Superman
MPC Super Powers
Conversion|
by
Jim Bertges

Long ago before the dark time when Aurora disappeared into history; at a time when resin was some strange industrial chemical and vinyl was the stuff your raincoat was made of, when people wanted to make models of superheroes other than Superman or Batman, they had to convert one of those two kits into the hero of their choice. For the most part people used the Aurora Superman to convert into guys like the Green Lantern, the Flash, even Hawkman and many other comic book legends. However, the one thing that always bothered me about those conversions was that they had the exact same pose as the Superman kit. Nobody bothered to change the position of Supe’s limbs and make their converted hero a little different. So, when my son decided he didn’t want to build the Rampaging Scorpion kit he found in his closet and turned it over to me, I was struck by inspiration. In my mind I saw Superman as though he was on the cover of Action Comics, flinging a huge scorpion off into the far reaches of space. I dug through my pile of unbuilt kits and retrieved an old MPC Super Powers Superman and the conversion was on!

After I assembled the legs, I carefully cut them away from the hips, following the line of the shorts.  To get the right position for the legs, I found pictures of people batting.

Repositioning the legs involved cutting out wedges of plastic, either to flatten the foot or to bend the ankle back.


Shims of styrene were inserted into the gap at the ankle to help it hold it’s position after it was bent backward.
The other leg was already bent, but it needed to be at more of an angle because in this pose it would be bearing the weight of my Superman,
so it was cut apart and repositioned, using Plastruct tubing for internal support. The foot was also repositioned at the toes, with a bit of sheet styrene filling the gap on the sole of his foot.
To get the legs at the
proper angle, they were
held in position at the
hips and marked.
The marked area
was removed.
A piece of PVC pipe was cut and glued inside
the leg in order to fill in the gap that resulted
from shifting the position of the leg forward.		 The legs were then ready to be attached back to the hips and have the gaps filled with Aves Epoxy Putty.
Next up were the arms. They had to be moved closer together so Superman’s hands could grasp the Scorpion’s tail. Also, the bent arm had to be straightened out. I cut the arm apart at the elbow and used a piece of plastic tubing (in this case a pen barrel) for support. I also cut the arms at mid forearm in order to rotate the hands into a proper grasping position.

The plastic pen barrel was also used to reconnect these parts.