DC Comics LEGO - Lois Lane, Black Canary, Green Arrow

Today is Valentine's Day.  I like Valentine's Day a lot more now than I used to.  I'm married to a hot wife, have two boys who are just starting to figure out the V-Day thing and will probably be much more successful at it than I ever have been, or ever will be.  They're both kinda players, now that I think about it. In any case, I figured it would be a good day to highlight a few super-couples that I made out of LEGO.

Superman was finally part of a LEGO set in 2012, and I picked him up and dig him lots.  But he didn't have a Lois Lane with him.  There will be a Lois Lane with the new Man of Steel LEGO sets coming this May, but super-love can't wait that long.  So I made this Lois Lane to go with him.  Awwww.  That's her um, phone in her hand.  Or iPad.  Or iPad Mini.  It's something shiny, okay? 

Another super-couple I've liked for a long time now is Green Arrow and Black Canary; they're always on-again off-again, and I honestly don't know their current status in the DC Universe.  Green Arrow is on the CW series "Arrow,  and that's good for him I suppose...and there's a Laurel Lance character on there who might possibly maybe become a Black Canary eventually.  Anyway.  Here's them.  And no, I didn't use her fishnets costume.  Not yet.  Maybe later. It *is* Valentine's Day...

LEGO Batman: Enemies

With all of my obsessive compulsive problems with how LEGO isn't releasing every single character from across more than 75 years of DC Comics history, I've gotta say I have no complaints about how they've handled the villains of Gotham City. Joker, Penguin, Catwoman, Mr. Freeze, Scarecrow, Poison Ivy, Two-Face, Bane, Killer Croc...all the A-Listers are covered.  

Then again, me being me...I wanted more. Batman has the best (or worst?) villains in comic books, and even beyond the A-Listers, I wanted more.  

Left to Right, Front to Back: Red Hood, Black Mask, Mr Zsasz; Firefly, Mad Hatter, Killer Moth; Hugo Strange, Hush.

LEGO Batman: Allies

Huntress, Batman, Robin (Damian Wayne) Nightwing, Batgirl, Commissioner Gordon

As a lifelong fan of Batman, and a nearly lifelong fan of LEGO, when LEGO announced a Batman line in 2007, I was immediately onboard.  LEGO did a great job with Batman for a few years, and then restarted the line last year, expanding it to include the rest of the DC Comics universe (Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman etc.).

But when you've known Batman as long as I have, you need something more.  So I've updated some of my Batman LEGO customs and added some new ones.

Batman, Red Robin, Huntress, Robin, Nightwing, Batgirl, Commissioner Gordon

The Batman Family has changed and expanded over the years--the Robin I grew up with also grew up, so Dick Grayson, once the Boy Wonder, has become Nightwing. LEGO released him in one set about five years ago, and the only thing I changed about that minifigure was the hair.  The others are all new, including Tim Drake (the third Robin, now "Red Robin), Damian Wayne (the current Robin), and a personal favorite of mine, Barbara Gordon as Batgirl.  I updated my Huntress and Commissioner Gordon minifigures to give them the "light flesh" faces instead of yellow faces, since the LEGO  Super Heroes line uses more realistic skin tones than classic LEGO does.  LEGO has finally released a Commissioner Gordon this year, in a set based on The Dark Knight Rises...I'm thinking I'll keep my cartoon/comics based version around too.

Custom Action Figures of the 1990s...

Well, this is kind of embarrassing, but I'll share it anyway. Because I'm an over-sharer. While going through my files on my computer, I found these pictures from sometime in the late 1990s. There had been a line of action figures that included some members of the Justice League, b
ut not all. Total Justice gave us Batman, Superman, Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman, and then a few bizarrely random characters like Huntress, Black Lightning...and...I forget.

Because that wasn't enough, I decided to buy up some other ation figures and repaint them as I saw fit. Blame some of the amateurishness on the 1990s, some on my developing skills, and some on the pictures...which were taken on my parents' front porch. Wow.

The Teen Titans: Starfire, Arsenal, Troia, Flash, Nightwing, Tempest, and Changeling. Wow. That was one of my favorite superhero teams, and versions of it still are. Love the Titans.

Aztek and Metamorpho. It's best not to ask.

This one is more interesting to me than others, just because I don't remember making most of them. But hey kids, it was the 90's There was CRAZY stuff going on. So that was the Justice Society, and included... Hawkgirl, Hourman, Dr. Fate, Atom Smasher, Black Canary, Green Lantern (Alan Scott), Spectre, Flash (Jay Garrick) and Wildcat.

