To give you an idea of how long we've been waiting, the DC Super Hero Girls franchise was first announced back in April of 2015. No joke, it's been over a year. I'm not a huge comic book reader, but I have a few favorite characters that I follow, and I'm always happy to see something new with them in it. So knowing that these were being made but not being able to get my hands on them for months was painful. Mattel gave the dolls a sort of limited test launch earlier this spring, but did the official release this July. Work got kind of crazy, and I wasn't able to get my hands on one of the dolls and do the review until only recently, which irritates me, but better late than never, right? (...right?)
Without further ado, let's get to the nitty-gritty of my review, which is all after the jump!
Okay, just indulge me for a little bit: I feel like this is long overdue. If something like this had been available when I was a little girl, I feel like I would have been more interested in comics, or at least become more involved earlier in my life. For all that companies complain about wanting to bring more fans into the fold, they sure aren't too smart about making products to sell to those fans! But they've finally caught on.
The first wave of dolls features female characters from a variety of DC franchises: Wonder Woman (from...er...Wonder Woman), Bumblebee (from Teen Titans), Supergirl (from Superman) and Batgirl, Poison Ivy, and Harley Quinn (from Batman). Okay, I admit that the last two puzzle me since they are technically villains and not heroes, but maybe in this franchise they are more like prankster-type "villains"? Well, whatever.
The dolls are available from Amazon and in-store at Target (but not on their website! Figure that one out...) for $20. It's on par with Monster High and Ever After High, which is good. I picked mine up at Target; even a few months after launch, there was about half-a-dozen dolls to choose from, which says good things to me about their popularity.
This boxxxxxx yyyyessssssss SEE MATTEL? THIS IS HOW YOU MAKE GOOD BOXES. IT ISN'T SO HARD NOW IS IT? ::ahem:: The box for this line is absolutely fantastic; the focal point is the amazingly detailed background depicting Super Hero High and a bright sky with soft, fluffy clouds. The box is mostly window, featuring the doll front and center, as it should be. The sidebar has the logo and a graphic of the character, with little wasted space; the color scheme is soft and cheerful and pleasing to the eyes. In short, as far from the trainwreck of a box design that they are going with for Ever After High.
The back of the box has Wonder Woman's official character art for the series, along with her character bio. I like that they provide pictures of the other dolls in the series! It's simple but effective.
I regret to inform everyone that it is night impossible to get the box open nicely. Other boxes generally have a sort of hinge on one side, and a tab-slot deal on the other, so you can swing it open like a book. Sort of. This? Not so much. Sorry, guys, one less box for the hoard. Alas.
Getting her out of the box was not that hard, surprisingly, but I think the fact that she was primarily rubber-banded and not plastic-tied helped. I didn't need to break out the scissors, just give a few good tugs here and there.
I noticed right off the bat that her hair is a little different than I'm used to seeing. In the comics, Wonder Woman's hair color is a sort of black that has a bluish tint to it. Mattel has decided to replicate it as...black with sapphire blue highlights. Huh. It's...not exactly subtle. I mean, I kind of get why they did it, but I really think that they should have picked a subtler color, like navy blue.
Her hair is also asymmetrical; I can't figure out if that's by design or factory error. I might be a total heretic and trim it later, because I really don't like how it looks. Her hair is very soft though, no gel at the top, which surprised me. I might try to brush it and see if I can't get her hair to fill out a bit.
One of the most wonderful things about this line is that each girl has a completely different facial mold, to really drive home their individuality. Wonder Woman has a soft, round face with full cheeks, large baby-blue eyes, and a wide, full mouth. Her makeup is minimal: just a bright, true red lipstick. I like how her facial coloring ties into her costume.
You can get a good view of her head protector (tiara?) and her breastplate her. They're bright gold, and just pop next to her dark hair and red top. The breastplate is designed to look like both a W and a set of wings, which is very clever.
Her head protector sort of clips on like a tiara, but it's plastic-tied to her head. This has me worried that if the plastic ties are removed, then the darn thing is going to slide off and never clip on right again. I won't touch it. It's covered by her hair, anyway, so it's not like I'll have to look at it all the time.
Here's a view of her breastplate from the back. It clips apart, but for right now, I'm leaving it secured with the rubber bands from the packing to make sure it stays on nice and tight. Her golden belt also clips apart, but it's very loose, and is constantly sliding up and down her torso, unless I sort of jam it down. Annoying.
Her clothes open in the back with Velcro, and for the curious, it looks like she's wearing pants and a sleeved leotard. Very practical! They're easy to remove, which is great. The leotard is made of two different pieces of red fabric: a plain, smooth satiny red for the back, and a sort of sequined material for the front. The sleeves are T-shirt-like and very plain. It's a very practical, but eye-catching outfit
A lot of the modern redesigns of Wonder Woman have her in pants, so I feel that this is a new echo of that. The pants she's wearing here are a soft and bright blue with this awesome star-spangled piping down the sides.
Of course, Wonder Woman comes with her special bullet-reflecting bracelets! You will need to remove her hands to pull them off, but A. this is relatively easy to do compared to MH/EAH since her hands are bigger, and B. The bracelets aren't as jiggly as some arm accessories I've seen, so getting them to stay in place is fairly easy. Looking at the ball-joint for her wrist, it seems thicker and sturdier than other dolls.
Dude. She needs a rack for these guns. Look at the muscle detail!
The sculpting on the bracelets is exquisite. It picks up her star and W motif again. Phenomenal detail, especially for a toy.
Wonder Woman's hands are actually permanently frozen in "grippy" mode, so you can clip her Golden Lasso in and pretend she's wrangling bad guys. I keep looking at them and thinking of my Figuarts and their myriad assortment of hands, but then I have to remind myself that this is a doll and they do things differently. Can you imagine the chaos if Mattel's dolls came with multiple hands? I just have to tell myself that when she's not lassoing, she's punching. Or something.
Her boots are massive. As usual, they're slit up the back to enable you to take them on and off.
I admit it's hard to see here, but they're a bright cherry red with white piping down the front and wing-like details towards the top. Simple, but nice. The plastic feels very smooth to the touch.
Her feet basically look like MH/EAH dolls. It feels like she's made of the same plastic, but is maybe a bit bigger, mold-wise. I might pull some other dolls out to compare her to later.
Here she is in profile! Soooo cute!
Here you can see her getting ready to ensnare some bad guys and make 'em cough up their secrets. She's got the usual range of articulation for a Mattel doll: neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, waist, hip, and knee. Stationary feet, though. Supposedly, these can stand on their own, but I'm not too convinced of that.
Accessories are minimal. Besides her Golden Lasso, Wonder Woman comes with her student ID card, and that's it. No stand, no brush. Granted, I'm swimming in brushes from all of my doll purchases, and stands are cheap to get, but your average Mattel doll comes with a few more accessories. It really helps to solidify the feeling that the $20 was well spent.
Miss Scarlett suggests: Whether you are interested in dolls, comics, or both, look to the DC Super Hero Girls for a great toy and collectible!
