My Favorite WONDER WOMAN!

DC Comics Justice League of America Boxset - DC Direct 2009

Wonder Woman is a sticky situation for us collectors of female action figures.  I will go out on a limb and say that she is the single most merchandised heroine of all time, and I seriously doubt any ladies will be stealing that mantle from her anytime soon.  I don't dislike Wonder Woman, but I pointedly ignore the standard monthly solicitation of yet another Diana figure or statue.  I am an obsessive collector so I have to put my blinders on or I will be penniless and living in a star-spangled hovel.  A few years ago I started reading the revamped Wonder Woman comic with art by Terry and Rachel Dodson and I suddenly had a renewed interest in the character.  I made it a goal to find the single best figure I could find of her and limit myself to that one piece.  Of course I now have a small handful of Dianas, but they entered organically into my collection, because each time I made a purchase I truly thought I was replacing my existing perfect figure with a newly-produced superior version of that single perfect representation.

***************************************************

Longtime readers may notice this post seems familiar. This is actually a refresh of my 16th post (of my 1,382 post so far) from 2012. I noticed that this particular old post gets a lot of traction and links. It culminated in me seeing the photos pop up in a ToyGalaxy video recently and prompting me to finally re-photograph her. The photos with the white background are three cameras old and rather unfocused (and embarrassing). I'm still including them all at the bottom for posterity, but I'm replacing the photos in the body of the post with fresh ones. Keep in mind that all the text is also eight years old. Enjoy! 

***************************************************

It's been a few years since I've purchased a new Wonder Woman and I'm going to make a ballsy statement that the DC Direct JLA Boxset figure is the best one out there.  I love this figure for so many different reasons.  She looks so strong, yet not manly.  She has a great face that I think really captures the look of a modern Greek Goddess.  Her colors are bright and classic.  And her body pose is a standard straight-forward stance - not the exaggerated contraposto or stylized "Birth of Venus" pose we often see with collectors market females.

Her face is just great.  Maybe it's just because I'm a fan of the Adam Hughes style, or maybe because this more closely represents her look in the 2006 Series I liked so much. (Which is amusing because there is a version supposedly based off Dodson's art which I'll compare below)

My only real gripe about this figure is the lasso.  DC Direct really needs to get on the ball and stop including crappy half-assed accessories.  The only high point is that you can buy a spool of the stuff at Michael's for a nickel and replace it in a jiffy if need be.

This figure is an amalgamation of two previous DC Direct Dianas.  Her body comes from the Justice League of America Series 3 figure (Based on the art of Ed Benes, sculpted by Ray Villafane) from Jan 2009.  And her head comes from the unreleased All-Star Wonder Woman figure (Based on the art of Adam Hughes, sculpted by Andy Bergholtz - from the never-released All-Star WW comic).  This prototype was first shown around Jan 2008.  The combined version of the two figures was released in Dec 2009.

While both of these figures are perfectly good designs, they each have issues (in my humble opinion).  The head on the Benes version has odd hair and the face sculpt only vaguely resembles Benes' art.  Conversely, the body on the Hughes version is awkwardly posed with limited range of motion.  I personally would not have purchased either of these figures.

In November of 2010, DC Direct released the second series of DC Origins 2-Packs which featured a first appearance figure paired with a more modern version (both with metallic repaints). The Wonder Woman set featured a repaint of the Benes figure from 2009. However, the original mock-ups of this set distinctly showed the Adam Hughes head with gold paint replacing the pearlescent yellow. By the time the official solicitation came out (in January 2010), the head was swapped for the Benes version. But in the months between the teaser and the official solicit images, a lot of collectors sold their JLA Boxset Wonder Woman on eBay (presumably to upgrade to the metallic version and squeeze a tiny bit of profit before this rare figure was re-released and made significantly less rare). It was a classic bait and switch. And I feel bad for those collectors who unloaded their Hughes' sculpts under a false pretext, but this was when I was finally able to get my copy at a decent price.

Time for some Comparison Pics!

The Dodson-style Wonder Woman Series 1 action figure from DC Direct (Dec 2007) is a easily a second runner-up.  She's beautiful, she has great hair, she looks powerful, and she poses well.  She was my favorite for two whole years!  If forced to compare though, I would say that her colors fall a little flat, her face looks beautiful, but not exactly "Amazon Warrior Goddess", and her body doesn't have that blend of femininity and strength I associate with the character.

Mattel DC Universe Classics Wonder Woman was a major disappointment for me.  The prototype shown at conventions was stunning and the idea of a super-poseable figure was very exciting.  But the final in-store product fell flat in my eyes.  She looked gangly, the thigh-joints were distracting (and highlighted different colored fleshtone plastics), mine had tons of seam tags from poor casting (especially at the shoulders), and her face looked smooshed with some serious duckface action.  All in all though, she's still a decent representation of Wonder Woman and was probably one of the most accessible versions for many collectors so she's definitely worthy of a comparison.  Her sculpted lasso is a definitely improvement over an unraveling piece of craft string!

Group picture time!  This is ALL my Wonder Women.. not too crowded yet :) [EDIT: my 2012 collection ;)]

Cheers!

I made a lot of comments about the INSANE amount of Wonder Woman figures out there.  If you're interested, check out ExperienceTheWonder.com which is the best resource for Wonder Woman collectibles.  He has an awe-inspiring collection and a fantastically designed page... brings a tear to my eye.