Tag Archives: danger girl

Feb 24 2021

Danger Girl: Premium Format Abbey Chase by Sideshow

If you come to my home enough times, chances are eventually I will pour you a glass of Jameson and take you on the mandatory tour of my J. Scott Campbell collection. You’ll see books, art prints, action figures, statues, and I may even make you play a level of the PlayStation game. It’s OK. Just act interested. Oooh and Ahhh a few times, and you will be free to leave and go about your business. What can I say? From Danger Girl to Gen13 to his work on exclusive covers for any number of comic book companies, I love this man’s work and I love to share it with people I know. And as I was reorganizing some pieces of the collection this past weekend, I thought I might as well showcase Sideshow’s Premium Format of Danger Girl star, Abbey Chase!

This is where I usually show off the packaging, but the box for this gal is so damn big, that I had to put it in storage and it is not easy to get to. So instead, I’ll just show off some of my different editions of the original Danger Girl series. Signed Treasury Editions? Check! Signed Deluxe Edition? Check! Signed Ultimate Collection in both Hardcover and Trade paperback? Check and Check! As for the figure, she’s roughly quarter-scale which tends to be the standard for Sideshow’s Premium Formats, measuring in at just over twenty inches including the base, and sculpted in polystone with some mixed media elements. Abbey requires just a little bit of simple assembly before she’s ready to go, and I’m happy to report that everything fit well, which isn’t always the case. Sideshow offered two versions of this piece: A regular edition of 1,000 and an Exclusive of 500. Naturally, I had to get the Exclusive!

The composition of this figure sees Abbey caught in mid stride, half action hero… half runway model. Her right foot in front, her right hip thrust to the side, her left hand resting on the other hip. Her right arm is cocked at the elbow as she holds aloft her trusty automatic pistol, while flames lick up around her feet. Our hero cuts a perfect compromise between a museum-style pose and a whiff of action.. While not a perfect match, the design here looks like it was influenced by Abbey’s appearance on IDW’s Danger Girl: Gallery Edition, which collected a series of covers and pin-ups. And a mighty fine choice it was!  And I can’t help but appreciate those wonderful stylized proportions! I can practically hear the self-righteous Social Media Mobs screaming, BUT WHERE ARE HER POLYSTONE ORGANZ?????

When it comes to her outfit, Abbey has donned a few different looks over the years (sometimes not wearing much of anything!), this figure showcases the look that I would consider her most iconic. It’s simple enough, and starts with an extra-tight white t-shirt. Or maybe that’s half a t-shirt. Moving down we get a pair of tight pants fashioned from a mix of black leather, green spandex, and mesh, and finished off with a pair of high black boots. Abbey sometimes wore a matching jacket, but I’m not sorry that they left it out here. The t-shirt is part of the sculpt, and the paint really needs to be called out here, especially on the back where it gives off the effect that the material is so thin that her skin is showing through it. Man, that is a cool effect!

The pants introduce the mixed media element to the statue, as they are fully tailored out of three different types of material and sewn onto the figure. Once upon a time, it seemed like all Premium Format figures were required to have some element of mixed media to them, but that hasn’t been the case for a while. Indeed, of the four PF figures I own, Abbey here is the only one that showcases some aspect of tailoring in the costume. If her pants were all just black leather, I would have been fine with them sculpting it, but they really took the opportunity here, especially with the mesh panels, to make this aspect of the costume shine. And I can’t even imagine how difficult it is to stitch pants onto a polystone statue with that level of perfection. The final aspects of her costume worth pointing out ar ethe sculpted gloves and the DG-branded belt buckle!

Taking a look at the portrait, I think Sideshow did an excellent job bringing JSC’s stylized likeness of Ms. Chase to a fully fleshed out 3D form. This can be a tricky portrait to display, since her hair casts a shadow over the left side of her face. Ultimately, I have her displayed on a shelf which brings her eyes nearly level with my own, which helps to appreciate all the beauty hiding under there. I dig Abbey’s expression, which is about 90% business and 10% playful smirk. The paintwork on the face is very clean, the eyes have a bit of a lifelike sheen to them and the lips are painted with a luscious gloss coat. The hair is sculpted separately from the head, which gives her a razor sharp hairline, and I like the way the ends lick off to the side above her shoulders.

