April is almost over and I’m getting in just before the end to feature this month’s Club Eternia subscription figure, Angella. Sadly, the other big item released for April was the 3-pack of Hover Robots, which were available only through Early Access the day before the regular sale. I say “sadly” because I really wanted these and I was tied up in a meeting at work and as much as I tried, I couldn’t even get five minutes on my phone to place the order. Naturally they sold out fast and are now selling for around $100 through scalpers secondary sources. I seriously don’t get why Mattel can’t include stuff like this in with the subscriptions. THE SUBSCRIBERS ARE THE ONES YOU SHOULD BE REWARDING! But then my Early Access would have netted me a set if only I wasn’t busy working so I could make disposable income to spend on toys. Wait… so what figure were we talking about again? Oh yeah… Angella. Angella is another one of them “Princess of Power” figures and it says so with a sticker right on the bubble. Mattel has been stacking the decks with the PoP releases lately and I have absolutely no problem with that. If there’s one thing about MOTUC that even the detractors have to admit its that this line delivers on female characters better than almost any other major action figure line out there. While poor Black Widow has to struggle to get any representation on the pegs, Matty leans back and says, “here have another chick from Etheria!” and then lights his cigar with a fifty dollar bill taken directly out of my wallet”. I know next to nothing about Angella (other than Glimmer is her daughter), but her tagline calls her the “Angelic Winged Guide.” The back of the package goes one step further and says she’s “The Queen Regent of Brightmoon.” The bio isn’t doing much for me here, so I guess I’ve got to go see her in an episode. BRB! Hoo boy! So I went with a painful little ditty called “Micah of Brightmoon” based on the good council that Angella was in it. It starts off with a guy in a spaceship escaping Red Squadron by jumping to light speed. Um? Did I pass out and wake up in a Star Wars Black review? It goes downhill from there with Glimmer imaginary dancing with her missing father right off the end of a cliff. She-Ra has to save her, which is about the only thing She-Ra does in this whole episode! Next we flip to a mother and daughter reunion (sans Paul Simon) between Queen Angella and Glimmer with a whole lot of reminiscing about King Micah who went off to fight The Horde and got captured. Nobody seems to be straining too hard to find him, but that’s OK because it turns out he’s the dude in the spaceship from the beginning (SPOILERS!!!) and conveniently flies overhead in full sight of She-Ra and with Hordak tracking him. At this point we get the best lines in the episode, “Does he have to use his tongue to push the buttons?” “Tung Lasher, how many times must I tell you no tongues on the equipment!” LOL! Micah gets captured by Harpies, who have the most grating voices ever (and for a Filmation production, that’s really saying something!) and inexplicably She-Ra lets Angella fly off to rescue him alone while she chills at the palace with Glimmer. Eventually Glimmer convinces She-Ra to go along too, they free the King and Queen, She-Ra gives her sword to Angella so she can fight the Harpies for her and only gets off her duff to do some dirty fighting by throwing a cloak over her when her back is turned. All is well and Micah says he’s going back to fight the Horde, probably because he has another wife somewhere on Horde World. That last nugget is my own assertion. Phew… enough Filmation Torture, let’s look at the figure. Here she is and she looks pretty great. Angella comes donning a pink and purple outfit with sculpted shoulders and a collar. I have to be honest and say that some of these PoP outfits are really starting to blur together for me. There’s only so many variations you can do on a top, skirt, tights, bracers, and boots. But that’s OK, because Angella is all about her magnificent set of wings. If you never collected Mattel’s other big line, DC Universe Classics, then you may miss that these are actually parts recycled from DCUC Hawkgirl. Is this the first instance of Mattel raiding the DCUC cupboard for MOTUC? Probably not, but it’s the only one I can think of off hand. Gripe if you must, but it’s a great repurposing of those wings and they look fantastic on the figure. Just like on Hawkgirl, they are attached to her back with a hinge and while it looks pretty mechanical, rather than organic it does allow the wings to be angled all the way back or face all th way front. Each wing is also hinged at the top so they can be spread out. The wings feature the same great, detailed feather sculpt and have a new coat of paint giving them a pearlescent white-blue look. Angella’s portrait is quite good, although with the high cheekbones it does suffer a bit from that “sameness” that I call out when I’m looking at a lot of these PoP figures. It’s not really a critiicm but more of an observation. The paintwork is clean and her bobbed hairstyle gives her a lot more head articulation than many of the PoP ladies tend to have. Apart from the wing articulation, everything else here falls right into line with most of the Princess of Power gals. The arms have rotating hinges at the shoulders, hinges at the elbows, and swivels at the biceps and wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, hinged at the knees and ankles, and have swivels at the top of the thighs She can swivel at the waist and is ball jointed at the neck. The Queen of Brightmoon comes with two accessories. You get a short sword, which looks to me like a new design. It’s fairly simple and painted all in silver, but I tend to like generic looking swords so I’m happy to have it. Angella also comes with a translucent halo that pegs into the top of her wings hinge and hovers behind her head. It’s a nice homage to the vintage figure and pretty well executed too. I didn’t think I would bother with this piece, but I actually think I may wind up displaying her with it on. Angella is a solid figure and another great addition to my rapidly growing Princess of Power shelf. I’m not sure how popular she was or even if she sold out, but the nice thing about having a subscription is not having to worry about such things. Next month, we’ll be flipping back to the Eternian side of things with a figure that I’m really looking forward to: Blast Attak! The evil fighting robot of the Snake Men! YES!!!