Tag Archives: supergirl

Oct 23 2024

DC Multiverse (New 52): Cyborg Superman by McFarlane

Oh boy, is my DC Multiverse collection backing up with new arrivals! The stacks of boxes are continuing to pile higher and I think I’m just going to have to do another opening party one night this week. I may even have to double up on these guys in the weeks ahead just to try to get sort of current. At this point deciding which one to check out next is just down to random grabs and today that turned out to be Cyborg Superman from The New 52!

Everyone seems to loathe The New 52, but it came along for me at a time when I had been out of DC Comics for a little bit and I used the reboot as a point to jump back on, as it was intended. I enjoyed most of it, but I will admit that a lot of the books I liked the most met with early cancellations. Supergirl was one of the longer lived books that I read regularly, which also introduced us to Zor-El as Cyborg Superman. Certainly not the version that most people wanted to see hit the DC Multiverse, but that’s Todd for ya.

Straightaway, this is just an amazing sculpt. The lower half retains the blue suit, but the sculpt is still all borgified with some deep crevices and techno-organic contours. Some red bleeds into the lower legs and the feet are very robotic looking. The upper torso is all bare metal with a sculpted S-shield on the front in red and yellow and the cape attaching at the front of the shoulders. The exposed silver has a crumpled aluminum look to it with some more intricate detail in the neck. The arms have parts of the suit cut away to expose the mechanical body with some mechanized sinew in the shoulders and upper arms. The right arm has some spiked fins, and an exposed robotic elbow joint, and ends with an elongated claw, while the left hand ends in a crumpled fist. Finally, the red cape is tattered and torn. From the sculpt to the colors, this is great stuff!

The head sculpt is pretty grizzly with the upper head looking like business as usual and the flesh on the lower jaw completely gone. There’s a subtle bit of silver marking to the flesh around the forehead and brow region, which makes it look like the flesh is starting to wear off. The eyes are painted red and the coif is sculpted separately giving him an immaculate hair line.

The articulation is nearly identical to what we’re used to seeing in this line, which makes this Supe Borg a lot of fun to play with. The one deviation is the right arm, which only has a single hinge in the elbow. I’m guessing this was to accommodate the aesthetics of the big robot hinge. It would have been cool to get some articulation in the claw’s fingers, but they’re probably too thin to make that work. Instead, they have a bit of a bendy quality to them, making it still useful for grabbing other figures.

Zor-El doesn’t come with any traditional accessories, although you do get a flight stand, which is always a nice bonus, as well as the usual collector card. The flight stand also has a peg on the base, so you can detach the post and use it as a regular stand.

I was excited enough about this release to preorder him, and I’m certainly glad I did. It’s no secret that DC Multiverse gets by with its fair share of generic painted bucks to save on budget, so when we get a figure with this kind of intricate sculpting it really feels like a treat. It’s a damn cool figure, and I think it’s a worthy pick up even for collectors who weren’t into the New 52 Supergirl book. There was a Platinum variant of this figure offered, but I generally don’t chase those down. But, if we do get a Hank Henshaw version of Cyborg Supes released down the road, I will definitely pick him up.

Feb 16 2024

DC Multiverse (Rebirth): Supergirl by McFarlane

Holy shit has Todd been busy this year! It seems like every other day we’re getting more reveals of DC Multiverse figures as well as some amazing Super Powers stuff. For the most part, I tend to play the waiting game on this line, as many of the figures do wind up on deep discount, but there have been quite a few releases that I’ve been pre-ordering as of late and Supergirl here was one of them!

This is at least the third version of Supergirl released by McFarlane in this format. We also got an Injustice 2 version based on the video game and a version from The Flash film. Neither of those interested me at all, but I’m definitely down for anything they do from the Rebirth comics. Kara Zor El comes in the standard DC Multiverse window box. She’s a Gold Label release, which I originally thought made her a Target Exclusive, but I’m sure I’ve seen her pop up at some other online retailers since. As usual, the box displays the figure really well and the side panel calls her out as the Rebirth version. And, it’s sort of collector friendly packaging. You can get the figure out, but if you want the stands and the collector card, you’re going to have to rip them off the cardboard backer.

