Whatever Happened To Baby Diana?

by Matthew Damascus

Wonder Woman

Kingdom Come Series I

DC Direct</b>

Man, I’ve been disenchanted with DC Direct for awhile now.

Last one I actually bought was a bargain-bin Saint

of Killers figure, which ruled, by the way. But still, the line just don’t

move me no more. It changed the day I saw

those beautiful Kingdom Come figures at the local comix shop. Sure my car

battery died and killed all my enthusiasm for buying

shit, but, fuck the visuals were indelibly planted.

“WonderWoman3” It was a verrrry tall order from the beginning, to design a toy, a piece of

molded plastic, that mirrored Alex Ross’s stern, Communist-worker-posterish designs – he took the standard bearers of the DC

Universe and gave them age, dignity, and an

imposing presence, like proletariat gods among men. And that was sort

of the point of the whole story, I guess, but

is it possible to capture all of the subtlety of Ross’s

brush strokes into the harder lines and contours of

an action figure? Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.

If you’re gonna buy just one figure in the line, you might as well pick up

Wonder Woman. About time there’s

a decent Wonder Woman sculpt on the shelves and, hey man, it’s the most

realistic Wonder Woman you’ll find on the market today.

They let her show her age! Thank god! And she looks great, like Bette Davis

or Joan Crawford or Marlene Dietrich.

Hollywood grande dame meets philosopher king. And how can I put this

delicately – they even aged her body in an appropriate

fashion (though downright shocking for comic book’s inflated female

standards). Of course then her costume is more

sauced-up than ever, but it works, it works. Striking, trust me.

Plus:

Okay, obviously the biggest plus is the sculpt. My words can’t do it

adequate justice. Check out the pictures, man – stare

agape at the craftsmanship. Christ, it’s just like the figure jumped right

off the painted page. The face is perfect. End

of story. The torso is totally elegant, I have never seen such attention

lavished on a clavicle ever before in

action figures. She’s totally made for display, preferably under a harsher

white light to fully spotlight all of the

contours of the sculpt.

She comes with the golden lasso! And her hands are made to clutch it!

Minus:

These toys are not made for “playing” in any sense of the word. There is,

for all intents and purposes, no articulation.

The legs, arms and head kinda move, but it looks all awkward. The best pose

is the one she originally comes in, in the box.

Clutching her rope, just sort of waiting. Move her at your peril. In fact,

you’re probably just “supposed” to keep these in

the box.

“WonderWoman1”

She doesn’t stand on her own. At all. Dammit. Put her against a wall or something.

The paint application is a little sloppy, especially around the molding

lines. There’s these weird gaps and splotches,

that sort of look like tiny craters. It’s a bonehead mistake,

especially after so much attention has been

lavished on every little detail of the figure, including the fucking creases

in her skirt. And the other thing is, the

articulation point on her neck is so dark and wide that she ends up looking

like some total Bride of Reanimator shit.

Crazy, man. It’s not like you need to move her head or anything anyway.

But c’mon, the pluses outweight the minuses by far, and once they get those

manufacturing bugs sorted out, and hey,

slated to come out is Flash, Deadman and Shazam! You love it….