Monday, December 2, 2013

The Thrill of the Hunt

On November 28th, Thanksgiving Day, a friend of mine emailed me a link reviewing Walgreens-exclusive DC Super Hero Dolls, and asked me if I could get my hands on them for his daughter. (This was in the middle of me cooking the family feast and trying to get a book published. Hey, no big. I am Mighty.) What with one thing and another, I wasn't able to get out to look for them until Sunday evening. Six Walgreens stores later... I have two complete sets; one for my friend's daughter, one for me. It's been ages since I went on a hunt like this, and I had honestly forgotten how much fun it was.


The box says Series 1, but I don't hold out much hope that there will be a Series 2. (However, if anyone at The Marketing Store is listening, I would love to see Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, Huntress and Black Canary. For starters.) The box also says these are "posable" dolls, but that's a bit of a stretch.

 
The 5-inch dolls have enormously oversized heads and tiny little bodies. Different costumes are molded for each doll, with a fair amount of detail, particularly for such small bodies. The arms are articulated at the shoulders, their heads move at the neck, and their eyes open and shut -- that's it for articulation. The forearms are a little "Popeye." Oddly, they are also bow-legged and pigeon-toed. They will stand up on their own, despite being top-heavy. They're a little creepy, to be frank. They're rated for children 4 and up.

 
• Wonder Woman's cape and tiara are removable, and she has a molded lasso. Her eyes are bright blue.
• Batgirl's cape and mask are removable. Her eyes are bright blue.


• Catwoman's mask and goggles are removable, and she has a belt molded to look like a whip that is a separate piece. Her eyes are lime green. 
• Supergirl's cape is removable. Her eyes are bright blue.

Catwoman has serious hat-hair.
The heads, being hollow, have seams that are a little too obvious. But these are $5 dolls ($4.79, to be exact), so a little imprecision is expected. The hair only covers the tops of their heads, making it really thin on the back. Since they all have long hair, it doesn't really show. The accessories are interchangeable since the heads are all the same.  I am amused by the painted eyebrows, which give each doll a slightly different expression. Batgirl has the mildest expression, with no cocked brow. The plastic eyelids don't match the plastic faces on any of my dolls but Catwoman, but since I don't plan to display them lying down, it won't matter.

For scale, that's Mortal Kombat Sonya Blade (1994), 3-3/4" tall.
Would I buy more of these, if given the opportunity? Yes. Hell, yes. At this price? They're weird and creepy, but still my ladies, so yes. Rather than display them with the rest of the collection, I might need to make a shadowbox vignette for them all to be in, comic book style. (But after the holidays... I still have to make 13 Sesame Street dolls, decorate the house, bake cookies, plus all the other housewifey stuff.)

2 comments:

ShesFantastic said...

Thanks for the link! Glad you had fun hunting :) I collect animal replicas as well as action figures and on one of my regular animal collector boards people are always talking about the primal hunter/gatherer instincts that come out when we're tracking our collectibles down. It may be a stretch, but it's a fun way to describe the rush :)

W. A. Whipple said...

That and the competition to find the thing before the next guy gets it. :D Before I had my daughter and was collecting heavily, I had a circuit I'd make, and could spend a whole day looking for a single figure, with no sense of having wasted my time. Providing of course that I came home with plunder... lol