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Green Man

April 6, 2012 | By Errex More

Well, one of the reasons that pulled me towards Mattel’s Green Lantern 4-inch figures was the varied alien characters in the initial assortments. One thing I’ve learned after years of collecting several 1/18-scale figures is that you can never have too many aliens (or monsters), and once these figures started getting on clearance, I didn’t hesitate to pick up some of them.

The Green Man (GL05) is possibly the biggest peg warmer in the first wave of figures, as the rest of characters seem to sell at a comparatively brisker pace than this guy, even though I think this character design does hold some merit.

The Green Man is an Green Lantern from an alien species that loosely resemble batrachians. As such, the movie design differs from the depiction of this character in the comics, but overall it looks interesting.

Following the design aesthetic from the movie, Green Man’s outfit looks like body paint applied onto his naked skin as suggested by the bumpy textures sculpted all over the figure. The figure is molded entirely in green, with darker green paint applications in form of subtle gradients and grouped spots on the lower torso and limbs. The areas of naked skin are painted in a sandy greenish-tan color that also blends in a soft gradient to the basic green hue.

I must say that the subtle color gradients on this figure really brings Green Man’s appearance up a notch and that is a good thing considering that this figure got stuck with a very limited articulation design.

In a line that doesn’t shine for the number of joints, Green Man only got:

• Swivel shoulders.

• Floating torso.

• Swivel hips.

And that’s it. The shoulders do work fine and the hips are OK, but the torso joint might as well not be there, since it’s usefulness is compromised by the way it was implemented, On a positive note, Green Man has very good stability and, along with Kilowog, he is one of the few Green Lanterns that can hold his energy construct accessory unassisted.

The energy construct that ships with Green Man is shaped like some sort of alien ray gun, and is sized to work with big-handed characters. The other inclusion in the package is the ubiquitous child-sized Green Lantern ring, made of gray rubber and translucent green plastic.

So, yes, the Green Man got the shaft in terms of articulation, but I think his looks actually compensate for that, especially considering that the better articulated figures in this line aren’t all that much better than this guy.