Okay, this one is a bit interesting. Having watched the Justice League Season One episodes "Legends Parts I & II" several times, I found myself really liking the character of Tom Turbine, the Justice Guild of America's resident strongman and super-scientist. After researching the episodes online, and looking up the J.G.A. on Wikipedia, I found that the character of Tom Turbine was an amalgamation of sorts of two Golden Age J.S.A. mainstays...Superman and the Atom. Now, since in 1949 it was revealed that Superman had a superhero career in his youth as Superboy, I postulated that since Tom Turbine was in a sense his world's Superman, it was reasonable to assume that he too had a teenage superhero career.

So, I set about trying to make a figure of Tom Turbine as a Superboy-like character.

It was a pretty easy figure to do. I took a Crisis on Infinite Earths Series 3 Earth-Prime Superboy and removed the cape. Next, I used the boil and pop method to pop off his head, arms, legs, and hands, and began modifying them. The legs were the first step. I used my Dremel to remove the trunks and boot tops, and then I mixed up a batch of Milliput and applied three thick strands of it around the area of the legs covering the lower calves and upper ankles to create the three metal rings around the top of his boots. Allowing the rings to dry overnight, I sanded them smooth and then painted them silver. When the silver paint had dried, I repainted the legs a dark blue, and then the lower portions of the boots under the rings were painted black. As soon as the black paint had been applied to each boot, I set the legs aside and started work on the arms.

The arms needed a set of three rings each around the wrists, so I repeated the same steps I had performed on the legs. Once the Milliput around the wrists had dried, I sanded the rings smooth and painted the sleeve portion of the arms a dark yellow. When the yellow paint had finally dried (I had to apply at least three coats of yellow to cover up the fact that the arms were originally blue), I had to give him a set of hands. Now, instead of using the hands that had originally come with the Superboy figure, I opted to use the ones that came with a DC Direct Legion of Super-Heroes Series Ultra Boy, as Ultra Boy's hands were a set of clenched fists, and would give Tom the look of a brawler. After heating the wrist holes with hot water, I inserted the new hands into the arms, and, like the legs before them, set them aside.

The next stage of construction was the torso. Having already removed the cape, I began with some minor Dremel sanding to smooth out the upper body and remove the belt. Once the sanding was done, I applied a small portion of Milliput around the neck to create Tom's rounded collar. When the Milliput was completely dry, I sanded it smooth. Now, using the area of the waist where the belt used to be as a guide, I painted the upper body in dark yellow, and the lower abdomen in dark blue. Once the final coats of yellow and blue had been applied and were dry, I took the turbine belt from an extra JLU Tom Turbine figure and slid it up and into place. Once the belt was in place, I did a little touch-up painting on the neck, repainted Superboy's black hair brown, and then reassembled the figure once all paint was dry using the hot water.

Lastly, I slapped on a new chest symbol with a little glue (the symbol was hand drawn, photocopied, cut out, and then colored with a standard Crayola blue marker), and TA-DA...a teenage Tom Turbine!!!!

Please let me know what you guys think of him, and as always, comments are appreciated.