When my new 13″ Joker and Harley arrived last week, I originally planned on reviewing them together. Makes sense, right? And then I thought about it for more than 10 seconds, and realized that it only made sense to review Harley here. I still have the Joker over at MROTW, but Harley gets her own special treatment here.
What do you need to know about Harley? Dr. Quinn, mental medicine woman, fell under the spell of Mr. J while he was at Arkham. Sparks flew, and she signed up as his main squeeze. Adding her figure into the 13″ Deluxe line makes great sense, as she’s been a tremendously popular femme fatale since her debut on the animated show. Releasing her at the exact same time as the Joker also makes great sense.
I’m not quite as sure about their choice for her look, but time will tell. Unlike the Joker, who is a very comic book art based design, she’s much more ‘realistic’ in appearance. While they were released at the same time, the two don’t quite marry up perfectly in the design department.
You can pick up Harley at your local comic shop, or from one of the fine sponsors I have listed at the end of the review. Suggested retail is $80, but you can expect to pay around $65 – $70.
DC Direct Deluxe Harley Quinn
Packaging – ***
The box is very similar to the rest of the line, and suffers from the same issue of too many twisties. It’s not as big of an issue for Harl as it is for the Joker, because the one across her mid-section doesn’t cause the same type of extreme costume wrinkles, but they’re still annoying.
The text is decent though, as are the graphics. The boxes are a little thin, and that means they are less likely to stand up to prolonged shelf time, or some shipping situations, but it’s not a major issue.
Sculpting – ***
The biggest issue I have with this figure is the head sculpt – it’s all up hill from there. Most of my issues are also aesthetic, so it could very well be that your mileage will vary.
Harley is very pretty, no doubt about it. In this version, she’s a very non-distinct form of pretty, making it less about her features and more about the makeup. I don’t have an issue with that, but I do wonder if the design choice was the best. This is a very realistic looking head sculpt, and she almost looks like a Sears model dressed up for Halloween. Paired with the much more comic styled Batman, Robin and Joker, she doesn’t quite fit in.
Along with this basic design issue, I also think the head is a smidge too small. Usually we have the issue of bobble head disease, particularly with female figures, but in reality people do tend to have large heads. Here, with the cowl part of her actual sculpt, the head seems much too small for the 13″ scale body. This is even more noticeable in person than it is in photos.
But other than those two issues, I’m good to go. The hands are also nicely done, with a good choice of poses that work with the accessories. She’s certainly the nicest Harley in this scale we’ve gotten to date, just not as nice as she could have been for me.
Paint – ***1/2
Although the design and sculpt might not be perfect, the paint is certainly very clean. Harley’s trademark white makeup with black mask and red/black lips looks terrific, with a consistent application and fairly clean cut lines. There’s a little blip here and there, but without very careful inspection you won’t see it.
Her eyes are nice and straight, looking slightly up at you, adding to her seductive nature. The lips are done in the two tone style, but it blends very nicely. This is the sort of paint job that can make a mediocre sculpt much better than it is.
Articulation – ***
This is the same female body we recently saw with Batgirl, and it works pretty well for a superheroine. The body is a little too wide in the hips, something that’s more noticable with Harley than with Batgirl, who had a cape to add some width to her upper body, but the proportions do lend it a seductive quality that you like in your evil female characters.
In fact, I still prefer this body over the male body for more than just the obvious reasons. The ball jointed neck works nicely, and the hips allow for more backward movement than with the male body.
Oh, she still has a couple issues I’d love to see resolved, like the cut wrists, but I can live with this version for the time being. And yes, she is slightly shorter than the 13″ male figures at 12 1/2 inches tall, but she still towers over normal sixth scale.
Accessories – ***
Harley comes with a surprisingly nice assortment, and in fact, the whole Deluxe line seems to be getting better and better in this category.
She comes with not one but two sets of swappable hands. There’s the attached gripping hands, plus a set of fists, as well as a gesturing left hand and a gun grip right hand. They pop on and off relatively easily, but stay in place during posing. Scale is good, and the various poses selected are useful.
There’s also her large wooden hammer, a common weapon for Harley. It’s a great sculpt, and while it’s a little small, you should be able to find plenty of posing potential.
Harley also likes a gun, and she gets a nice, goofy cartoony version. Of course, there’s a bit of a mismatch with the very realistic head sculpt, but the gun is still pretty damn sweet. It also opens, and can be loaded with the included bullets. Mine doesn’t stay closed particularly well though, so I have to take care not to lose any of the very small cartridges.
Finally, she has her display stand. I’m not one to use them, but if you are, the basic black stand with her name on the base looks fine and works pretty well.
Outfit – ***
Harley doesn’t sport a complex outfit, but it’s certainly a recognizable one.
Her tights fit well, and are made from high quality material. The vinyl booties work much better here than they did on the batgirl release, and she can actually stand in them just fine. Her fluffy white cuffs are not sewn to the suit, so they can be easily removed and repositioned. That was a smart move, since in swapping the hands back and forth, you probably would have tore them loose.
Her collar has the little puffballs sewn at the end of each loop, but these threads are quite thin. I managed to pull one loose about 10 seconds after she was out of the box, which you can see in the photos. I’m not much of a seamstress, so it’s going to be more effort than I like to think to get the damn thing back on.
Since her cowl is part of the sculpt, I already covered that in the earlier section. But it’s worth noting here that the threads holding the balls on the ends of ‘horns’ seem much sturdier than those on her collar.
Fun Factor – ***
Like her beau, Harley retains all the things that make a good sixth scale figure, just at a collector’s price point. And she kicks the crap out of the Barbie version of Harley, which was actually supposed to be a toy.
Value – **
The increasing prices are going to really hurt this line, and I suspect that many collectors will get much, much choosier. It isn’t quite as bad with Harley as it is with the guys, since she costs a smidge less still. Even at around $65 though, a lot of folks are going to balk.
Things to Watch Out For –
Those damn little balls on her collar fall off mighty easy, as you can see in my photos. And once they do, you’ll need some sewing skills to get them attached again.
Overall – ***
Even with my issues around her head sculpt (which really does remind me of someone in a costume) and the higher price point, I’m still quite pleased with the purchase. The basic quality of the Deluxe line has really improved over the last two or three releases, and they are making changes where appropriate. Unfortunately, the higher price point may kill this line when those damn bendy hands couldn’t.
Where to Buy –
You have a number of online choices if your LCS either doesn’t have her, or is charging an arm and a leg:
– Urban Collector has her for $64.
– CornerStoreComics has him at $64 as well.
– YouBuyNow has her at $76.
– For the UK folks, Forbidden Planet has her listed at 58 GBP.
Related Links –
Obviously, the most related is the review of the Joker, but there’s plenty of other reviews of 13″ Deluxe figures, like the DK Movie versions of Batman and Joker, Bizarro, Green Arrow, Robin, two versions of Batgirl, as well as Batman himself in the old school 70’s outfit, Nightwing, a guest review of Catwoman, and my reviews of the Martian Manhunter, Two Face, Batman Begins and classic Batman.
Comments: 1 Comment
One Response to “Toy Box: DC Direct Deluxe Harley Quinn”Leave a Reply |
August 20th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
joker looks like steve buscemi… lol…