I first saw the DC Direct (DCD) Wonder Woman Series 1 set at one of the December Toy Fairs (it might have been 2008, but they all kind of blend together). Most of the vendors were selling the figures for Php 2,000.00 or Php 2,500.00 (about $36 to $45 US at the time) a set, which was a pretty good price back then. Of course back then I was only starting out and was focused mostly on building my 6” Marvel super hero collection. Stupidly, I passed it up, despite admiring the set a number of times.
Fast forward to 2010 and the figures go on sale at the various Greenhills vendor stalls for something like Php 350 (about $7 or $8 US) each. By the time I get wind of it, the Wonder Woman figures were sold out and all that’s left are Circe, Donna Troy and this figure, Agent Diana Prince
I’ve only got a few DCD figures. The first were Nightwing and Flamebird and I only got them because they were on sale. Of course, I got this one for the same reason. DCD figures usually retail for Php 1,000.00 or so if I’m not mistaken (the price could have gone up by now) so picking one up on the cheap is really great.
The figure is based on the Wonder Woman character circa 2006 when she had given up her Wonder Woman persona (and passed it to Donna Troy). During that time, she could be found slumming it at the Department of Metahuman Affairs (always hated that term – “metahuman”) being a bad ass secret agent.
The packaging for the Wonder Woman Series 1 figures was what first attracted me to the set. It’s a standard blister card pack (although bigger to accommodate the 1/12 scale figures) but the card is decorated with some great artwork which I assume is by Terry Dodson, the man behind the wonderful design of the figures. Dodson is one of those artists who is born to draw women, like Adam Hughes or Alfonso Azpiri. It really is a shame that there’s no way to preserve the package if you’re an opener.
The back of the card has a standard group portrait of all four figures composited together and squishes short bios of all of them underneath the photo. It’s nicer than the standard “also available” line up, and makes me wish I had gotten the rest.
As a 6” collector, there’s that choice between DC Universe Classics (DCUC) and DCD. There are pros and cons, but I usually fall over to the DCUC side because of my love for articulation. However, that doesn’t preclude an admiration for the superior sculpts of the DCD collections. This series doesn’t disappoint in that department. Dodson’s art is perfectly captured in the figure, giving us a toy that is both curvy and feminine, while still looking superhumanly fit.
Diana is dressed in a skin tight ivory jumpsuit that hugs every sweeping arc of her body. She’s tall for a 1/12 scale figure (6.625”) but then she’s an Amazonian princess, isn’t she? It’s amazing how much detail is in this figure, it being just a smooth jumpsuit and all. There are seams and wrinkles and whatnot all over. All that’s missing is a camel toe.
She comes with three accessories: a stand and two batons. According to the Interwebs, the batons are supposed to be multi-tools that act as both flashlights and shocksticks (and probably a dozen other things I don’t’ know about because I’ve never read the comic book). She can only hold one at a time in her right hand because DCD went and forgot to drill a hole in her other fist. Stooo-pid. I honeslty didn’t know what the hell they were until I Googled the toy a few minutes ago.
The head sculpt is really nice:
She’s beautiful and severe at the same time. Sort of how I’d imagine The Baroness would look like (which is why I was never completely sold on Sienna Miller in that part since she looks too girly pretty). If you could afford a few of these and mock up some guns in holsters and repaint them, do a few head swaps, they’d make for great female S.H.E.I.L.D. or S.W.O.R.D. agents (Department of Metahuman Affairs? Really?).
Now we come to articulation, which is where sadly, this figure fails badly. Because it’s DCD, the focus is the sculpt, making it look good whilst standing up on your shelf. She has a ball-jointed head (which works spectacularly well since her hair’s up), swivel-hinge shoulders, hinge elbows, the usual “T-hip” swivel joints, and hinge knees. That’s a total of NINE points of articulation, only five of which are any real use.
…
Oh, well.
Honestly, when the sculpt of a female figure is this great, and the price I can get it for is this low, I hardly care about the articulation.
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