The gun is nicely detailed, and features a silver brushed finish that makes it look like it’s a bit weathered and well used. And shame on Abbey, for not practicing proper trigger discipline! On the other hand, I do love how she holds her pinky extended. That’s class!

Our next stop on this review is the base, and what a beast of a base it is! It’s sculpted and painted to look like it’s made from a solid iron ingot, and believe me when I say it weighs about as much too. The steel finish has a luxurious satin finish to it and the Danger Girl logo really pops on the front with the red and purple paint and the silhouette of Abbey over the D. The semi-translucent plastic flames attach firmly to the base with some powerful magnets, making for an especially nice effect. The bottom of the base has the Danger Girl logo again as well as Abbey Chase Premium Format Figure and mine is hand numbered 212 of 500.

And lastly we have the Exclusive incentive, which is a generously oversized metal art card and stand, showing off the concept art that was used for the creation of the statue. This is my favorite kind of incentive. Often, Sideshow will go with optional swap-out parts as the incentive, and those are nice, but they aren’t something I usually take advantage of, whereas I have this art card displayed beside the statue at all times.

The Exclusive has since sold out at Sideshow, but the tragedy is that the regular edition is still up for grabs. And keep in mind, she went up for pre-order back in 2017. Originally, I had hoped we might get a Sydney Savage as well, but I fear that the sales were probably not strong enough to support another one. Happily, JSC has continued to partner with Sideshow with both his Spider-Man and Fairytale Fantasies line, some of which I have reviewed here. It’s probably a pipe dream, but I’m still hoping that one day they may do a maquette with Abbey, Sidney, and Natasha. And you can bet that I’d drop a pre-order for a Caitlin Fairchild Premium Format figure the moment it got solicited. But that’s probably just a dream too. In the meantime, I’m thrilled to have Abbey here as one of the showpieces of my JSC collection.

Jun 13 2010

Danger Girl: 1:6 Scale Sidney Savage by Dragon

Yeah, its been a while. Sorry. What can I say? In the last three weeks I’ve been horribly ill and dealing with a lot of shit at work. There’s been precious little time for me and toys. In fact, since my last entry I’ve only picked up two new figures and Sidney here is one of them. I’ll be back shortly with a look at MOTU Classics Optikk figure. The clouds are parting so hopefully I can get back on track.

Not long ago I took a look at Dragon’s 1:6 scale Abbey Chase figure, based on the J. Scott Campbell comic, Danger Girl. I mentioned then that Dragon also took a stab at making fellow Danger Girl, and Aussie whip-cracking hottie, Sidney Savage. I put off getting this figure for a long while because I was never quite happy with the photos of the figure. Nonetheless, at some point along the way I broke down and ordered one, if for no other reason just to complete my set. In the end, Sidney proved to be one of those figures that are just better in person, but she’s still not up to par with the Abbey Chase figure.The packaging here is very close to the one Dragon used for Abbey. You get a simple box with a velcro latching front flap that opens to reveal a window displaying the figure and all her gear. The colors are a little brighter and redder, but if features the same conceptual style sketches with full color artwork of Sidney on the front. If you have Abbey and have kept her in the package, you should be pretty happy keeping these two boxes on the shelf together. As with Abbey, Sidney rests in a clear plastic tray with her gear laid out to her right and a simple stand placed behind the tray.


Sidney’s head sculpt looks so much better in person than it does in the photos I’ve seen. I can’t explain why, but even in the official product images, she looks like a goblin. In hand, her head looks much closer to a 3D representation of her comic book self. Its pretty good, but ultimately I don’t think her design translates well to 3D. I still defend Dragon’s use of molded hair with these figures as I think it holds the intended style of an illustrated character better than rooted hair would. Unfortunately, Sidney’s long hair takes away a lot of useable neck articulation, which wasn’t the case with Abbey’s shorter hair.

