McFarlane Toys DC Multiverse Commander Steel review (2024)

Commander Steel has one of my favorite costume designs of the Golden Age-skewing heroes. He was also one of the mainstays of the All-Star Squadron, arguably one of DC’s most underrated titles. Mattel actually released him in its DC Classics line. McFarlane Toys decided to take a crack at him, which was a pleasant surprise even if it seemed like McFarlane didn’t seem especially sure which Steel they were making.

Let’s see if Commander Steel shines or if he’s a rusty release.

Packaging: Commander Steel has the base Multiverse packaging with the dominant black color scheme and white accents. He also has the Gold Label designation for some reason. This is labeled as the JSA version of Commander Steel, which isn’t at all accurate. The Steel in the JSA was Citizen Steel, one of the grandsons of the original Commander Steel.

To avoid this being obnoxious throughout the review, this is intended to be Citizen Steel just misnamed Commander Steel, which I will call him for clarity. On the card back, is a cool portrait from Alex Ross.

Likeness: Commander Steel has a pretty basic outfit. While he debuted in 1978, he was a WWII based hero who teamed with the Justice Society of America heroes who were part of the All-Star Squadron.

Citizen Steel retained the aesthetic of the classic costume right down to the fin atop the cowl and the coverings over his ears. The head sculpt looks very good capturing his normally stoic nature. He’s using the Speeding Bullets buck (available on Amazon), which has easily become my least favorite overused buck since it has very character-specific paneling on the arms and legs and doesn’t work for any other character.

Size-wise it’s the best choice of bucks however but given the reuse of this mold McFarlane Toys really should have invested in plain arms and legs for it. Commander Steel does have plain boots.

Scale: The buck is thicker though isn’t taller than other bucks. Commander Steel will be looking up at Power Girl and Kingdom Come Superman, but will be eye level with Starman and Damage.

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Paint: This is the one area where Commander Steel is tarnished. His color scheme is ok. I wish his shade of red was deeper and not so toy shiny. Ditto for the blue. McFarlane Toys really could have benefitted from going with more of a metallic hue of red and blue. Also, his outfit is more of a base white than silver, which is what MT opted for with his figure.

The other basic paint issue is his eyes, which for some reason are fully filled in white instead of having his irises painted. I can’t find any reference images with the fully covered up eyes and I’m not sure why they went this route.

For a less specific issue, my figure has some really sloppy paint applications, which is definitely not the norm for 98% of my McFarlane Toys purchases.

Articulation: Commander Steel has very fluid articulation making good use of the standard 22 points of articulation.

Of the molds in play, short of the classic Superman mold this is the best one for a bruiser who tends to fight with his fists.

Commander Steel has:

• neck
• ball-jointed shoulders
• butterfly shoulders
• elbow
• wrist
• wrist hinge
• torso
• waist
• hip
• thigh
• knee
• ankle
• toe

Accessories: Commander Steel doesn’t have a lot of viable accessory options. It feels like if he were released in 2025, he would have gotten an alternate head sculpt with the half mask and red hair showing to give us a Justice League Detroit-era Steel.

Instead, he gets a few alternate hand sculpts with a matching left fist and open right hand as well a clutching right hand and pointing left hand.

Finally, he’s got the McFarlane trading card and stand.

Worth It?  Commander Steel was a Target exclusive, which naturally meant he would hit a deep clearance price, so I was able to get him for $7. Despite my issues with the paint job, that was a tremendous deal and worth the time to invest in making some fix ups.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Commander Steel’s biggest issues are mostly cosmetic with the paint colors, but with a repaint he could be a much stronger figure even with the reused arms and legs.

Where to Get It?  Commander Steel was just available at Target, but now he’s available at Amazon.

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