DC Direct's Sinestro Corps Power Battery Prop

[Jack T Chance]

As some of you may be aware, this Wednesday, DC Direct's newest prop replica finally hit stores... only 4 months late! :lol

Now available at better comic shops everywhere is the Sinestro Corps Power Battery Prop. Like several other props before it, this is made of painted resin (which means it will likely develop the same paint cracks and chips over time as the Alan Scott and Abin Sur Power Battery Props did, since I doubt DC Direct has had the good sense to switch to a better type of resin that won't shrink as it ages. ) Why they didn't stick with the vastly superior cold cast porcelain that they used on their first Power Battery Prop, I'll never know. :unsure

Anyway, let's talk about the color the prop should be. As long-time readers of the comic know, the yellow power rings and power batteries have always been said to be made of yellow metal. And as anyone with even the least bit of knowledge about real-life metals knows, the yellow metals in real life are GOLD and BRASS... and maybe a couple others I'm not aware of at the moment. Which, of course, means that in real life, both the battery and ring would be GOLDEN in color.

DC Direct USED to know this, as evidenced by both their high-end replicas of Sinestro's Yellow Power Ring (Version 2)...

...and their prototype for the Sinestro Corps Power Battery Prop, as was shown at Toy Fair and/or other comic shows last year:

This is what I've been expecting for a year, and have been anxiously awaiting having in my collection. :cool

This... abomination is what's actually shipping to collectors that pre-ordered this prop a year ago, based on the photos above:

:eek

Well, the good news here is... now I'll be able to afford the DC Direct Movie Power Battery Prop, because there's NO WAY that lemon yellow piece of felgercarb is staying in my collection!!! angry

But now I feel like crap, because this was likely my ONLY chance to own an officially licensed, high-end replica of this prop. And DC Direct has produced a failure of epic proportions. So now I may NEVER have an ACCURATE prop replica of the only non-GL power battery I wanted for my collection.

But at least I still have my preciousss...

...my Yellow Power Ring (Version 1) in 14K gold!

 

[Jack T Chance]

*BUMP*

So, did anyone else order one of these? If so, thoughts? Comments? Complaints? Insults (against DC Direct, not me, thankyouverymuch!)? :confused

 

[Jack T Chance]

So, my power battery arrived Monday and I opened it up yesterday. In the pictures I posted, the shade of yellow you see, that's the shade of yellow it is. What you can't make out at all in the pictures is that it IS a metallic yellow ("metal flake") paint, so at least it's not a completely flat yellow as it appears in pictures... but it does NOT match the shade of metallic yellow used on the included power ring, which is the same exact color as the promotional ring DC Direct produced during the Blackest Night event.

I'm not putting it on display, just leaving it in the box for now. REALLY disappointed with the color. But if I resell it, I want to get at least the full MSRP for it, and that won't happen right now on eBay. ALL the other sellers that have it up have discounted prices. So I'll sit on it for awhile to wait for the value to go up while I try to make my final decision as to whether I'm gonna keep it or not.

Oh, as for the LED light source... it lights up fine, as far as I'm concerned. I don't expect it to be extra bright when it's running off of 3 AAs. Think about how bright an LED flashlight running on 3 AA batteries is, and that's how bright you should expect these to be. It's NOT going to light up your room like your table lamp. It doesn't have enough power to do that. Even the original power battery prop from 2000, which I own, isn't much brighter, if at all. And if it is, it's only because it uses 4 AAs, so the bulb gets a bit more voltage.

 

[knightwing316]

I'm glad I didn't get around to ordering one of those, that's HORRIBLE!!!!!!!!

 

[AndySertin]

you can get some pretty crazy light out a single AAA battery, the only problem is that it won't be efficient at all.

Too bad the lantern sucks, it sounds like it was something you were really looking forward too. Having said that, why not wait it out and snatch one up later (cheaply) to do a re-paint?

 

[Jack T Chance]

Too bad the lantern sucks, it sounds like it was something you were really looking forward too.

Yep, the only one other than the standard Green Lantern Power Battery that I wanted in my collection. All the other colors are new and fadish, don't know how long they'll stick around. But the yellow ring has been around since '60 or '61 (whenever they introduced Sinestro) so it's not going anywhere.

Having said that, why not wait it out and snatch one up later (cheaply) to do a re-paint?

I thought about it, I'm just afraid I'd screw it up if I try to do it myself. But that's one possibility I'm considering.

Another is commissioning someone to make me one that's more to my liking. There's a guy on the GL Corps Message Board (who might also post here, not 100% sure off the top of my head) that's gotten really good at making power battery props. Might try commissioning him to make me one.

And there's another coal I've got in the fire, but I'm keeping that ace up my sleeve for the time being. :cool

 

[Wolfdagon]

My LCS had one of these in a display case yesterday. I could not believe what a bad job DC did on these. In a well lit display case it seemed like a glossy yellow instead of the metalic yellow you mentioned. Besides the color the actual paint job must have been done in a dust storm. I understand that you might get a dust speck in the paint before it dries, but something like that is pretty easy to fix and should not be shipped out like that at the price they sell these for. There were litterally dozens of dust specks in the paint. Makes be think twice about ever buying anything from them.

 

[Jack T Chance]

My LCS had one of these in a display case yesterday. I could not believe what a bad job DC did on these. In a well lit display case it seemed like a glossy yellow instead of the metalic yellow you mentioned. Besides the color the actual paint job must have been done in a dust storm. I understand that you might get a dust speck in the paint before it dries, but something like that is pretty easy to fix and should not be shipped out like that at the price they sell these for. There were litterally dozens of dust specks in the paint. Makes be think twice about ever buying anything from them.

And that's what happens when you farm out your manufacturing to Chinese Child Labor™!