I’ve been researching this line of Superman statues by DC Collectibles for some time now. Decided to share my findings with you fine folks. If nothing comes of it other than we get to gawk at some nice collectibles together, I’ll call it good times.
“Superman The Man of Steel” is a line of 1/10 scale (7"-7.5") cold cast porcelain statues made by DC Collectibles between 2013 and 2015. All the statues were based on different artists’ interpretations of Superman. Given the “Man of Steel” theme, each statue featured metallic paint apps, and an S shield base with rivets running along the side. I’m gonna list them in order of appearance.
And that’s it! It didn’t last for 100+ pieces like Batman Black & White, but there are some gems in the 15 statues we did get.
It’s worth mentioning that all of these are sold out and are available only on the secondary market. Some are still available at near or less than msrp, if you look hard enough, and some can only be had for multiples of the original price.
If you’re looking into collecting this line, I hope this serves as a helpful resource. Curious to see what everyone’s favorites are .
Statues are a very rare buy for me, but I admit those done by Rags Morales and Shane Davis for this line were tempting at the time of their release.
Mainly because there’s so very little merchandise for Superman’s initial New 52 t-shirt and jeans look (the same applies towards his outfit worn during Truth) as well as his Earth One design.
The Kenneth Rocafort statue is another standout. The colors are bright, and pop very nicely.
Earth One Batman and Wonder Woman found their way into their statue lines (Art of War and Black & White, respectively). Wasn’t aware of the Teen Titans Earth One figure line.
I really do hope that McFarlane expands heavily outside the Batworld after these initial waves are done. I like that they tied into current comics with Metal. Maybe we’ll start seeing more of that once all the Metal figures are done.
Back to statues though, seems like there will be a vacuum post DCD with premium yet somewhat affordable statues. Especially true given what Jim Lee said about moving towards a licensing model with higher price points. Wonder if anyone will pick up the slack there. McFarlane do statues?
McFarlane has done statues, but it’s been a long, long time. I think he did a few Spawn pieces, but he’s never produced statues in the quantities of DC Direct/Collectibles, Diamond Select and the rest.
Well, it wasn’t the one I wanted, but it was DIRT cheap (and I do mean DIRT), but I ended up winning an auction for the Jim Lee version of this, for all things - me with my being able to appreciate Lee’s talent but not being - at all - particularly, personally, finding it appealing.
They had this, on the site, with a starting bid of $20 or so, and I thought - well, that’s nonsense, not going to happen, and for days I was the highest bidder and since the amount was still low, I kept being the highest bidder at like $25-30 until early this AM.
While waiting for the bidding to close, I was looking at other stuff on the site - the seller is local-ish to me (remember, LA itself is incredibly geographically spread out) and I was asking about local pick-ups on the offchance I won the auction; he had three other items on the site and one was the Jim Lee. So I thought, it had NO bids and the seller was also starting it at the absurd $20 so hey, toss him another $20, and I still ended up being the only bidder.
Sadly, even though we got up to $66 on the Rags Morales, someone else won it and I’m not sure I would have wanted to spend even that. I really am fond of the idea of WHITE TEE-SHIRT Clark but not sure if I am $75-100 worth of fond.
Nice thread, by the way @moro, well researched. I had no idea all these were available.
EDIT: The Jim Lee arrived and I’ve left in the box. I’m not sure I really want to display IT, since another statute I won at auction also arrived a few days later, (not related to this topic so I will spare you all).
It turns out all of these, not just the Frank Miller, are supposed to be based on ‘famous’ comic panels/covers/images produced by those artists, and as with Miller’s, I’m not sure the Lee versions works well without the foreground and background figures shown on the original art:
It’s a good stance and works better as shown in this textless version of this variant to Morrison’s first printing of Action Comics#1 during the New 52 (for the curious, there was also a nice sketch variant as well based on this art).
I personally think some of the art Lee did for Superman Unchained was better than this particular image and even other panels he did in other work, IMHO, could have made for a better statue than this. Part of me is still interested in the Morales (for the white tee/New 52/Action Comics feel/look, and another part of me has an attachment to the McGuinness.
I was offered a good deal on the Shane Davis and while I think he did good art on the Earth One trilogy, his subsequent political and personal shortcomings give me pause, even if I actually can separate it from the particular art. In other words, at a really good price, I could live with myself, at the price I was offered, I could not find it all that tolerable. Meaning, for example, I wouldn’t discard copies of the Earth One graphic novels if I owned any today, I simply wouldn’t buy them new, today.
Also, I really wish the Rocafort was, for what I like of his art, closer to it in the New 52, for example the hair.
Overall, I think the line was good and I agree I would have liked to see more of them, especially as they did release over 100 batgods in the same time frame.
Now that I own two of these, I’ve decided that if the Shane Davis or the Rocafort fall into my field of vision at similarly stupid prices, I’ll likely grab them, but that remains secondary to my strong desire to own the McGuinness and the Rags Morales.
Congrats on a great pickup. Just a nice solid piece, and one of the larger pieces in the line. I always keep it in a back row on the shelf, otherwise it just hides whatever is behind it.
Thank you. The seller made some money off the shipping fee, since they sent it USPS Ground Advantage which is a new program eBay set up for sellers, which is great for anyone (like me) trying to get rid of things, but particularly benefits some people who listed things with higher shipping flat fees in that they get to pocket the difference, which this guy is/did in this case. So he made about an extra $10 above what he got in the auction price for ‘handling’ I suppose.
I’ve always loved the slipcase cover to the Absolute Edition, which was clearly so popular that it was re-used when they released the first Black Label reprint TPB; once I get all settled with unpacking and furniture assembly and all that, so I have more time and my desk all fully set up, I’m going to work on recreating that sky background or something close to it, to do a print diorama behind where I display this statue.
I think, with this particular line, as @moro said in October of 2020 in talking about the Frank Miller version of this statue, that without the background in the art panel, the display of these statue loses just a bit. Making a poster background with just the textless art as I posted above would be simple and easy to simply pay to print out at a Fed Ex Office or any place that lets you make posters, but I want a background that is just the sky and the sun, without the Superman figure himself in it, and that will take some Photoshop patience.
EDIT:
Well, I almost had the chance to win this version in an auction but the seller (someone in LA County, actually) ended up taking a somewhat absurdly low Buy Me Now offer of $40. Possibly someone’s wife of a laid off crew member, since it felt like I was talking to someone who had no clue what was being sold.
But I did end up FINALLY getting a bargain (under $40), scoring one of my white whales, the Ed McGuinness version of these.
So now I am keeping an eye out for the Shane Davis and will likely get it for under $40. And I’ve been bidding on the Cully Hamner even without the excuse of an unexpected bonus VISA cash gift card to spend but I’ve hit my limit, even though, I figured out a way to score the cash value of the equivalent of four gift cards as unexpected income.
Sadly, the Morales and especially the Rocafort and absurdly overpriced and the Darwyn Cooke is essentially unavailable even at absurd prices. I’m also not sure that Darwyn is worth it, I’d prefer one that was smiling and again it’s an example of picking the wrong art to use for the sculpture design:
Something like this would have been a better example although I would still prefer a smiling version, like so, just not this particular art - it was just not easy to find a smiling, not squinting Superman by Darwyn without going into pirated read comic online sites.
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