And here she is out of the box and there’s a lot to like here, but I do have some quibbles. The biggest one is the decision to go with what look like boots going up all the way to her skirt. The Supergirl that I remember from Rebirth had boots that went up past her knees and then you got a little flash of bare thigh before the skirt. Maybe she adopted this look later on? I don’t know, but I’d prefer the look that I associate with the character more than what we got here. With that having been said, I think she looks pretty good for what she is and the rest of the figure looks pretty close to the Rebirth character design. I like the shade of blue they used for her top, the S-Shield is printed very sharply, and the red looks great. The sculpted belt is painted gold and the cape is actually softgoods, which is a welcome treat.

The portrait looks good, although I don’t really think it depicts any specific artists’ style from the book. The hair is sculpted really well and I like the way it curls down at her shoulders. Obviously, it impacts the neck articulation, but not as bad as I expected. The facial printing is sharp, she’s got pretty blue eyes and a cute little smirk. McFarlane can be really hit and miss on their comic based portraits, but I think this one is pretty solid.

The articulation follows the standard DC Multiverse formula, which is mostly excellent, but is held back here by the skirt. There are no slits in the sides, so it really hinders her hip articulation and keeps her from achieving any wide stances. And as always I will bemoan the lack of thigh swivels and those bulbous ankle joints, which tend to look really bad on the ladies. As you might expect, her hair gets in the way of looking up for those flying poses. Everything else is fine and her double hinged elbows and knees can get some really tight bends. Kara only comes with one set of hands and those are fists, which is fine by me as they work for flying or for punching.

In addition to the standard black disk stand, you also get the clear flight stand that turns up every now and then. These have an adjustable grabber to wrap around the figure’s waist. A lot of people seem to like to rag on these, but I’m always happy to find it included. It is a little flimsy, but still a decent bonus for a $20 figure, and it works just fine to display the flyers in nice hovering pose. You can also remove the grabber and just use the base as it has a peg hole to stand the figure.

If I had to level one major nitpick against McFarlane’s comic figures is they tend to take liberties when translating the artwork into action figure. And granted, Kara here gets the look about 80% right, if I’m using my highly precise, and not at all arbitrary, scientific scale of deducting 10% off for each thigh that should have been bare. Again, maybe this was the leg look she adopted at some point during the Rebirth run, but it wasn’t in any of the books I read. No, seeing a flash of plastic skin isn’t that important to me, but why not stay accurate to the costume, eh? Either way, I dig this figure a lot and I’m glad I picked her up. Even if she is a far cry from the absolutely fantastic DC Icons Rebirth Supergirl figure, which I should never have let leave my collection. Yeah, always going to regret letting that one go…

Oct 27 2023

DC Essentials: DCeased Supergirl and Batgirl by DC Direct

Well I said I might work in another comic based Halloween review before we hit the big day and here we are. This one is really out of left field, because I stopped collecting DC Direct figures back when the DC Icons line went out. But… I saw these pop up on sale a while back and I tossed them into my cart with some other stuff. They arrived, I cursed myself for buying stuff just because its cheap, and they got put in a closet at which point I promptly forgot about them. Until now! Suffice it to say, these are the only two figures from this line in my collection.

Wow is this a blast from the past! I was always a fan of the DC Direct packaging and the way it showed off the figures. In this case you got a partially white window box with top and bottom bands color coded to the character, so purple for Batgirl and blue for Supergirl. Sure, there’s a lot of wasted space in that packaging and there are no accessories or extras for either figure. But I think this presentation had such a clean and premium feel about. The photos on the side panels also made these look really nice on the shelf. I never read the DCeased comic, but then again I never read all of Marvel’s Zombies either. The whole concept appeals to me a lot more as action figures than it does as a story line for a comic. Let’s start with Supergirl!

