“C’mon, Sal! Tigers are playing tonight! I never miss a game.”
One of the many ways I enjoy my action figures/waste time is, when an action figure comes with some sort of gun, I try to identify what type of gun it is (or what type inspired its design, in some cases). With military action figures, it’s usually pretty obvious what the guns are, as those guys are obsessed with accuracy and the name of the gun is usually spelled out on the packaging.
But for the DC Universe Classics line, sculptors the Four Horsemen have a bit more freedom in their designs.
The DC Super Heroes Two-Face (which ToyFare has listed for $40+, which makes me really thankful I got mine at TRU) came with a tommy gun. After a quick check on the Internet, I discovered no extant Thompson submachine gun looked much like it, particularly its distinct perforated cooling barrel. However, I did come across a toy gun made to accompany gangster-themed Halloween costumes that looked awfully familiar.
After Captain Collector posted his recent photos of Wave 8a, I got curious about Vigilante’s weapons. The smaller gun is obviously a Mac 10, and the larger one looks an awful lot like a scoped M16. Still, I wasn’t entirely certain, so I took a closer look.
The gun looks a little thinner than a “normal” M16, and the telescoping stock is unusual but not unheard of. Still, there’s no reason to think the sculpt wasn’t based on a standard M16. Still, remembering the tommy gun, I searched a little more and came across this.
It’s a $450 M16 paintball gun (a.k.a., glorified toy gun). I’m hardly an expert on firearms–and from what I know of gun enthusiasts, it’s quite possible one will show up in the comments below to correct my guesses. However, I’m pretty sure Vigilante’s gun is meant to be some sort of M16. Deathstroke’s assault rifle, on the other hand, is perplexing.
I think it’s at least partially based on the XM8, a lightweight assault rifle that was developed but then abandoned by the U.S. military.
However, I did find a gun–based on the XM8–that looked even more like the Four Horsemen’s version than the actual XM8. It’s from a recent first person shooter called Frontlines: Fuel of War. The standard “Western Coalition” assault rifle looks like this:
Was one of the Horsemen closely following the development of Frontlines? I have no idea, and I’m guessing probably not, but I do think this gun looks even more like Deathstroke’s than the XM8. If anyone has a better candidate, let me know–as I said, I’m no expert.
It’s worth noting that the tommy gun is one of the earliest and most common results when you do a Google image search for “tommy gun” and–for whatever reason–the Frontlines rifle shows up in the first page of results for “assault rifle” (though that may not have been the case a year and a half ago when the Horsemen fabricated the accessories). Did these weapons inspire their miniature counterparts? Only the Horsemen know for sure.