The body type is supposed to be the same as Abbey’s, but Sidney’s arms seem longer and slightly out of proportion. Apart from that, I have no complaints. The articulation here is excellent, although as I’ve said before, I am not a diehard collector of figures in this scale, so I am probably a lot more forgiving of articulation than those of you who buy a lot of 1:6 scale figures. Still, its important to keep in mind the price point and age of the figure.

Sidney’s outfit is based off her Outback garb. She has brown “leather” pants with nice decorative stitching and a purple cloth blouse, brown boots and a belt. The blouse had a ton of stray threads coming off of it (some you’ll see in the photos), but were easily clipped off. The boots on my figure appear to be the same used on Abbey, which is a departure from the original product images that showed her with brown cowboy style boots. I don’t know if they changed this during production, or the dealer who sold me mine got up to some creative swapping. Either way, her pants cover most of her boots so it isn’t a big deal. Her belt, unfortunately doesn’t latch well to the buckle. Sidney also comes with a soft rubber cowboy hat that fits her really well.

Overall, the outfit is ok. It looks really good, but it is much simpler than Abbey’s. I sort of wish Dragon had gone with the black catsuit that McFarlane used for their smaller Sidney Savage figure, but then I think this one is considered more identifiable for the character and her background.

Sidney’s equipment and accessories are much better than the ones that came with Abbey, mainly because they’re pretty much all weapons and almost all useable. Abbey came with way too many pointless tiny trinkets that served no purpose. The only thing in Sidney’s gear that cannot really be used are her sunglasses. Sidney doesn’t use the same separate molded hair as Abbey, so there’s no way to get the arms of the glasses behind her ears and under her hair. The whip falls into the slightly unseable category too because its difficult to get her to hold it and the tiny little hook to hang it from her belt snapped apart the instant I touched it. If you have a 1:6 scale Indiana Jones, you may want to let Sidney borrow his whip instead.

The rest of Sidney’s gear, however, is excellent. She has a sniper rifle, a silenced automatic pistol and a magnum revolver. The two automatic weapons have removable clips and the magnum’s wheel actually flips out. The rifle has a folding front grip and the action is actually spring loaded, and the silencer The detailing on everything is great, too. Its a nice arsenal compared to Abbey’s paltry automatic pistol.

For a while Sidney Savage was harder to find than Abbey, probably because Dragon gave her a more limited distribution. Or perhaps dealers disappointed with the sales of Abbey Chase chose not to carry her. I grabbed mine off of Ebay for under $35 and while there are a lot of things that I would have done differently here, I’m not totally disappointed in her. She does make a nice companion figure for Abbey, so there’s no buyer’s remorse here.

May 20 2010

Danger Girl: 1:6 Scale Abbey Chase by Dragon

J. Scott Campbell’s Danger Girl is something one might call a flash in the pan. The franchise produced a fair number of books beyond its initial series, but you don’t see too many real devoted Danger Girl fans these days. To say it was derivitive would be quite an understatment, as the concept is basically James Bond meets Charlies Angels meets Indiana Jones meets a Russ Meyer film. You can call it fanservice, call it shallow, call it a shameless T&A show, but I fell in love with the original series the first time I read it and have been picking up whatever books or merchandising have come my way ever since. One of my favorite items released was this 1:6 scale Abbey Chase figure by Dragon. I don’t buy a lot of 12″ scale figures, so I am by no means a connoisseur of this format, but if I really like a character and he or she is offered in this format, chances are I’ll pick it up.

The packaging here is pretty awesome. It features a standard box with a velcro-latching front flap that opens to reveal a window that shows off Abbey and with all her gear and accessories neatly laid out beside her. The box is littered with conceptual sketches for the comic, along with a nice full-body portrait in color of Abbey herself. The box is also totally collector friendly. Just open the top flap and the tray slides right out.