This is a nice looking figure, but in case you can’t tell, this is just the regular Supergirl figure with a bit of bloody paint added to the body and a new head sculpt. It’s a little more interesting for me, since I never owned the regular release, but I think this would be a hard sell at full retail if I had owned the original. The costume is mostly painted on, with the only unique sculpting found in the skirt, cape, and feet. The colors are nice and vibrant, but the red paint on the upper thighs doesn’t match the red plastic used for the lower legs. The pleated skirt looks good and doesn’t hinder the hip movement too badly. In addition to some splotches of bloody paint there’s some dirt added to the back of the cape.

But hey, that new head sculpt sure is nice! Kara has a really vicious expression with exposed teeth and milky dead eyes. There are some deep gashes on her face which look appropriately gnarly and blood everywhere. It’s a really unsettling look on the character, since I attribute her to being so pure and kindhearted. Very well done.

Articulation on the figure is pretty good. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders, swivels in the biceps, double hinges in the elbows, and ball joints in the wrists. The hips are ball jointed, the knees are double hinged, there are swivels in the thighs, and you get hinges and lateral rockers in the ankles. There’s a ball joint under the chest and another in the neck. I’d say the lack of extra hands is really conspicuous, but I guess the graspy hands are good enough for Zombie posing. On to Batgirl!

Obviously this is the Burnside Batgirl, which is a design I’m rather fond of, even if I didn’t care much for the comic. Unlike Supergirl, this figure has a lot of unique sculpting all over. I dig the way the tunic ends just above her hips, and the way the cape folds over the front of her shoulders and has sculpted gold buttons holding it in place. The bat symbol is sculpted, the wrist bracers are sculpted, and the boots have some great detail in the laces. She also has a belt sculpted from a separate piece that’s worn by the figure. The black and purple looks nice with all the yellow tossed in. I love this costume and the figure pulls it off well. Like Supergirl, all the zombification in the body is just done with bloody paint splatters, but man I do really love the bloody fingers!

Once again, the new head sculpt is quality stuff and possibly even more disturbing than Kara’s. Here we get an open bloody mouth with some nice use of gloss to make it extra gross. There are some deep cuts on her face, her hair is sprouting through a hole in the top of the cowl, and her eyes have yellowed irises giving Babs a perfect cracked-out undead look. The paint on the cowl could have been a little cleaner as there’s quite a bit of black slop on here ear, but there’s so much going on with this portrait, it isn’t overtly obvious to me.

Articulation here is identical to what we saw with Kara and that’s a good thing because both figures are loads of fun to play with.

These are both very nice figures on their own, but DCD definitely took the cheap way out here. The new head sculpts are excellent and the blood splatter is well done, but it would have been nice to see some re-sculpting done to the costumes. Even if I had been collecting this line at the time, there’s no way I would have paid retail to get these undead variants. And to be perfectly honest, the only reason I bought these on clearance at $11 each was because I thought they would scale better with McFarlane’s DC Multiverse line, but they are way too small for that. As it is, these will be relegated to a DC-related figure Tote… dead and buried.

Aug 2 2019

DC Gallery: Supergirl by Diamond Select

It does my heart good to be coming back with a third review this week. It makes me even happier to relive the old days with a DC Friday review! I’ve been trying to cut down on the number of Gallery statues I buy from DST, because they were getting out of hand, but this past month, they’ve released a bunch that I simply could not resist. Today, I’m opening up one of those, and it is indeed… Supergirl! In case you’re unfamiliar, these are roughly 9-inch scale, budget-priced PVC statues, and DST churns out a lot of them!

We’ve already seen Supergirl twice in the DC Gallery line, both of which were based off the animated Justice League Unlimited series, with one for regular release and one as an SDCC Exclusive. If you’ve been with me for the three dozen or so Gallery Statue reviews I’ve done here on FFZ, then you should be readily familiar with the packaging. These statues come in collector friendly window boxes, with windows on the front, top, and side panels. This particular box is a little larger than most of the Gallery statue boxes in order to incorporate the rather dynamic pose. The statue inside is nestled in a clear clamshell, letting you see what you’re getting from almost every angle. In this case, the box itself is nice and colorful, with some beautiful character art on the back (even if it doesn’t match the statue at all!) and her S-Shield printed on the back of the interior tray. All that is great because I am currently displaying these statues in their boxes. Let’s get Kara out of the box and check her out!

