Justice League - Unleashed!

I've collected action figures for years, and Wendi and Jo have joined in enthusiastically. But while we're now having to make the difficult decision of whether or not many of them are worth putting on display, there has never been any debate about our collection of Justice League Unlimited figures. Wendi and Jo enjoy Justice League Unlimited as much as I do, and we all love the look of these "animated-style" figures. Now they finally have a place of prominence in our home!

The first thing I had to do was build display boxes for them. There are a number of companies that sell action figure display boxes online, but most of them are fabulously expense, and none of them really had the simple, clean look I wanted. (Too much plexiglass and mirrors.) Our weekly trip to Lowe's for home improvement supplies discovered two-foot lengths of 2.5 inch plywood strips, and within a week I had three new custom-built action figure shelves ready to prime and paint!

The new display shelves go on the second-floor half-wall you can see from our dining room/living room. To the left, we have two favorite framed pieces with Batman Animated art. Farther left will hang the new display case I'm building out of a bit bigger pieces for the ten inch Justice League figures we've collected!

And, the finishing touch: the Ultra-Humanite, with poor Ray Palmer (aka The Atom) clutched in his hand. I used a dab of crafting wax on the feet of each figure to help them stand, as these figures are notoriously bad about standing on their own. Worse, the manufacturer was very inconsistent about putting a hole in the figures' heels, so I couldn't just order a box of clear action figure stands for them. Some figures came with stands, and I used those when I could. Everyone else is standing in wax.

This box has a distinctly Green Lantern Corps/Brave and the Bold flavor. From the top, left to right: Mirror Master, Flash, Elongated Man, Copperhead, Sinestro, Vixen, John Stewart, Hawkgirl, Hawkman, and various members of the Green Lantern Corps, including Kilowog, Tomar Re, and Kyle Rayner! (Alas, the JLU Hal Jordan was a San Diego Comic Con exclusive, and no doubt out of my price range.)

This box has a few things going on: some important couples in the JLU, and a Seven Soldiers nod. Again from the top: Question and Huntress (one of the best pairings the show ever did), and Green Arrow and Wildcat. There's a big gap there in the middle where Black Canary will go, when I can get my hands on her. I never found her on a solo card, and I balked at buying her in the three-character pack that included Batman and the Joker, two characters I already owned. (Two or three times over, in fact.) I should have done it though. Now a single Black Canary, LOOSE, goes for $20 on eBay. Smick-frickin... Anyway, moving on: Zatanna, Batman, Wonder Woman, The Atom, and Metamorpho. Bottom row: Shining Knight, Doctor Light, Starman and Stargirl, and, weirdly, Waverider, whom I can never remember from the show and don't know a thing about.

The last box is a bit hazy, and crooked--I was leaning out a fair bit off the ladder in the effort to get a straight shot, and didn't much succeed. Up top is the aforementioned Ultra-Humanite with mini-Ray Palmer in hand. Next up are Metallo (a cheat--he's from our Superman animated collection), Orion, Doctor Fate, Amazo, and Aquaman. Middle row: Steel, Supergirl, Superman, Lex Luthor, Bizarro. Last row: Darkseid, Martian Manhunter (solid and invisible), and Brainiac (also from our Superman Animated collection, although they did make a JLU Brainiac).

Just as we're missing Black Canary, there are many more we're missing from the collection. But we're less interested in collecting all the figures than we are in collecting the figures we want. Thus if I can find a reasonably priced Vigilante, for example, or a Booster Gold, Gorilla Grodd, Solomon Grundy, or a Star Sapphire, I'll happily rearrange things to make room--or build a new case!

Next up, the ten inch figures, after the paint cures on their new display shelf!