This is just an assortment of characters. No real rhyme or reason. The Wonder Twins, Captain Atom, Captain Marvel, Supergirl, Firestorm, and...the Ray? I don't remember that at all.

Some New Gods: Lightray, Orion, Big Barda and Mr. Miracle. I actually liked how they turned out, although you really can't tell how awesome they are from the photograph.

And then some ladies...too often overlooked. I mean come on. It's Wonder Woman. She deserves some credit. So in that picture we have Fire, Ice (a favorite team-up from the Justice League International comics) Wonder Woman (that tiara. ouch), Oracle (Barbara Gordon, former Batgirl, now computer genius in a wheelchair...with Agent Scully's head. Great.), and Tomorrow Woman. Who looks to be turning Japanese. I really think so.

Wow. Sorry about that blast from the past. I feel kinda dizzy now. I think we need more Fisher Price Little People to cleanse the palate.

Ahhh. Better.

LEGO Batman Villains

When LEGO announced that they were making Batman building sets a few years back, it was several of my geeky dreams coming true. But because enough is never enough, I realized that to complement the Bat-villains they were producing, I'd have to build some of my own. With mixed results. Now that the Bat-license seems to be on hold, we may have seen the last of the Batman LEGO sets (although the video game still seems to be selling strong), so these may be as close as I get to the real thing.

Clayface may be the grossest LEGO guy I've ever attempted...here's he's a LEGO construct with lots of Sculpey put on him, baked, and painted. Not my best effort...and yet that's kinda what Clayface looks like. Uh...clay.

Ra's Al Ghul and Talia...he's in need of a cape.

Firefly--a simple custom that turned out pretty sweet.

Mad Hatter. I think I went overboard on his hat.

Black Mask, Harley Quinn (made before the official minifig came out in the second wave of Batman sets), and Man-Bat. I really wish they had produced an official one of him. He's using a Werewolf head, which is biologically inaccurate, but it works well.

Mr. Zsasz, a Bat-villain who cuts himself with a new tally mark every time he kills someone. I at least had the decency to give him underwear...

The official Bat-Villains mixed in with my customs...a fairly frightening group. No wonder Arkham can't keep things under control.

Muppet Batman: Joker and Harley Quinn

The final characters we're visiting as part of the Muppet Batman group of enemies and allies is Joker and Harley Quinn. At one point, I think I was considering Fozzie Bear for the Joker, but I wanted someone with a little more edge. More edge than Fozzie Bear, you say? Impossible! But true. So I looked at the Muppets I had kicking around the toy box, and it became clear that the Muppet who unnerved me the most when I was a kid was undoubtedly Crazy Harry.

Crazy Harry was fond of blowing things up. And, it being the 1970's, people were prone to saying things like "That's dynamite, Kermit!" and then Crazy Harry would pop up with his little detonator box and say "Did someone say DYNAMITE???" and then depress his plunger, and an explosion would go off. It happened a lot. In any case, Crazy Harry was nuts. And, with a little bit of a paint job, I think he makes an excellent Joker.

It's surprising how little I had to do to the action figure to make him into the Joker, really. I lightened his skin a shade or two, painted his hair green, and just repainted his clothes to look more like an inmate--er--patient's jumpsuit from Arkham Asylum.

He gets an inmate--er--patient number on his back, too. That's not the PIN number for our bank accounts. In case you're wondering. Really. It's not.

The Joker's main squeeze is Harley Quinn, and in between me really genuinely liking the character, and her being named "Quinn," I had to find a way to get her in. After using Miss Piggy for Catwoman, and Janice for Poison Ivy, that only left one regular female cast member from The Muppet Show--Camilla the chicken. She's Gonzo's girlfriend (when he remembers which chicken she is), but here she's putting on the jester costume to play Joker's moll. So if there's a dust-up later on between Gonzo and Crazy Harry...things will get crazy. Er.

To make Harley Quinn, I just did a simple Sculpey jester's hat and collar. It's not completely accurate to Harley or Camilla, but it works. And hey, she's a chicken.

That's it for the Muppet Batman collection--there will be more DC Comics and Muppets figures coming sooner or later, but I think we need to visit some other genres first. The Fisher Price Little People are begging to be let out...I think we'll see some of them this week.

Muppet Batman Sketchbook

Before the final reveal of Joker and Harley Quinn, I stumbled across these old papers--a kind of sketchbook of part of the "creative process" that I go through when I make these things. It's not just tearing action figures limb from limb and then reassembling them to make new toys. It's mostly that, but not just that. I probably drew these in between calls at a previous job, so be kind. I know they're disproportional and not in scale with each other and everything else--I'm a doodler, not an artist. In any case, it's interesting to see what worked and what didn't--who survived, and who didn't.


