrr...

....Moving right along, I do have a hypothetical clarification. Is it okay to modify a head a little bit, so long as it's reasonable to point out an existing head that would work in its place? For instance, let's say I'm using Vixen or Ice and I think Black Canary with new hair would work for Mattel's purposes, but for the sake of my custom's quality I'd rather keep the neck articulation and use a different face. Does that make sense?

All in all I think this is a really cool idea to give them cost cutting ideas guys. Get creative and come up with some really neat repaints that actually do create new characters and striking variants. I doubt anyone is going to discourage Mattel from making new headsculpts where appropriate.

See, I don't think of it as a way to cut back on new sculpts so much as it's a way to show Mattel some ways to make the existing sculpts that we're bound to get along with those new sculpts a little more interesting and so that we don't feel like we're buying the exact same Superman for the Nth time without it being some goofy concept like the Anti-Amazo figures or the Matrix inspired ones. There are some really simple, no-brainer things that can be done like simply giving Two-Face a show accurate make-over or putting the Nightwing head on the Elongated Man body to make a Nightwing that doesn't look like he's dancing. I don't see how either of those could be considered a bad move for Mattel.

The suggestion of turning Atom Smasher into Damage makes perfect sense, the mask types are almost identical, it's not like a new sculpt would look all that different for a character like that.

Personally, I think the biggest drawback to this showcase is that some of the figures are so rare that no one would dare get a paint brush near them and that effectively eliminates several base parts. The fact that we're getting so many new heads and extra bits in the next few months is also a drawback because I can think of several that could be done with the new bits.

I can't wait to see the results, you guys are a creative bunch and I'm sure that you will all step up to the challenge and surprise even yourselves with what paint alone can accomplish.

I'm curious about the answer to RandomGuy's question about new hairpieces for heads that are already made for it. I get the concept that we can't resculpt existing heads, but like he said, what about hairpieces? Does that fall into the "straps and armor" type category?

Not that I'm anyone to officially clarify the rules, but it seems that the intent is to use existing parts only but allowing for minor modifications. For example, Mattel uses the Superman cape with bits cut off for Bizarro and I think that's what is meant by that. An original example would be to trim Question's trenchcoat down to look like an open suit jacket/sport coat like King Faraday wears.

since toy guru said in a interview about looking at way to incorperate existing batman animated figures into the jlu line can we also use them for the showcase but only mattel made figures like the two face mold used for the question i know there is a size issue but look at some of the current height issue now (superman manhunter supergirl atomsmasher and the list goes on

Although the TNBA Batman figures are not specifically listed here...



...they do fall under the "Mattel animated figures" category and parts from that Joker and Two-Face have both been used and will be used again in the JLU line, so, yes, they can be used (unless Superfly comes in here and smites me and says otherwise... ).

Thanks for clarifying that Jim, I always wondered if that was the same piece. And I don't know why they never thought to do the same when they made that jacket piece for Black Canary and Zatanna. They could have made it with the coat tails for Zatanna, then cut them off to use on Black Canary. (By cut them off, I assume they just block off that part of the tool so the plastic can't get in there.)

It's that sort of forward planning that can get the most out of the tooling budget.

The Bizarro cape could be a different mold for all I know, but it cartainly looks as if it's just the Superman cape with chunks missing. I'm guessing they use something like a paper punch, put the whole cape in and punch out the holes. I would think that every cape gets that treatment just to trim off the injection sprue and flash.

As for the Canary/Zatanna coat, you make a good point. I just wonder if they had thought far enough ahead for Zatanna when Canary was tooled up and that's why there are no tails.

can the showase also include the archie superheroes and milestone characters since dc can use them now then again we do not know if mattel can do them yet but thought i would ask

How well would a Super Powers GL head look on a Jlu body. I so want a good Hal Jordan gl in JLU scale

i would look similar to this.