| STARSCREAM (MARVEL
COMICS)
PROJECT #256
CLASSIFICATION: REPAINT/CUSTOM
BASE FIGURE: SKYWARP (HEROES OF CYBERTRON)
MATERIALS USED: ACRYLIC PAINTS, SHEET PLASTIC, SUPER GLUE
FIRST APPEARANCE: TRANSFORMERS #1
"That's Starscream. In his 'friendly' way,
he's become one of the most murderous mechanical beings in the galaxy in
the last few million years."
Preamble: Starscream's actually one of
the few characters from the G1 Marvel Comics stories who's as interesting
as his animated counterpart. In a universe where half the character
dialogue consists of lines like "I'll blast 'em to scrap with my vibra-guns,
MUDFLAP!" and "Not if I melt them with my thermo-blasters
first, WINDSHIELD!" it's certainly a welcome addition
to the story. Simon Furman did away with most of the clunky exposition
that characterized the early stories, but believe it or not, it was actually
the Budiansky-era Underbase saga that really defined comics-Starscream
as a memorable character for me. (Furman wrote him as a whimpering
suck-up when he brought him back as a Pretender, rather than the cold-blooded,
wisecracking villain that Bob Budiansky had previously portrayed him as.)
That said, the real reason I wanted to do a PVC figure of Starscream
from the Marvel Comics is because he's got such a freakish color scheme.
Construction: The goofy colors were
my impetus for this project, of course, but I knew from the onset that
I wanted to do something a little more than a straight repaint. I
deliberately based this project on José Delbo's version of Starscream,
whose interpretation of the character is decidedly off-model (particularly
the face) but still pretty distinctive. He was working from the same
illustration of Starscream that appears in TRANSFORMERS UNIVERSE
#3, in which the right side of Starscream's helmet is partly hidden
behind the air intake on his shoulder, so he always drew Starscream with
only one audio receptor. So, I chopped off his right ear, whittled
away at the rest of his helmet a bit, and glued a new forehead plate in place.
In addition to fiddling with the helmet sculpt, I also wanted to change
the way the figure was standing in order to put him in what I feel is a typical
Delbo-esque pose, so I gave him some Devastator hands and rearranged his
legs a bit.
Comments: Starscream seems to have
at least two distinct color schemes in the comics. Originally, he was
consistently depicted with a blue upper body, right up until he was destroyed
by Omega Supreme in issue #19. He took a break for a while and didn't
return until issue #47, in which he now had a red upper body. (One
supposes he got a new paint job after he was rebuilt, though I suspect it's
more likely Nel Yomtov just forgot what colors he'd been using.) In
any event, the original color scheme is a lot more distinctive, and helps
differentiate him from the cartoon version of Starscream, so I went with
the original colors. |
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