It’s
been a while since I started a post with the words, “I had no
intention…”, but it’s that time again.
I
had no intention of buying any of the new Batman
v Superman
movie toys. I was all but done with Mattel after dropping the Masters
of the Universe Classics line at the end of November (that full story
will be up on Monday). But the new year brings new toys and new toy
excitement, and as soon as I saw what appeared to be pretty decent
looking figures of Batman and Wonder Woman on Amazon for regular
price, I ordered.
Amazon
Prime makes these things too easy.
Wonder
Woman was the first one I ordered, though. She looked like an armored
warrior. The colors were bright and there appeared to be a ton of
detail. I had to find out if this was as cool a Wonder Woman figure
as it appeared to be.
Side
Note: I stopped by Toys R Us on the way into work on Tuesday and they
had a ton of new Batman v Superman stuff – simpler 6” figures,
many new styles of Batmobile, Hot Wheels, and role play stuff.
Probably twenty-four square feet of new merchandise. I was quite
surprised. Everything I saw was much better than the lousy Man
of Steel
merch and it was all
reasonably priced. There’s a new 6” scale Batmobile that was only
$24.99. It was a bit simpler and clearly meant for the basic figures,
but it looked cool and the price was right. I am hopeful that this
could be a sign of new beginnings for Mattel hat maybe they’ve got
a better handle on the male action figure business over the last
couple of years.
FIRST
GLANCE
The
face is a little wide. It also doesn’t photograph well. It looks so
much better in person than it does in any online pictures, including
these.
Her
gear is awesome. The colors are brighter than we’ll ever see them
in a Zack Snyder movie, but she looks fantastic. Design-wise this is
the best Wonder Woman action figure I’ve seen.
PACKAGING
Now
that every toy company has separate lines for collectors and kids,
they have to go out of their way to make sure that the collector
stuff pops. Usually that means overwrought boxes with funky shapes.
This line is no exception. This is basically like the Star Wars Black
or Funko Legacy boxes, but with some extra angles thrown in. It looks
good and does its job distinguishing the product.
The
back features the Grapnel Blaster build-a-prop, which I’ll get to
in a bit.
Since
I can always spare some snark for Mattel, let’s take a closer look
at the movie synopsis on the side of the box:
“GOTHAM
CITY MOST FORMIDABLE, FORCEFUL VIGILANTE TAKES ON METROPOLIS MOST
REVERED, MODERN-DAY SAVIOR”
While
the sentence that contains that nugget of
English-as-a-second-language joy is much longer, that’s the portion
that delights me. This whole paragraph consists of just two massive
sentences. Aside from the bulky awkwardness of the thing, it’s
actually a pretty decent summary. I mean, as far as I know.
LOOKS
Let’s
get that head out of the way. Like I said above, her face looks much
better in person than it does in any online photos. The sculpt is
good (though I’m honestly not familiar enough with Gal Gadot to be
a good judge) and the paint details are great. Her eyebrows, eyes,
and lips are all spot-on. There’s even some eye shadow. What
creates the illusion of a too-wide face is that fact that the paint
on the hair doesn’t quite
come in close enough to the face. Mattel really should have done a
separate hair piece attached to the head like they do with the female
MOTUC figures. It would have looked a lot better. The tiara has a
well-defined sculpt and the star on the front has some silver paint.
All of the metallic paint on this figure looks great.
The
hair is thick and has a ton of sculpted detail, as well as a dark
wash. It’s odd seeing a Wonder Woman with brown hair, but the hair
does, at least, look great.
Wonder
Woman’s armor is very similar to the second New 52 design. The
golden trim is in the traditional avian shapes and the red has all of
the sculpted plating from the comics. The plates dangling down to
form a sort of skirt are different. I’ve always liked this look for
Wonder Woman, as it has been used a few times in alternate reality
stories (and probably the main DCU – I just can’t recall). These
have a leather texture. There’s gold trim painted on the bottom
that adds a lot of character. Overall the paint on this figure is a
step above most of what Mattel has done over the past decade. The
silver on the golden belt is great.
There’s
also a harness that has that same leather texture. An oddly tiny
golden lasso hangs on one side:
While
the other has a loop to store the figure’s sword:
This piece seems
slightly bigger than it should be and doesn’t sit quite perfectly
on the figure. But it’s far from bad and adds dimension. I like it
enough to excuse its very slight sizing issues. I’m impressed that
it has paint, as well.
