DC Universe Classics All-Star Superboy Prime: Review by Davestator

The Birthday Bunny came a little early for me and I have to thank the kindly old Jack Rabbit for this figure! (Mind you I had no idea that kindly old Jack Rabbit was a few years younger than me and Mexican but I digress.) Superboy Prime was freed from his plastic bubble prison this morning, immediately flying to victory:

I have to say I always have liked this costume design in appearance. I would LIKE to say it translates well into a figure but, well, quite honestly it has a few flaws that I suspect toy designers may always find fatally hard to get around. This does not mean I don't like this figure, or even the design. It just means that I think maybe the costume design could have stood a bit more attention to detail. More on that later, let's start with the bio of Superboy Prime, shall we?

For those of you wishing to read the bio as it appears on the package, here it is:

Now let's break this down.

"In a parallel world where DC super heroes are fictional comic book characters, a teenage boy named Clark Kent discovers he has the same powers as Superman."

Might that parallel world be ours? I'm sure we are meant to think that, with wording like "where DC super heroes are fictional..." but then I remember, no. I'm pretty sure if it were OUR world we would never stop being assaulted with a barrage of news reports of a teenage kid with football shoulder pads attached to refrigerator coils attached to a lycra body suit beating up bad guys. It is fun to dream, I suppose, and DC has never been afraid to capitalize on that notion.

"Donning the man of steel uniform, he became Superboy Prime..."

Well, the uniform may be similar to Superman's, the man of steel, but to me that reads more like this: "He was building an Optimus Prime costume out of football shoulder pads, some refrigerator coils, and blue stretch pants with funky boot s when he noticed he could fly. So he figured 'to hell with the Optimus Prime Costume! I'm going to be SUPERBOY......Prime!'" The cape is tattered to the point where it almost seems like an afterthought.

"....and joined forces with heroes from other worlds to defeat the Anti-monitor in the crisis on infinite Earths."

OK, that would explain why the news media hasn't been touching this one. I don't care if you're a FOX, CBS, or MSNBC junkie. Be honest, none of them touch the extraterrestrial stuff and we KNOW this! Still, I kind of snicker, albeit curiously, at the notion of this Superboy originating in our universe.

"After witnessing his heroes become darker and ineffective..."

Oh, crap! So the legion of super heroes sold out to the Obama administration? Man, that's a real bummer! Happens to the best I guess!

"Superboy Prime became disillusioned and decided to change the world himself. His actions led to the infinite crisis, resulting in great destruction across the galaxy."

This does sound like exactly what would happen to anyone unfortunate enough to meet the requirements of being a superhero in our universe, unfortunately. You may have saved the planet from being swallowed up into a black hole, but the UN never approved it! You heathen!

As for the figure itself, there is some decent articulation to it. The arms and hands swivel and rotate fairly independently. Unfortunately, like its predecessor, you can only raise the arms so far upwards before the shoulder pads limit further movement.

"I would have tossed that meteorite further if I could have gotten the $%#?!! thing over my head!"

The feet swivel up and down, which allows for some cool flight poses and makes it easier to stand him upright if you need to adjust for weight balance. The legs rotate and pivot, which seems kind of fruitless with the coils in the way:

I wonder how far around you could wrap those before they stopped the swivel feature altogether?

Quite honestly, he does present beautifully!

And the face is well sculpted as well:

And something else I noticed, which may or may not be readily visible in this shot, is that the legs are also designed to rotate outward, like he was riding a horse.

If you look just slightly below where the belt meets his outer red skivvies, you can see a line where the legs bow out, should you choose to. This will be great for making him straddle things or ride on his super steed, though at the moment I am just not imaginative enough to think of a practical use for this feature. Oh well, maybe it will come to me.

All in all I am really enjoying this figure. It has its issues, yes, but I think that may be more the fault of the costume design than the execution of the figure itself. Available via commercial retailers now and also at mattycollector.

This is Davestator, and on behalf of myself and Dark Convoy, I wish you all a very safe, blessed, and safe Summer time and a wonderful 2015! Thanks for reading  :)