OK, they're not so wonderful. In fact, it's pretty unanimously agreed upon, at all of the toy collecting forums I visit, that the Green Lantern movie toys are terrible. Bad likenesses, cheap paints, minimal articulation, mediocre play value -- all of the things that make a good toy or even a great toy seem to be completely missing from the Green Lantern movie toys.
The failures are many. Here's an example: The Build-A-Figure. A few years ago, Toy Biz began something called "Collect and Connect" or "Build a Figure." If you bought most or all of the toys in a given series, each one of them came with a part that you could connect to the other parts to build yet another toy -- usually a character that was larger than the standard 6-inch action figure. Mattel continued this with their DC Universe Classics series. Buying six characters from the first series gave you the parts to build Metamorpho the Element Man, and so forth up to and including the current waves. (It's up to Wave 16 now.)
There is a series of 6-inch figures from the GL movie called the "Movie Masters." Movie Masters first started with the Christopher Nolan Batman Begins film. If you collect 11 of the Green Lantern Movie Masters, you will get the 14 parts necessary to build the movie's Big Bad, the Fear entity called Parallax. Unfortunately, Parallax resembles nothing so much as a big brown and yellow turd with tentacles:
At fifteen bucks each, it is most definitely not worth spending one hundred and sixty-five dollars to build Parallax, not even by the standards of the most rabid Green Lantern collector.
But all is not lost.
Most of the more kid-friendly toys for Green Lantern are a mere 4 inches tall and come with an "energy construct," the kind of thing that Green Lanterns are able to create with just their will power and their ring. A couple of the alien Lanterns are so large that they need an "adapter" piece to use the other constructs. While the figures are kind of, well, crappy, the energy constructs are every GL fan's dream! And thanks to that beautiful little adapter piece, they work and look great with the better-looking figures from other toy lines and companies, like DC Direct or Justice League Unlimited. Here's a pic from fellow toy collector "Sector1014" showing off the DC Universe Classics Hal Jordan figure with pieces from the movie toy's helicopter "construct" -- a construct which is sold exclusively by Walmart and which breaks down into twelve separate weapons:
Here's a shot from "funtime3" which shows how well the trap construct that comes with 4-inch crap figure Isamot Kol goes with the DC Green Lantern Classics figures of Medphyll and Dex-Starr:
Here's a great shot from "dah140" showing DC Infinite Heroes Hal Jordan with the full helicopter construct. The stand is from a Japanese hobby store:
Finally, one of my favorites from "fball13z" -- Ch'p (or Bd'g, depending on whom you talk to, the chipmunk Green Lantern) wielding the mace construct that comes with Abin Sur, as only a furry little rodent Lantern could:
So if, like me, you were deeply disappointed by the movie toys, take heart: they are well worth it for the "energy" parts alone!
The failures are many. Here's an example: The Build-A-Figure. A few years ago, Toy Biz began something called "Collect and Connect" or "Build a Figure." If you bought most or all of the toys in a given series, each one of them came with a part that you could connect to the other parts to build yet another toy -- usually a character that was larger than the standard 6-inch action figure. Mattel continued this with their DC Universe Classics series. Buying six characters from the first series gave you the parts to build Metamorpho the Element Man, and so forth up to and including the current waves. (It's up to Wave 16 now.)
There is a series of 6-inch figures from the GL movie called the "Movie Masters." Movie Masters first started with the Christopher Nolan Batman Begins film. If you collect 11 of the Green Lantern Movie Masters, you will get the 14 parts necessary to build the movie's Big Bad, the Fear entity called Parallax. Unfortunately, Parallax resembles nothing so much as a big brown and yellow turd with tentacles:
At fifteen bucks each, it is most definitely not worth spending one hundred and sixty-five dollars to build Parallax, not even by the standards of the most rabid Green Lantern collector.
But all is not lost.
Most of the more kid-friendly toys for Green Lantern are a mere 4 inches tall and come with an "energy construct," the kind of thing that Green Lanterns are able to create with just their will power and their ring. A couple of the alien Lanterns are so large that they need an "adapter" piece to use the other constructs. While the figures are kind of, well, crappy, the energy constructs are every GL fan's dream! And thanks to that beautiful little adapter piece, they work and look great with the better-looking figures from other toy lines and companies, like DC Direct or Justice League Unlimited. Here's a pic from fellow toy collector "Sector1014" showing off the DC Universe Classics Hal Jordan figure with pieces from the movie toy's helicopter "construct" -- a construct which is sold exclusively by Walmart and which breaks down into twelve separate weapons:
Here's a shot from "funtime3" which shows how well the trap construct that comes with 4-inch crap figure Isamot Kol goes with the DC Green Lantern Classics figures of Medphyll and Dex-Starr:
Here's a great shot from "dah140" showing DC Infinite Heroes Hal Jordan with the full helicopter construct. The stand is from a Japanese hobby store:
Finally, one of my favorites from "fball13z" -- Ch'p (or Bd'g, depending on whom you talk to, the chipmunk Green Lantern) wielding the mace construct that comes with Abin Sur, as only a furry little rodent Lantern could:
So if, like me, you were deeply disappointed by the movie toys, take heart: they are well worth it for the "energy" parts alone!
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