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Here he is! The character nobody demanded, in the costume no one cared about!
As Barry Allen went about his business in the Police Crime Lab, an electrical storm broke over Central City. Soon the lab exploded with a blinding bolt of lightning, bathing Barry in the supercharged
fluids. This random combination of chemicals turned Barry into the fastest man alive! During the events of the Blackest Night, Allen was temporarily transformed into a White Lantern and courageously joined Hal Jordan in the fight against Nekron.
As soon as the whole "Rainbow Lanterns" thing was announced, someone joked that since the result of adding all colors of light is "white," the only possible endgame would be White Lanterns using White Power; and then that exact thing came to pass, proving that there's no idea so bad that someone won't publish it. The White Lantern Corps was formed entirely of characters who had previously died and come back to life: Hal Jordan, of course, but also Superman, Superboy, Wonder Woman, Ice, Kid Flash, Donna Troy, Green Arrow, Animal Man and, naturally, Geoff Johns' pet character, Barry Allen. "Yay."
Other than the hands, this figure is a repaint of the
DCUC7 Barry Allen. His left hand is open, just like Blue Lantern Flash, while his right hand is a fist with a ring sculpted on the middle finger. Nice, huh? Well, yeah, but somebody pulled the wrong tool out of storage when it came time to mold him: he's wearing a Black Lantern ring, not White. Whoops! Fortunately, the two designs are similar enough that you won't notice the swap. [Unless some inconsiderate jerk points it out to you, duh --ed.]
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What you will notice is that the figure is the wrong color. Remember,
he's a White Lantern - so a color guide is kind of built into the name. DCD made a White Lantern Flash, and sure enough he was whiter than someone who thinks President Obama is a Muslim. Ask yourself, does the background of this paragraph look white to you? Because if it does, that's the only way you'll think White Lantern Flash is the right color. His logo is white, but the rest of the suit is gray with silver highlights. At least when they made White Lantern Hal they made him close to the right color - this is just flat-out wrong. It seems perhaps to be based on the variant cover to GLC #51, but that wasn't Barry: that was Professor Zoom. If you look at the art from the comics, you'll see what he should look like.
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To simulate the way Barry is always drawn crackling with electricity, Mattel has given this figure the lightning seen on Series 2's Electric Superman -
so he has removable spikes of it on his wrists, and a large plume plugged into his back. Some fans have complained that Superman's stylized S is still visible back there - and make no mistake, it is - but does that really matter? Are you going to be staring at the center of his back all that often? Think of the figure as a 360° object: there are only about 50° where the S is even visible, let alone recognizable as an S; that means that less than ⅙ of the potential viewing angles make Flash look like Superman, which isn't a lot at all. The benefits of reusing the S electricity outweigh the silliness of one hero having a different hero's symbol on his spine.
Gray Lantern Flash comes with the right leg of the final DCUC build-a-figure, Nekron. The silver paint on the boot-shin area is a little sloppy, but it'll probably look fine once it's on an assembled figure rather than a standalone limb. No pun intended. The ridges on the leg are all sculpted in, and he has a double-hinged knee. What the heck, Mattel!
White Lantern Flash is a disappointing figure. First of all, because it's Barry. This is the third Barry Allen, and yet we still have yet to get even one Wally West. Enough, already! Secondly, the paint is wrong. There are two words in the name "White Lantern," and this figure manages to screw up half of them. We like the use of the lightning effects, though some might not. Basically, if he were the right color, he'd be a lot more desirable.
-- 04/05/12
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