Way back in the heady days of Spring 2017, a preorder for a Wonder Woman was made available. Right on the heels of her movie, which was great fun, and still very relevant to her appearance in Batman V Superman, which I like more each time I watch it, it felt very timely. Oh, how naive I was, back in those days.
Yeah, the point has been made. Those of us who collect Mezco for enjoyment (as opposed to an alarming amount of people who seem to do it as a form of masochism) are used to, and expect, a good 9-12 months between order and figure. Really, the only time I get itchy is when it passes that year, or when my pending orders are burying my shipping ones. And Wonder Woman definitely pushed that line farther than she should have. Was she worth that wait, though?
…to be honest, I’m not completely decided on that, just yet. Putting it simply, I do like this figure, quite a bit. I feel validated sticking with this one over the MAFEX, if by a slightly smaller margin than than expected. And most importantly, I feel that she completes the trilogy perfectly, and makes several dramatic improvements over Harley Quinn- the only other female figure released in the line so far, who also had me a little conflicted.
But nearly a year-and-a-half of improvements, I’m not certain of.
Some folks have issue with the likeness. Not here though, I think both heads, but especially the second one, are excellent. Good proportion, good likeness (at least to me), and great paint applications. Her costume, with the intricate sandals and armor, turned out excellent in sculpt and color. Overall, her build, silhouette, and proportions look right, feel accurate, and again, fit nicely with the other big two.
Some folks have issue with the articulation. And there, I can joint them. Like Harley, the decision was made here to try and balance the articulation against the exposed nature of her arms and legs. This means single jointed Hasbro-styled elbows and knees, and while they work pretty well, the knees have good range of motion, and the elbows nearly make the 90-degree bend, that’s still not quite enough.
Wonder Woman is short the range needed to cross her bracelets in front of her well. It leave her a little longing in the sword wielding department, and honestly, the preservation of the sculpt did keep her looking great, but the cost was higher than this line usually pays. The lower body is better, and the thigh-cut is almost not necessary, thanks to the ball-hip range, but it is nicely hidden with the soft-goods skirt- which also leaves her great range of motion. And her ankles work surprisingly well, given the nature of those sandal boots. But the plastic pieces that make up her torso are too solid to allow for any torso movement, if it’s still there at all. Again, choice made to preserve the clean lines, goofup, or just one of those things, it feels like something that might have had been sorted out in that extra lag time.
The accessories are pretty damn good, with the sword and shield looking very nice. She has a set of fists, open hands and gripping hands,and they all come out super soft, easy to work with. The two heads I mentioned before I’m very pleased with, and there is also a bendy lasso that…well, leaves me a bit cold. Not much I can think of that would have worked better, you can imagine all the little gold flecks that would have been falling off a craft store version, but here again, time for solutions that ultimately didn’t (or couldnt) be applied. This figure was designed and intended before her movie came out, but man, that black cloak would have been an awesome touch, and I would have totally traded the extra lasso for it.
So, Wonder Woman is a pretty good figure in the a line that, unfortunately for her, are usually excellent figures. Sadly, that puts her a bit lower than her Justice League peers for me in terms of just figure elements. But, she is visually striking, and the choices in body and articulation do benefit her more than they did Harley. If that comes off as a kind of faint criticism of a figure- pretty good in the company of great- thats because it kind of is. I do dig this figure. And of the options available, I still feel like this is a worthwhile choice to complete my trinity. There are always a few things here and there we might like to see changed, and almost univerally, this is Monday morning quarterback talk. The thing is this time, I feel like some of those calls could have been still made late Sunday night, as it were. Thank you to Mezco for assisting in getting her here to review!