The statue comes out of the box all assembled and ready for display, and looking mighty fine! For the most part DST has been producing these statues with fairly static and reserved composition. That’s certainly not the case here, as Supergirl is seen bursting forth from a fiery explosion and ripping a chain in half. No doubt, an eeeevil chain! She has one leg drawn up at the knee with her other leg trailing down and touching the base. The pose shows off both her power and the grace of her curves beautifully. Straightaway, I’m going to say that this is one of my favorite poses this line has done, and it’s also one of the better poses I’ve seen on a Supergirl statue recently. It exhibits some great keneticism and excitement, and it just captures the character perfectly.

I’m also very fond of the costume style they chose here. She sports the blue long-sleeved crop-top and skirt, yellow belt, red boots, and the flowing red cape. As is routine for these statues, all of the details of the costume are incorporated into the sculpt, right down to some subtle wrinkles. This goes a long way to bring the costume to life and it often helps keep the paint in line too. And the coloring is also very much on point. The shades of red and blue go great together and include nice subtleties like a glossier finish on the boots and a matte finish on the cape. The S-Shields on both her chest and the back of her cape look nice and crisp. The skin tone is warm and even, but my one nit-pick would be that it’s a little too glossy for my taste. It’s not so bad under normal lighting, but my studio lights make her look like her skin is wet and glistening. Eh, maybe that’s not so bad.

I was a little unsure of this portrait from the initial solicitation shots, but I think it turned out quite good in person. Indeed, I like it even more than DC Collectibles’ Cover Girl version of Supergirl, and that one is no slouch either. The paint on the eyes and lips are sharp, and I like how her mouth is slightly parted to show that it took the tiniest bit of effort to rip apart that chain. The hair sculpt isn’t terribly dynamic, but it does kick off to the side a bit to offer a little windblown look. I’m not sure this portrait is based on any particular art, but she’s pretty and I think it’s an overall  good look for Kara.

Bases have not always been the best thing about DST’s Gallery statues. It’s not that a lot of them are bad, but they’re just kind of there. That’s sort of the case here. Supergirl’s base is serviceable and lends itself well to the action pose. I’m not one hundred percent sure what it’s supposed to be, but I’m assuming it’s just a ball of fire from an explosion. I suppose it could just as easily be a fiery comet or something. Not knowing what it is doesn’t really compliment the sculpt that much, but I’m willing to accept it as an abstract construct.

And before wrapping it up, I thought I’d toss in a shot of Gallery Supergirl alongside the previously mentioned Cover Girl Supergirl by DC Collectibles. Obviously, the costumes and styles are different, and this is a PVC statue as opposed to cold cast porcelain, but I think the Gallery statue holds up remarkably well against the competition. Plus, the PVC material is a lot more durable.

Once upon a time I used to call Kotobukiya’s Bishoujo line the best value in statue collecting. Well, two things have happened for me to revoke that praise. First, Koto has raised their prices a lot. Second, DST’s Gallery line has come along. And while the quality here isn’t on par with Koto’s, at around forty bucks, this is an extremely nice display piece for the money. A lot of thought went into the composition, the sculpt is excellent, and the paint only shows a few minor rough patches, which aren’t even worth it to me to complain about. As always, I would recommend buying these in person whenever possible, so you can scrutinize the paint you’re getting, but this one came to me in the mail, and I did just fine with what I got.

Jul 21 2017

DC Comics Multiverse (Doomsday Wave): Supergirl by Mattel

It’s hard to believe it, but this is my first DC Multiverse figure. I’ve been largely avoiding this line because I haven’t heard great things about it and I’m still, YES STILL!!! bitter about Mattel killing off DC Universe Classics only to seemingly re-brand it over and over again in slightly different scales and styles. But, a friend of mine was looking to unload a wave of these for stupid cheap and so I took them off his hands, mainly for the figure I’m looking at today and maybe to satiate my mild curiosity.

