It’s DC Friday again and I’m giving the action figures a rest this week to check out another statue. I’ve actually got a few DC statues waiting on deck for the spotlight, but since I’m getting a little backlogged on the lovely Cover Girls of the DC Universe, let’s go with Black Canary, a relatively recent release from that line!

There isn’t much to say about the packaging that I haven’t said a dozen times over. The goods come in a fully enclosed box with some shots of the statue and adverts for Catwoman v2 and Power Girl on the back. Inside, the statue is sandwiched between two styrofoam bricks and the only assembly required is to peg the feet into the base. If this is your first time checking out one of these statues with me, they’re cold cast porcelain and generally about 9 to 10-inches tall, depending on the pose.

And in this case, Dinah is standing tall and proud, right leg slightly bent, left hand resting on hip, and with a shattered megaphone in the other. She’s totally mugging for the camera, and those are the poses that I tend to enjoy most in this line.

Her costume is definitely New 52 inspired, but I don’t recognize the exact appearance. It has some similarities to her Birds of Prey costume, but this one is sleeveless. My guess is that this is from her solo book, which I never got around to reading. I’ll be honest, it’s not my favorite look for the character. I’m happy to defend a lot of the New 52 costume designs when I think it’s warranted. In this case, I dig the costume, but it just doesn’t scream Black Canary to me. See what I did there? Her one-piece features some nice sculpted wrinkles, textures, and stitching. All the decorative accents in the boots are also part of the sculpt and the same is true for her gloves.

The stockings are actually string fishnets, which is the first real time I’ve seen mixed media on these statues, unless you count Catwoman v1’s whip. This could have been a risky move, considering the mixed results we’ve seen with stockings in DC action figures, but I’m happy to say they look fantastic here. The seams are fairly well concealed down the inner legs and the stockings convincingly disappear into the boots and one-piece.

The portrait here is solid. She’s pretty, but I don’t know that I would recognize her from just a head shot. The hair sculpt is a little chunky, but that’s often an issue with these porcelain statues. I’m not a big fan of how the hair seems to levitate a bit above the shoulders, but again, I’ll blame the media. I definitely like the muscle definition in her biceps. The skin tones are also pretty good, but my statue has a rather annoying light scratch across her left shoulder.

Which is a good segue into the paint. I’ve been overall very pleased with the paint quality in this line, and I now own about a dozen of them. Paint can so often make or break a statue, and that’s especially the case when you’re looking at pieces in the lower-middle price range like these Cover Girls. Unfortunately, Black Canary’s paint isn’t up to par with the rest of my DC ladies. The quality of the paint itself is fine. I like the metallic sheen to the blue and it looks great when contrasted with the bright yellow. The problem here is in the care of application. There’s no single glaring paint defect that made me think I could do better if I exchanged it for another, but the lines could and should have been a lot cleaner and there are just too many gloppy brush marks for my liking. Maybe it’s a case of the yellow paint being more susceptible to problems against the blue. This is a piece that looks fine when viewed casually on the shelf, but begins to break down a bit when you get in really close.

And that brings me to the megaphone. I’ve actually waffled back and forth on my feelings about it. On the one hand, it’s a visual and somewhat humorous, way to reference her canary cry and the way it’s blown out looks cool enough. On the other hand, it’s a little obvious and perhaps an unnecessary prop. I mean, I’m laying down eighty to a hundred bucks for a statue of Black Canary. It’s safe to say that I’m aware of her signature power without needing a visual aide. It kind of feels like the type of gimmick from the Bombshells statue line. In the end, I guess I’m OK with it.

The base is the same type of oval platform that this line has been using since it changed over from the diorama style bases. Dinah’s has a little canary emblem at the cardinal points. The yellow surface paint is clean and even, but my statue had some scuff marks on the black paint along the edges. They all rubbed out very easily with a damp Q-tip, but it begs the question, who’s checking these before they get boxed.

As always, the bottom of the base is hand numbered with the limitation. Mine is 2798 of 5200.

These gals tend to retail at about $99, but can usually be had for less soon after they hit the shelves. Canary set me back about $70 shipped. If this was your first time with me looking at a Cover Girls statue, you shouldn’t take this one as par for the course. As I said earlier, all of my Cover Girls are great looking ladies for the money. Even Black Canary here isn’t terrible. There are some strange choices here, but in the end she looks great on the shelf next to Katana and Poison Ivy. Truth be told, I’ve seen similar paint issues on far more expensive statues, particularly in the waning days of Bowen Designs. That doesn’t mean, however, it should be acceptable. The paint quality is so important on pieces like these and the standards really need to be high. My hope is that this is only a hiccup in quality and not a trend. We’ll find out in a couple of weeks when I swing back to this line to check out one of the Cover Girls’ oddest character choices yet, Red Lantern Bleeze!