DC Lil' Bombshells - Superman review

Mini-Figure Mini-Reviews

Like we said, Bombshells Power Girl was paired with Superman in her statue, making him only the second male character to appear in the line (though there had been others featured on comic covers when DC did an entire month of variants honoring the brand). Considering how linked the two were, there really wasn't any way to avoid putting him in the comic - it just would have been weird for him to not be there - but that didn't mean he needed to derail the story or draw the spotlight to himself; it's not a world made for him, after all. So he was in the comics, displaying all the usual Superman powers and helping in the big fights, but he was still mainly an assistant to Power Girl, and I'm not sure he ever even had a line of dialogue.

Power Girl was cloned from Supergirl in part because the country needed a super soldier it could control, but also because Hugo Strange (the doctor in charge of the experiments) had all these weird eugenicist ideas and was obsessed with creating the perfect race. So while he was cloning Kara, he also built a male counterpart from donors unknown - which would technically mean this character is less like Kal-El, Superman, and more like the modern version of Superboy, Kon-El.

In Ant Lucia's art and the finished statue, Power Girl was carrying Superman on her shoulder: the art had him horizontal, to make it look like he was flying, but the statue sat him upright, to better show off how easily she was hoisting him up there. Obviously, since this mini is a standalone thing and not part of a pair, he can do neither of those: he's just standing there, lifting big, old-timey barbells. Sadly, Cryptozoic has chosen to ignore pretty much everything about his existing design for this figure. Ant Lucia went back to Superman's sartorial origins by putting him in a circus leotard, using his sash belt to stand in visually for a cape; this one has large work boots, and is wearing a T-shirt that's lighter than his pants. It seems like all they kept was the belt, the wristbands, and his mustache. It's more strongly based on Terry Dodson's cover for Superman and Wonder Woman #20, which re-cast him as a metalworker, but there he had an apron. It feels like they were afraid of his actual designs, and so wussed out and gave us this.

Fans of new characters got a treat, however. At NYCC 2019, there was an exclusive variant of Superman, painted with metallic purple instead of red, and with white skin and yellow eyes - yes, limited to just 300 pieces, there's a Bombshells Bizarro out there in the world! And since he's designed to be an imperfect copy, it doesn't matter in his case that he's wearing the wrong clothes. So Lil Bombshells Superman is a failure, but Lil Bombshells Bizarro works.

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