Legion of
Customized Action Figures

by Chris Galdieri

"Either you secretly wish that you lived in an upside-down rocketship," Mark Waid once wrote, "or you wouldn't be caught dead uttering the name 'Lightning Lass.'"

You've probably guessed that I fall firmly into the former category.

I haven't followed the Legion's adventures for some years now, but I'm keeping my interest in the team alive with my ultimate customizing project: recreating in action figure form the complete membership of the team, from their first appearance in Adventure Comics #247 in 1958 through Legion of Super-Heroes #63 in 1989, the final issue of the team's third series. That's either 37 or 38 figures total, depending on whether you count Princess Projectra and her masked identity as Sensor Girl twice. She's the Legion's equivalent of Grover Cleveland.

And that doesn't even take into account the Legion of Substitute Heroes, the reservists, the honorary members, the Science Police...

So far I've completed 21 Legionnaires, and most are on my home page. I might -- that's might, mind you -- finish this project sometime before 2008.

As you can see, here's a sampling of the figures I've done.

Lightning Lad
Garth Ranzz of Winath

Lightning Lad's base figure was Laser Superman from the Man of Steel line. I cut away Superman's spitcurl and sanded down that stupid silver strap around the figure's left thigh before repainting it. This custom is a nice example of a simple reworking of a nearly perfect base figure.

Saturn Girl
Imra Ardeen Ranzz of Titan

Saturn Girl's base was Shanna the She-Devil from the Marvel Hall of Fame line. My first step was cutting off the cheesy fur that was glued to the base's legs and left arm and then wet-sand it with Goo Gone to get rid of the gummy glue residue. Thanks, Toy Biz.

Once that was done, I cut about a quarter-inch out of each thigh to bring the figure into scale with my other Legion customs. Then I sculpted the skirt on with Model Magic and repainted the figure.

Shrinking Violet
Salu Digby of Imsk

Shrinking Violet is made from a Ripley figure from the Aliens line. I repositioned the right arm to look more natural, and had to sand off lots of pockets, pouches, holsters, belts, and straps.

The skirt is made from Crayola Model Magic, which I like to use for this kind of thing because it's more flexible and less likely to break if the figure falls over. Other sculpting was done with Das Pronto clay.

And no, I don't know why Shrinking Violet wears green. She just does.

For my other figures, be sure to go to my Legion page , and while you're there, check out the rest of my site!