I’m a big fan of DC Direct’s Women of the DC Universe bust series that spotlights a lot of the good girls and bad girls of DC in smaller-scale bust formats. The current WoDCU series is bringing the art of Terry Dodson to 3D life, and the newest piece in the line, Wonder Girl, released this week. Here’s my review with photos.
The easiest way to begin this review is just to lay it out there… The Wonder Girl bust is a good representation of the character, and it has a generally fun sculpt and paint job, but the manufacturer’s choice of how to make her earrings completely kills the collectible for me. Prototype shots of the Wonder Girl bust showed a pretty accurate version of what we could expect from this piece, from the pose to the face to the base. The prototype also shows Wonder Girl’s star-shaped earrings clearly standing out from her head and being made from some sculpting medium. What we actually got were two Party City confetti stars glued to the sides of her face.
No, I’m not happy about this decision by DC Direct to make Wonder Girl look like a reject from Jem and the Holograms. Having shiny red confetti stars stuck to the sides of her head frankly makes her look ridiculous, especially when viewed from the front, which is presumably the main intended viewing angle of the piece. The box she comes in even shows the earrings clearly being non-cheap crap and hanging as earrings should hang. DC Direct made a very poor choice with this, and they cheapened the look of an otherwise nice collectible. Perhaps the hanging earrings were too fragile or perhaps it was just a money issue at the factory. Whatever the reason, the way they were made makes the sculpture drop significantly in appeal for me.
Now that my earring rant is out of the way, I’m going to ignore that facet of the bust while I review the rest of the piece. Wonder Girl is limited to 3000 pieces and stands a little over 5″ tall, in scale with the rest of the line. She’s depicted here in a fun and excited pose, in mid-turn with one hand on her lasso, her hair flying out behind her. Her face confirms that she’s in super happy mode, with a huge smile. The overall sculpt and kinetic value of the pose are very good, and the paintjob complements them well. I’ve occasionally had minor issues with the paints on these busts, but my Wonder Girl looks great and fits in well with the rest of the line.
The lasso she’s holding is shaped from gold wire. In the final bust, the wire is formed into perfect loops, which look a little too perfect when compared to the slightly wavy loops shown in the pre-release photos and on the box. Still, this is a small quibble, and it looks fine on display. The base is a square table type pedestal with some nice rectangular detailing along the sides.
I really have no complaints about this bust, aside from the earrings debacle. If it were not for the completely inexcusably crappy earrings, I’d be able to recommend the bust wholeheartedly. Sadly, the issue is there, and it’s a flagrant one for me, so I’m hesitant to recommend the piece to anyone other than Women of DC bust completists and big Wonder Girl fans. Maybe you could pull the stars off her face, do some touchup work, and replace them with decent hanging earrings, but I don’t think you should have to do that to make a $55 bust look good. It is what it is, and I do like the bust as long as I put the earrings in my blind spot.
( Women of the DC Universe Wonder Girl Bust Photos )
