Toy Review: McFarlane Toys ‘Superman & The Authority’ Superman Mostly Hits
by Tony Thornley
The Man of Steel has numerous incarnations and one of the most interesting in recent days has come from turning a failed concept and relaunch on its head. With that in mind, McFarlane Toys released a plastic version of this extremely different (yet still in-continuity) Superman.
In the late 2010s, DC Publisher Dan Didio was looking for ways to freshen up DC Comics’ prime Earth. Over his tenure as DC’s top guy, he had constantly been looking at revitalizing the universe. This ranged from spearheaded the “Rebirth” initiatives, geared towards bringing classic versions of DC’s pantheon back to the forefront to the New 52, which was a partial reboot of the line.
A few years after the New 52 and DC Rebirth revitalized the line, sales were starting to slow again. A new concept, code named 5G (for Fifth Generation), started to emerge. Heidi MacDonald at The Beat wrote up a more thorough history of the publishing initiative, and how it led to Didio’s departure from DC. But where it’s relevant is that one concept Didio proposed to superstar Grant Morrison was a fascist Kal-El leading the Authority, while his son Jon was the more hopeful/traditional Superman.
Morrison rejected that concept, but then they also conceived of a way the Superman & the Authority concept would work with the nature and personality of Superman. The story was eventually released as, well, Superman & The Authority by Morrison and Mikel Janin. And that’s where this figure comes from.
Superman & The Authority presented Kal-El as a science hero, a lot more akin to Tom Strong, or a healthy dose of Doc Savage. Janin’s design for him echoes that, and it mostly comes to life here in this figure. The short-sleeved, gloved costume is pulled straight from the comics, with small design touches throughout that makes the costume feel realistic.
The Kingdom Come style shield looks great, and I like it being printed rather than sculpted. Once again this is a McFarlane Superman figure with what I call the Handsome Squadward problem though. They work so hard to create Clark’s square jaw that it veers into exaggeration, and doesn’t look good.
The figure itself only comes with a set of alternate hands. It’s a trend in McFarlane figures to limit accessories that holds a lot of their figures back. For some reason it comes with a flat stand instead of a flight stand. I love that McFarlane does stands as a standard with their figures, but the flight stand should just be the standard, allowing for more posing.
As far as posing, it’s mostly great. The downside is that they’ve changed something relatively recently with their plastic that’s a much more hard and stiff material, which does make a figure feel brittle, and makes the shoulder butterfly joints move awkwardly. Overall though, it was a fun figure to fidget with, pose and see what I can do with it.
This figure embodies Superman and I’m glad to add it to my collection. It’s well worth picking up for anyone looking for some fun alternative Supermen.
