Toy Review – DC Signature Collection Starman By Mattel

Man, don’t think I don’t get sick of saying this sort of thing; but I was totally unfamiliar with this version of Starman.

I’ve only recently been familiar with any version of the character. I started reading the first Starman Omnibus by James Robertson and Tony Harris a few weeks ago – mostly inspired by Robertson’s unparalleled work on The Shade, which I was compelled to pick up after the excellent one-shot starring Dickie Swift that was part of "Blackest Night).

I’m vaguely familiar with the Ted Knight version from reading some JSA stuff here and there. But this starry guy with the beard was something new to me. Evil and Monkey both insisted he was a good character and worthy of the action figure treatment. Fair enough. Plus, he appeared to be translucent. “Translucent” is just a step below “Glow-in-the-Dark” on the Phantom Troublemaker scale of desirable action figure gimmicks.

This Starman wasn’t motivation for me to subscribe to Club Infinite Earths last year, but he wasn’t a deterrent, either.

First Glance: Much like Atrocitus and the other DCSC figures, Starman does not look like a figure that should cost nearly twenty-four dollars. His translucence and sparkly stars are not evident while he’s in the package, but they are there.

Sculpt: Plain as plain can be, Starman uses a regular DCUC buck with a new head. The masked head might be new, too. I’m not sure. I’m trying to think if there have been any other fully masked males like this.

Starman has ball joints at the neck and shoulders. There are swivels at the biceps, wrists, waist, and thighs. His hips are those funny swivel/pivots that Mattel uses. HE has standard single pivots at the elbows, abdomen, knees, and ankles.

All of the joints on my figure move freely and hold positions well.

Most of the body is molded out of a firm plastic while the masked head is a much softer material. It’s okay. All the colors match up and this makes the head very easy to switch out. The beardy head is a little more firm but still switches out easily enough.

Design: The starfield design of most of Starman’s body is really cool, if maybe not quite as defined as I would have liked. It’s just a bit too subtle. He does look much better out in the open with light shining through him, but even then the stars don’t sparkle quite as much as I think they should. Starman would have really benefitted from some My Little Pony technology. But I will say that all of the star parts do match up color-wise, an impressive feat given the slightly different materials used.

His white parts are another story. His gloves and boots are a sort of metallic white, only they’re more of an off-white bordering on yellowish. I like to call it “Stay-Puft Yellow”. Thought to be fair it should probably be called “1970’s Kenner Stormtrooper Yellow”. There was also some clumpy dried-up paint on my figure’s right wrist. Well, there is. I was afraid to put too much effort into scraping it off. I thought I might end up losing more color than I wanted.

Accessories: Starman comes with an unmasked head.

It looks good. As a matter of fact, it might be my favorite DCUC head so far. The beard and mustache are done very nicely and the hair is pretty obnoxious. This guy almost looks like a hipster. He just needs some black-rimmed glasses and skinny jeans.

The paint on mine isn’t the best. The beard is still flesh-toned where it starts growing out of the face and looks a bit weird. Otherwise it’s okay.

Just one accessory seems a bit sparse for this “Deluxe, collector-oriented line”, but I don’t know what else he would come with. Can he shoot stars or something?

Packaging: It’s a neat little window box. This is a case where the window box works against the product, but it hardly matters since you were either forced to buy this (yes – I know you didn’t have to sign up for the sub, but if you did you had no choice but to buy this guy) or are ordering it in some other online method. 

Very few people will get to see it in person before they make the purchase. But if they did they might pass because you really can’t tell how neat he is while he’s in the box.

Overall: Starman is pretty cool and I like him. Is he worth $15 plus shipping? No – probably not. But so far none of these figures have been. Judged purely on its own merits this figure is pretty good and neat to look at.

4 out of 5

I’d say this one is about as good as Jay Garrick, so that makes the score thus far for DC Signature Collection:

2x Pass

2x Near Miss

0x Fails

0x Excellent

Or something. That system sucks. Never mind.

Side Note: I am not reviewing Starman’s companion figure for July – Rocket Red. Because I knew it looked like a piece of shit and opted not to buy it.

HA! Of course that’s utterly ridiculous. Not buying one of these isn’t even an option!

No, I had to pay for this giant hunk of shit Rocket Red just like the rest of the Club Infinite Earths suckers subscribers. What Matty has forced us to buy is no version of Rocket Red that anybody has ever seen. Apparently this Rocket Red is a giant in a skintight red bodysuit with some armor pieces, because I can’t think of a reason why a huge suit of armor would have fucking veins in its arms.

This Rocket Red is an absolute fail in every way – it is inaccurate in size and concept and it is boring. I would give it a 1 out of 5, but I’m not going to waste my time or yours rating it.

However – if you would like a Rocket Red of your very own or are trying to build an army of inappropriately large Russian war machines; feel free to check out my eBay auction!

-Phantom