I
had to look up what forearm armor is called, because I often use
“gauntlet” even though I know it is incorrect when gloves aren’t
attached. These are “vambraces”. Much more than the bracelets we
normally see, and I like them. The sculpted detail incorporates trim
to match what is on the rest of the figure, and the metal is aged and
battle-worn. I also really dig the leather wraps around Wonder
Woman’s hands. Not only are the individual straps well defined,
they have leather texture. Much was done to make this figure look
like an Amazonian ass kicker, and these forearms and hands add a lot.
The
literal ass kicking would, of course, be done with these… battle
sandals? There’s just as much detail here as on the rest of the
figure, if not more. The gold and silver trim and red plating matches
the rest of the figure. The straps and fasteners have painted detail.
And while the articulation left some necessary gaps, thought was
given as to how to present it. There are separate plates buckled to
her thighs above the kneepads and the sandal aspect allows for bits
of exposed skin tone that don’t look as bad as they could. I just
love how these are so reminiscent of the design of Wonder Woman’s
original boots.
ACCESSORIES
Wonder
Woman comes with a shield, a sword, and a thing that is part of the
grapnel blaster build-a-prop, not that you can tell by looking.
The
shield is the best action figure shield I have ever seen at this
scale and price point. The sculpt is absolutely incredible and the
paint is even better. There is lettering all around the edge that
looks fantastic and the washes that give this thing age are amazing –
unlike anything Mattel has done. This almost looks like a tiny Hot
Toys accessory. The device to affix it to the figure’s arm is
thick:
But
it works so well. Rather than elastic straps or a clip or whatever,
there are two separate pieces to slide the arm into, with the hand
grasping the front piece. It’s wonderful and stays on the figure
better than any other 6” scale shields I own.
Both
the sword and shield are made of firm plastic (not rubber!) the sword
was not bent(!) and has just as much sculpted detail as the shield.
There is a bird near the hilt that matches the one on the shield and
compliments the avian theme on Wonder Woman’s armor.
It fits
perfectly into the figure’s hand or on into the loop on the
harness:
The
final accessory is part of a stand. Not even a whole stand – part
of a stand. It is for the grapnel blaster build-a-prop that you get
when you buy all eight figures that will eventually be released.
There
are many problems here, but also one good thing.
The
problems are:
I
hate when Mattel spreads a build-a-thing over multiple waves. The
later waves are never, ever
distributed as well as the first wave.
This
first wave contains a bunch of junk – no primary grapnel blaster
parts. I understand why – Mattel doesn’t want us to build the
blaster and then not buy this junk. That leads me to believe that the
as-yet unannounced second wave of figures will include such hits as
“Batman Repaint”, “Superman Repaint” and “Weenie Jesse
Eisenberg Lex Luthor in Hoodie”.
The
good thing is that this isn’t a build-a-figure of Doomsday (or
whatever that CGI abortion is supposed to be), so if you don’t care
about having a cheap, plastic grapnel blaster you don’t have to buy
the other figures anyway.
FUN
Wonder
Woman has much better articulation than your standard DCUC figure and
it all blends into the sculpt much more nicely. She doesn’t have
double jointed knees and elbows, but she’s got just about
everything else. The waist swivel is a bit noticeable, but man is it
better than an unsightly ab crunch. She has swivels at her elbows and
low on her thighs that work nicely. Her ankles also have a nice
range.
My
big issue, poseability-wise, is her head. Her hair is thick, hard
plastic so there is no moving her head around. If Mattel had done
what I suggested above and done a separate hair piece it could have
been soft plastic and would have allowed for movement. The funny
thing is that the head seems to be on a ball joint, but that it’s
rendered useless.
The
accessories are fantastic and work well. The shield and sword fit
exactly how they are supposed to.
The
build-a-prop is actually a really neat idea. I’m sorry I poo-poo’d
it up there. I’m just annoyed that all I have are three parts of a
stand and some kind of clip thing. Nothing that resembles a grapnel
blaster yet.
OVERALL
I
love
this figure. No – it isn’t as nice as the MAFEX version that’s
coming out, but it also costs less than half as much. I think this
one is the far better value.
As
of right now, this is my favorite Wonder Woman figure. That’s not
saying much, as I don’t exactly have a ton of figures of DC’s
First Lady, but this is an excellent example of adapting a comic book
design into a live action movie. Kudos to Mattel for the strong
comeback after a few tough years.
4
out of 5
Buy
one from Amazon and help Needless Things pay the bills!:
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