The packaging is pretty cool, especially when comparing it to the likes of Hasbro’s Marvel Legends. You get a collector friendly window box that shows the figure off nicely and some character art and a little bio on the side panel. The character selection for this wave is all over the place, but the “Collect & Connect” Doomsday figure is motivating enough to get them all. This version of Supergirl is from the TV Series. It’s a show I started watching as a guilty pleasure, but it’s grown on me a lot. It’s upbeat and good-natured, and I like to think of watching it as passive resistance against the asshole impostor that’s walking around in Superman’s costume in the DC movies.

This is clearly a tale of two figures. From the neck down she looks pretty damn great. I really dig the design of her costume in the series and Mattel did a nice job recreating it here. The S-shield is actually part of the sculpt, as is all the piping on the torso and arms. The belt is sculpted, the pleating on the skirt looks natural, and the boots have little wrinkles here and there. The cape falls pretty naturally and it doesn’t even throw off the balance of the figure too badly. The paint is also exceptional for an off-the-peg Mattel figure. The blue they used for her top is deep and goes really well with the somewhat subdued red of the skirt, cape, and boots. The gold paint they used for the belt and the trim on the S-Shield is quite striking and both it and the red piping on the suit are applied with care and precision. This is surprisingly great stuff! And then you get to the head sculpt.

Woof! What happened here? I mean, I’m not expecting great things, but how the hell was this even approved? Melissa Benoist is an aggressively cute young lady and this is… WHAT IS THIS?  It’s hard to tell what lets this portrait down more, the sculpt or the paint, but in the end it doesn’t matter. It looks like Supergirl got stung by an army of Kryptonite bees and her face is in the process of swelling up and she’s trying to smile it off and act like nothing happened. YOU DON’T SHRUG OFF A BEE ATTACK, MS. DANVERS!!! Also, those printed eyes are just laughable. I will admit, that this head does not photograph well. It does look a little better in hand. At the right angle with the light shining just right, I can kind of see a little of Ms. Benoist in there, but not enough of to save it. What a shame.

Following hot on the heels of that facial disappointment comes the articulation. Now, what’s here sounds decent on paper. The arms feature rotating hinges in the shoulders and elbows, with swivels in the wrists. The legs are ball jointed at the hips, have swivels in the thighs, and hinges in both the knees and hips. The torso swivels at the waist, has an ab crunch in the chest, and a ball joint in the neck. There are some obvious bummers here, like no swivels or lateral rockers in the ankles and no hinges in the wrists, but there are a few more problems worth mentioning.

The range of motions in the elbows sucks, mainly because of the way they’re sculpted. She can’t even do a proper hands-on-hips heroic stance. She can barely get right angles out of those guns. Also, the ab crunch hinge is designed so that she can only bend backwards. That’s helpful when trying to put her into a flying pose, but forward movement would have been nice as well. Besides, the sculpted hair keeps her from looking up anyway, so she still can’t really do a very good flying pose.

I was particularly interested in the scaling on these figures, and surprised to find that they scale pretty well with the old DCUC line. On the other hand, they scale surprisingly poorly against Mattel’s more recent Movie Masters line. On the plus side, Mattel seems to be producing all the DCTV figures in this line, so at least those will all display well together.

With some potentially bright spots, this figure still ends up disappointing. I’m pleased to say that it isn’t the kind of junk that I was expecting it to be, but between the limited articulation and the disaster of a face, it’s not hitting the mark. I think Mattel is getting around $20 a pop for these, which feels like a lot. If I break down what I paid for this wave, she’d be more like $8, so I’m not complaining. I’d still like to pick up DC Collectibles’ version of DCTV’s Supergirl and see how it compares. In the meantime, I’ll probably be revisiting the rest of this wave on future DC Fridays when I have nothing better to look at.