Action Figures I Don't Like: Kingdom Come Superman (Mattel DC Multiverse)

This was a recent addition to my collection.  I had bookmarked it on Amazon for a few months and finally one was on sale because it was an Amazon Warehouse special--the packaging WILL be damaged!  (Which always makes me imagine someone at Amazon has the job of beating up these Warehouse items to make sure the package is damaged.)

Kingdom Come was a seminal graphic novel from the 90s by Mark Waid and art by Alex Ross.  I think I've mentioned it on this blog before.  The story is set in the future, when younger superpowered people are getting out of hand, led by the brutal Magog, so the aging Superman and those of his generation take them on.

The Superman from this book has white in his hair and his shield is black-and-red because he's in mourning over Lois Lane.  After the book and I think a sequel, Geoff Johns had him come over to the main DC Universe to join the Justice Society of America for a little while.  (This was around the same time as he also added the Stargirl that was the basis of the TV show.)  Last year former Superman Returns star Brandon Routh played a version of the character in the Crisis on Infinite Earths thing on the CW.

How It's Supposed to Look

Most of the figure actually isn't all that bad.  I mean it has decent articulation and the black-and-red shield and red trunks.  The problem is the head doesn't look right at all.  The gray in the hair is barely visible and the face isn't really wrinkled.  It looks like a normal Superman head with the barest amount of gray sprayed on the sides of the head.  It's just not right at all.  If I had some white paint or maybe even some of that old liquid White-Out stuff I'd try to recolor the hair myself, but I couldn't really do much for the wrinkles.  Since this as a pretty recent figure (one of the last waves before they changed from Mattel to McFarlane) there's not much excuse for the bad likeness.

I decided to try a little experiment to "fix" this figure.  Last February I bought a crappy Flash from The Dark Knight Strikes Again (whatever the second shitty one was called) from Ollie's and it came with an old Bruce Wayne head.  That head has more pronounced lines and gray hair.  So I took a black marker and pen and colored the top and part of the sides black.

The problem is that I couldn't get Superman's head off.  But from a Toy Galaxy video I remembered there was a way to swap heads.  I looked it up on YouTube and watched some British guy's video where he dipped a figure in a coffee mug of boiling water for 3 minutes and the head popped off.  So I boiled some water and filled a cup and dipped Superman for 3 minutes.  I wrapped a towel around him and POP! off came his head!

The problem then is that Superman's head peg is smaller than Bruce Wayne's head.  I filled Bruce Wayne's head with some Elmer's type glue.  It's not really great but for the moment it's on.  As long as you don't move him around too much it's OK.  It's a little big for his body and the expression is a little too angry, but he definitely looks more like a guy in his 50s or 60s than the original head.

Now who's going to be the first to say they like the original better? 😡