The first sketch was Batman and his allies--from the beginning, I wanted Batman and Robin to be Link and Dr. Strangepork from "Pigs in Space." Their allies started out with Kermit as Alfred, and Fozzie Bear as Commissioner Gordon. I still like those ideas--especially Fozzie as Commissioner Gordon. Fozzie didn't end up as any character in the final collection, although I suppose he could have made a creepy Joker. Comedy gone bad. Very, very bad.

Anyone who knows about my love for both Catwoman and Miss Piggy is probably somewhat disturbed by this fusion of the two. Due to the lack of female characters, Catwoman had to either be Piggy, Janice, or Camilla, so my choice was clear. Scooter-as-Riddler survived to the final cut, but the other two here, Gonzo-as-Penguin and sax player Zoot-as-Two-Face did not. I still like the idea of Gonzo as the Penguin, especially since I don't have any Gonzo in my final lineup. And...I just realized how much that little sketch of Gonzo looks like FDR. Awesome.

This sketch is the last one that has rejected versions of characters that didn't make it--my favorite too, Beaker-as-Scarecrow. Tall, lanky, and with the potential to be ubercreepy, I love this version of Scarecrow. But I didn't have a Beaker to spare (he's one of the rarer figures), and I did have a headless Animal. So...still creepy, but wow, that Beaker would have been sweet. Everyone else made it through to the final cut.

Here's the final five after recasting and revising them. I do love Rowlf-as-Alfred, both because it brings my favorite piano-playing dog into the fold, and because I like the idea of man's best friend being a gentleman's gentleman. Kermit became Commissioner Gordon probably for the simple reason that he was already wearing a trenchcoat. Sculpting a Muppet Penguin from scratch to be The Penguin was a stroke of genius that coincided with my burgeoning self-confidence in my sculpting skills (misplaced self-confidence, but it hasn't hurt anyone yet). When Beaker fizzled, Animal stepped in, in that inarticulate way of his...and Floyd became Two-Face when a Zoot became too hard to acquire. In Batman: The Animated Series, Harvey Dent and Pamela Isley have a fling before they become Two-Face and Poison Ivy, respectively; Floyd and Janice have a thing goin' on themselves, so I thought keeping them together would be sweet. I'm mushy like that.

Coming soon: Joker and Harley Quinn!

Muppet Batman: Poison Ivy, Two-Face, Mr. Freeze

One of the best things about Batman is his "rogues gallery"--the villains who call Gotham City their home. You'd think that with the Caped Crusader locking them up after every attempted heist, they'd figure it out and try someplace like, I dunno, Omaha...but they keep coming back to Gotham City. And Batman keeps stopping them.

So when I started turning Palisades Toys' Muppet action figures into Batman and his allies, I knew I'd need to have his enemies too. I didn't dig as deep as Zsasz or Clayface, but I go beyond Joker and Catwoman.

These three villains are associated in my mind--partially because of Batman: The Animated Series, and partially thanks to the Batman & Robin movie that I've otherwise tried to purge from my mind. Mr. Freeze, a brilliant but tragic figure, was in one of the first episodes of Batman: The Animated Series, and completely blew me away. I decided that one brilliant scientist deserves another, so I used Dr. Bunsen Honeydew to create Mr. Freeze. I cut away his lab coat, added some body armor with Sculpey polymer clay, and a capsule from a gumball machine became the dome over his head. Once I painted the figure, I knew I got him right. All I need is a little frozen Beaker, and it'll be done.


The next villain is Two-Face, formerly Gotham's district attorney Harvey Dent. He's another character I grew to love in the Animated Series, then hated on the big screen when played by Tommy Lee Jones. The Dark Knight brought us yet another version of Two-Face, and I liked him there, although I felt like he was underused and probably overwhelmed by what Heath Ledger's Joker was doing in the same movie. In any case, I picked Floyd, the bass guitarist from Electric Mayhem to play Two-Face in my little caper.

I made this several years before The Dark Knight came out, and tried to make his scarred side of his face kind of cartoony but still gross. It's less graphic than what they did to Aaron Eckhart, which is probably a good thing.