Going from 2D comic artwork to 3D sculpts doesn’t always work well, but I really think Dragon did an exceptional job with Abbey’s likeness. Some may gripe about the fact that she doesn’t have rooted hair, but in this case, I’m glad they went with the sculpted, as it maintains the style of her character all the better, and I don’t know that it would have translated as well with a rooted hair system. That’s not to say the hair couldn’t have used a bit more detail in the texturing. The face is pretty good, especially the nose and lips. I do think McFarlane did a slightly better job capturing her appearance with their six-inch figure/statue, but what’s here is still pretty damn fine. The facial paint apps are overall good as well, but a little inconsistant around the eyes.


Abbey uses Dragon’s “Neo Body,” which may sound misleading, since this figure is quite old now and to be honest, I have no idea what that means anyway. I realize that avid collectors of the 1:6 scale figures get really picky about the finer points of articulation, but as I mentioned, I only dip my toes into this scale of figure every now and then and so a level of articulation that may seem to me to be perfectly fine, may be severely lacking to others. In the case of Abbey, I’m pretty happy with what she’s capable of doing. Her overall body shape manages to hold the ridiculous comic style proportions, although I think Dragon infused her with a little touch of realism. They certainly didn’t cheat her in the boob department, and her top shows off her molded high beams quite well. Abbey also has molded gloves on her hands. The hands are pretty soft, so she can grip her gun or her phone, but not much else. But more on that in a minute.

Abbey’s outfit consists of her iconic black and green leather/cloth pants with black boots, a tight fitting top that exposes her midriff, and a black and green leather/cloth jacket that matches her pants. The outfit fits her really well and the mix of faux leather and cloth is well done. She also comes with a belt and holster, which is technically part of her accessories, since it comes grouped with the rest of her gear, but since I never take it off of her, I decided to mention it here. The holster straps around her thigh and the belt has her trademark “DG” belt buckle.

Abbey does come with a fair amount of stuff, but only about half of it is really useful. The other half is just too tiny for her to hold. Included is an automatic pistol, extra clip, flashlight and holder, cell phone and holder, sunglasses three pieces of tech, and a satchel. Let’s start with the good stuff…

The automatic pistol is a really nice sculpt and painted very well, but the clip is not detachable, which makes the extra clip we get a bit useless. The cell phone is pretty cool, it has a flip down face, a belt pouch to store it in, and she can hold it very well. The sunglasses puzzled me when I first opened this figure. The arms don’t fold, so you can’t clip them to her top, and with her molded hair, she didn’t seem to be able to wear them. On closer inspection, though, you can see that her hair is molded separately from her head and she can actually wear the glasses quite well just by tucking the arm between her hair and face.

The rest of the stuff isn’t so great, mainly because she can’t use or hold most of it. The flashlight is too small for her to grip, although it does fit in its own holster that clips onto the belt. Likewise, the combat knife is too small for her to hold, and it doesn’t even come with a sheath, so unless you just tuck it into her belt or into her boot, there’s nothing you can do with it at all. I have no idea what the last three things are. I think one is a bomb, but all three are probably just supposed to be some high tech spy stuff. All of it fits neatly into her satchel, which is about all you can do with them. Considering how prevalent extra hands are with larger scale figures, it seems like Dragon could have thrown in an extra set so that she could interact with some of these pieces better. Or better yet, they could have scrapped most of this stuff and just given her another weapon.

The stand is a pretty humdrum affair, although it does serve its purpose. Its basically a metal rod with a clip on one end to go around the figure’s waist, and an opaque white little platform. A personalized stand with the Danger Girl logo would have been cool, but considering I’ve never gotten a stand with any of my other 1:6 scale figures, I’ll not do much complaining about this one.

I absolutely loved this figure when I got it way back when and I still do. She’s by no means perfect, and she may seem lacking compared to the twelve-inchers of today, but keep in mind, at about $39.99 new, she was not a high-end item at the time, and hence I think she was a pretty good value. Unfortunately, Danger Girl’s merchandising never went over that well leaving companies like McFarlane and Dragon holding the bag. McFarlane managed to get four figures out before calling it quits (we’ll take a look at them in the near future), but Dragon only released one more character in the 1:6 scale: Sidney Savage. At the time, I was pretty unhappy with some of the design choices they made with Sidney and her outfit, but we’ll take a look at her another time.