by Michael Paul
MAKE THEM YOUR OWN: The customization of Lego figures is sweeping the world over. For the longest time Lego has received tremendous success with its "ordinary" building block play sets, but a new door opened in the 2000's with the licensing of trademarked characters and franchises such as Star Wars. One of the most recent waves is superheroes. Lego, along with DC Comics, produced play sets such as Batman and Superman. This prompted merchants and fans to begin producing various custom characters and are successfully selling them at conventions, table top markets, and in online stores. Some are as easy as moving a few parts around and some require significant alteration, such as hand painting to achieve the final result. Added to that, competitors such as Megablocks and Kre-O now have licensed figures like Star Trek and are selling successfully too. The snowball effect has caused Lego to step up their game to stay on top of the market. The customized figures that were sold by these vendors are now being produced by Lego, officially sanctioned by the franchises.
If you're a DC fan then hold on to your hats because your going to love these!
Deathstroke & Deadshot: I give both of these an 8.5. Yes, that's a Boba Fett head piece painted to resemble Deathstroke's. Be sure to notice the tassels on his sword and helmet,a simple red ribbon,I love it! Deadshot is nothing more than a re-configured character with a small dot of paint on the right eye, GENIUS!
Captain Atom & Shazam: I rate this Captain Atom at a 6.3. It's a mediocre paint job but a very simple design that works just fine. It's easily recognizable for what's it's suppose to be. The Shazam gets an 8.7. A simple gold bolt painted on the chest and a short white cape. An older version of Shazam, it reminds me of the Justice League Cartoons..........one of my favorites!
Black Manta & Red Hood: I give the Black Manta a 7.5 for ingenuity, it's not exactly correct but it gets the point across with no problems. The Red Hood scores a 9.3 . It's almost perfect, perhaps a few more details on the chest area but other than that it's spot on.
Giganta & Black Canary: I'm Rating Giganta as a 7.5. It's reminiscent of the old Super Friends cartoon series. A skirt and a few paint dots with some basic parts and finished, easy as that. Black Canary gets a 9.0. Obviously inspired by the TV series, I this figure was completely custom printed, no hand painting or re-configuring.
Solomon Grundy & Dr. Fate: An 8.7 for Solomon Grundy, other than the size issue of being generally larger than other characters it looks just like him for being re-configured. Dr. Fate gets a 7.7. Mostly gold paint on a blue body, it's not perfect but awesome to have ....c'mon, who doesn't like Dr. Fate?
J.L.U. vs the Legion of Doom: All together now! My entire collection both custom and licensed, and it's nowhere near finished.
DC Entertainment holds one of the largest multiverses known to pop culture which makes for a long list of characters to complete. Fortunately, creativity and ingenuity are in no way lacking when it comes to dedicated fans adding to their collections, wether made by hand or by Lego . When one of the greatest toy company's in the world gets even better how do you describe it? No matter what your answer, one thing is for sure, Lego is one of the newest and coolest ways to collect all your favorite super heroes. You can find many figures online here, but you can also search your local thrift stores and eBay for other deals. If they don't make 'em, make it your own + keep collecting! From Michael (aka The Toy Man).
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