The final villain in this trio is Poison Ivy, who uses plants to commit crimes, and feels that plants are more deserving of compassion than people are. I think Janice, the groovy lead guitarist for Electric Mayhem, makes a fine Poison Ivy, even though she'd never hurt anyone...but somehow i think she's got a green thumb herself. Her costume is made of some silk leaves that I cut into many many little pieces, and I think the effect works better than a Sculpey tunic would have.

I'm sure they're either hatching their next scheme or looking for directions to Omaha...either way, they're up to no good.

Up next: Scarecrow, Riddler, Mad Hatter, and Ra's Al Ghul. Batman's in trouble.

LEGO Teen Titans

A Marv Wolfman/George Perez New Teen Titans comic book was the first one I read. It was one of those "very special" issues about how the New Teen Titans helped someone stay off of drugs or something like that. Not part of the regular run, but produced to give to kids in the early 1980s to help us stay off the crackpipe. And it worked for me. Of course, then the problem became that I was addicted to comic books, but that's evidently fine with DC Comics.

Maybe it's because of that early contact, or maybe because they're simply good characters, but that family of superhero characters is one of my favorites. I like them more than the X-Men, and often more than the Justice League. So when I was cranking out the superhero LEGO minifigs, I knew the Teen Titans wouldn't be far behind.

The characters I decided to make were a mix of my favorite versions of my favorite Teen Titans characters, so I don't know that this particular team in these particular costumes ever existed; but they do now. Started with the five sidekicks that were the core of the Teen Titans in the late 1960's, I also added in the four most important New Teen Titans, which became part of the team in the early 1980's.

Front Row: Aqualad, Flash, Nightwing, Wonder Girl, Speedy

Back Row: Cyborg, Raven, Starfire, Beast Boy

At some point, because I have obsessive compulsive tendencies, I'll probably make a more accurate Flash (Kid Flash) and a younger version of Dick Grayson as Robin instead of the older Nightwing. But for now, these are the Titans. These are the ones closest to my heart--when I think of the Teen Titans, these are the ones at the core.

And they're (usually) much better than the more recent version, these guys:

Miss Martian, Ravager, Wonder Girl, Robin, Superboy, Kid Devil

Muppet Batman: Commissioner Gordon and Alfred

Some of my favorite Batman characters aren't superheroes or supervillains--they're the "civilians" that help Batman in his war on crime. The two most important, and long-time favorites of mine, are Commissioner Gordon and Alfred Pennyworth. Once I saw that Palisades Toys' Reporter Kermit came in a trenchcoat, and Rowlf in a tuxedo, it wasn't much of a jump to make two of Batman's greatest allies.

Kermit was a pretty easy makeover--a little white moustache made from Sculpey at the end of his nose (perhaps Salesman Grover sold it to him before selling him a moustache comb?), and that's it. I didn't repaint any of the rest of the figure, so he's a good enough Commissioner Gordon already.

I did make a little accessory for him from a broken Animal drumset and Muppet Show TV camera: the Batsignal. Because, as good a cop as Commissioner Gordon is, without the Batsignal, he's pretty much another cop in a deteriorating city bedeviled by costumed supervillains.

Commissioner Gordon ready to flip the switch, summoning Batman and Robin.

The Dynamic Duo--looks like Robin's getting a scolding. It's probably about the short shorts.

Rowlfred was even easier in some respects, because I didn't resculpt anything for him. The tux he was wearing was already perfect for Alfred Pennyworth's butlering, so I just painted the vest and pants a different color to make him a little more manservant and a little less grand pianist. I also put some gray in his fur to age him up a bit--Alfred's a nice surrogate father figure for Bruce Wayne. It helps if he's older. Maybe not Michael Caine old, but older.

Man's Best Friend and a Gentleman's Gentleman.

Cleaning the Batcave. There's probably some scolding here too. Guy can't catch a break.

Close up of those eye wrinkles and gray fur. He needs Just For Dogs.

The crime-fighting and Batcave-cleaning protectors of Gotham City.

Next up: the villains!

Muppet Batman and Robin

For those of us who are obsessed with pop culture, there's not much sweeter than when those obsessions intersect. And if I have to force that intersection, so be it. A few years ago I had an abundance of time, and a friend at Palisades Toys sent me "extra" Muppet Show figures that had been damaged, were samples, or unsellable. So I had the chance to make way too many custom-made versions of my favorite characters.

Over the next few weeks, you'll see the denizens of Gotham City as you've never seen them before...unless you've seen them before. In any case, we'll start with the Dynamic Duo themselves, Batman and Robin.

