Found at last!

Long rumored to be in production, proof that the Flash figure was at least started has finally surfaced.

First announced at Toy Fair 1996, but quickly dropped from the list of figures for that year, fans have been waiting and hoping that one day this figure would finally make it back into the production line-up.

Although at this point it obviously will never be made, we can now piece together how far along it got to be manufactured. thanks to a collector who wishes to remain anonymous, ToyOtter is proud to unveil the only know existing copy of what remains of the Flash prototype. According to sources that used to be employed at Hasbro, they wanted to make the Flash, since he was appearing in STAS but we're not going to do a brand new sculpt. The figure was going to be at least partially reused Superman parts, to keep the costs down. Since the Flash was not part of the Batman or Superman "families", Hasbro would have had to pay a seperate licensing fee to use him, so anything saved on the figure itself would help defer costs.

The story is that most of the figures made in the line started with the basic Superman body sculpt (in this case, the X-ray Vision Superman) and then modifications were made for each individual figure. As you can tell by what we have of the Flash, this was to be in his case as well. Heavy retooling was done on the waist and legs, a tampo was created for the chest, and there was a head sculpt being worked on, but the arms were never made before the figure was cancelled. According to the employee, this was all that was made of the hard copy, since the chest would have been the same and the arms were never completed. The head apparently never made it to the hard copy stage. As far as we are aware, this is the only copy ever made of the original sculpt before the figure was cancelled. It is presumed that the head never made it to the hard copy stage and is now lost. The picture above was colored with Photoshop to give an idea of what the final product might have looked like. The photos below are untouched shots of the actual prototype. Click on each thumbnail to see a larger version. No pictures can be used without written permission.