I decided to "cast" the captain and scientist from the Pigs in Space sketches as Batman and Robin, so it's Link Hogthrob as the Dark Knight, and Julius Strangepork as the Boy Wonder. I used the Adam West/Burt Ward Batman and Robin as an inspiration, and I think they turned out pretty darn spiffy.

Link Hogthrob as Batman

His closeup...

Dr. Strangepork as Robin...with short shorts that make us all uncomfortable.

The Caped Crusaders, ready to defend Gotham City against any and all supervillains...until dinnertime.

Stay tuned for more Muppety Gotham City updates, including Commissioner Gordon, Alfred, Joker, Penguin, Catwoman, Mr. Freeze, Riddler, Mad Hatter, Two-Face, Scarecrow, Poison Ivy, and Ra's Al Ghul!

Superman Family LEGO

When LEGO started making Batman minifigures, vehicles and playsets a few years ago, I was hoping that it was just the beginning of a broader move into DC Comics' roster of characters. Like they'd start with Batman, move on to Superman, expand to the Justice League and Teen Titans...but alas, it was not to be. Last year marked the end of Batman LEGO sets for the time being, and it looks like they're not adding any other DC Comics characters anytime soon. So I had to do it for them.

I made Superman and about seven other Justice Leaguers all at the same time, and thought I'd be content with a little set of SuperFriends. But for some reason I'm missing the part of the emotion chip in my brain that says "it's okay to stop now," and I decided to keep going.

Not a bird or a plane.

For the record, I am more of a Batman fan than a Superman fan, but once I made the Man of Steel himself, I realized that sometimes he needed a little help from his own Superman Family. It includes his cousin Supergirl, his clone (sort of--that's up in the air right now) Superboy, his friend (please-don't-ever-watch-the-movie-with-Shaq) Steel, and Steel's niece and part-time superhero Natasha Irons. Oh yeah, and Superman's best friend, Krypto the Superdog. You've gotta have the Superdog.

Krypto, Superman, Supergirl, Superboy, Steel, Natasha Irons

In my LEGO dreams (which I do have, from time to time), they would have made things like a Fortress of Solitude playset, a Kent Farm, a Daily Planet Building, Lex Luthor's Lair...but instead, they pulled the plug. When I finish going completely insane, I'll have my revenge. Oh, yes. I'll have my sweet revenge.

Or I'll just make some more toys.

Green Lantern LEGO

Green Lantern has been one of my favorite superheroes since the days of SuperFriends back in the 1970's. The idea of a space cop who has a "magic ring" that can make anything he can conjure up in his imagination was exciting for me then and now. Over the years, the different stories and different versions of Green Lantern have all had their merits, and it seems like no matter what else is going on in the DC Universe, I've liked what was happening with Green Lantern.


Because the Green Lantern Corps isn't a single superhero, but a galactic police force, there have been a lot of Green Lanterns in the comic books and even on various television series. If you ask me who "Green Lantern" is, I'd say Hal Jordan. He was the one on Superfriends, and for several decades was really The Green Lantern. Asking my students at school, they'd say it's John Stewart, the African American GL who wore the ring on the recent Justice League cartoon. Someone a little older might say it's Kyle Rayner, who was GL for most of the 1990s, and if you asked someone who was an arrogant jerk (besides me, I mean) they'd say Guy Gardner. He's a jerk. And yet, he's still a Green Lantern.

Hal Jordan, John Stewart, Guy Gardner, and Kyle Rayner

When I took my break from making custom-made Fisher Price Little People, I still managed to move on to a new (and yet old) obsession, and that's making new LEGO Minifigures. Most of them come from DC Comics, and the Green Lantern Corps is no exception. Over recent years, many of these characters have undergone radical changes, so this is sort of a "best of" Green Lantern Corps.


This is my first version, before I added the ladies of the GLC; to Earth's GLs I added Kilowog (far left) a trainer in the Green Lantern Corps and one of my favorite comic book characters, period. Next to him is Tomar Re, one of the first alien Green Lanterns that Hal Jordan worked with. Front and center is Ganthet, a "Guardian" who bosses the Green Lanterns around.

This is my current Green Lantern Corps. With all of the changes in the comic books happening right now, I'll have to add to their ranks. I decided that the ladies of DC Comics needed to be better represented, so I added Arisia, an elf-like GL who's also cute as the day is long; Katma Tui, pink-skinned former lover of John Stewart and completely awesome in her own right; and Jade, daughter of the Golden Age Green Lantern, and very short-lived Green Lantern herself.

Will there be more? You bet. Will I also make the Red, Orange, Yellow, Blue, Indigo, Violet and Black Lanterns? Uh...I need more LEGO.