Mattel Zatanna review

You know the old cartoon George of the Jungle and how he would often say “George have secret weapon.... dumb luck!” I had a George moment last Saturday. Tim had told me that he had heard that Wal-Mart exclusive had shown up in our area from various sources. Ye old Comic Shoppe can be a hotbed of information at times. I did not hear about it soon enough so I figured I was screwed. You know how it is someone sights the Mattel stuff and unless you hear about it immediately it’s gone. A couple days later before Thanksgiving, Tim tells me he saw that our local Wal-mart in Collinsville (that’s right free plug for that store you’ll see why) still had the Kamandi from the wave. Black Friday comes and goes and I don’t get to the Store until Saturday.

I figure I have nothing to do Saturday I might as well pick up the Kamandi it’s a start. I mean it’s still going to be there. It’s an action figure of a kid with a bare chest in shorts, what kid in his right mind is going to want that? So I stroll down the main aisle of store headed back to Toys when what to my wondering eyes appear? An end cap full of Mattel figures. I stop dead in my tracks. Wait a minute there’s three figure. No four figures. What the hell? There is the whole wave with plenty of extra obviously put there for Black Friday. Did any of those nuts stop to buy them while they were killing each other for the flat screen TV. No, they did not. They were all mine for the taking and I quickly bolted to get a shopping cart. I made a frantic search of the end cap netting me everything but a Gold from the Metal Men. I dug a little deeper in the end cap and got the only one of him left. I knew I didn’t have the money for this but I also knew this would never happen again so that’s why God created Credit Cards. Long lines at the check out enabled me to determine that TYR the figure I did not want was not needed to build the Collect and Connect. Back to the shelf Super Powers cast off! So I hand the entire wave needed to build the Ultra-Humanite and I needed that monkey like it was a drug!

I swear to you this never happens in St Louis. We are the ass ends of distribution for every action figure known to man but I was holding in my hands the subject of this review the Zatanna figure. Let me just start by saying this figure is as good as promised. It is damn near perfect and only has one annoying flaw that keeps it from being the best female figure Mattel has produced to date. It is the Zatanna figure in the stage outfit you have been waiting for. DC Direct has missed on this version twice that we will talk about later and I think it is safe to say this is the still Best Zatanna figure ever produced. The Identity Crisis figure that is supposed to be the George Perez era costume done in Michael Turner style just doesn’t cut it. It’s a nice placeholder but I want it look like Perez’s artwork. Unlikely that we will ever see this from DC Direct since they killed the HOTDCU line before producing Zatanna and Wonder Woman as done by Perez. Okay, enough bitching about DC Direct let’s get to Mattel’s figure.

It is an awesome likeness of Zatanna that transcends time periods. I could see people putting this figure with an early line up of the Justice League that is pre-satellite era.  I on the other hand have put her with the Meltzer Benes lineup and she fits in quite well. I know Zatanna was not one of the original members of that group but she did show up in cameos and later when Meltzer left she was a semi regular member when Dwayne McDuffie was writing it. She continued for a few issues of James Robinson’s current run but Cry for Justice is a definite break in eras since the lineup completely turned over and Zatanna left. Why someone wouldn’t want to write Zatanna in the Justice League I will never understand. As we learned in Identity Crisis she is a major bad ass and perhaps their most powerful member. Zatanna comes with an arm to the Ultra Humanite collect and connect. The best thing about this figure is the removable Hat. I will warn you of one thing if you want to keep her posed like she is in the package holding the hat with the magic wand in her other hand (gee that last part sounds dirty) be careful cutting the plastic ties. I snipped wrong one and freed her hat from her hand. I’m not sure I would have kept her posed that way but I lost the option to do so. The hat comes close to fitting into her hand but she cannot grip it without an aid.

I wasn’t too keen of the yellow vest when this first appeared on line way back and even complained about it to my fellow nerds. They promptly set me straight by showing panels of her early appearances where the vest was always yellow. Needless to say my Nerd Card was revoked for a week for not knowing that. It was an extra EPIC FAIL since I am a Justice League nerd and should have know that. The vest in yellow looks fine to me now. The fishnets are pretty decent attempt at them with netting to pull it off. I think the fishnets were done better on the Black Canary that Mattel did earlier. My only problem with this version of Zatanna’s stocking is you see to much of the seam in back and it doesn’t mesh together as well as it did on Canary.  This is a minor flaw that can be hidden in the back so I’m not marking off for that. Here’s a comparison shot of the two.

This picture also points out only real flaw of this figure and it the thing that makes the second best female figure produced by Mattel. Black Canary has peg hole in her foot to help her stand in her heels. Note the Mattel stand under Canary in this picture helping her stand. For some reason unfathomable to me Zatanna has no peg holes. That’s right she’s wearing heels and has no peg holes to help her stand. It took several attempts to pull off this picture and Zatanna never stands by herself for long. I don’t know if Wal-mart caused this because they demanded the cost be cheaper on their waves or even if the extra hole would have added to the cost.  Maybe it was just a poor decision by Mattel that they made by themselves. Make no mistake Zatanna will not be standing unaided for long. I have her propped up against the wall in the back of the Justice League display, which is a shame because otherwise this figure is brilliant. I would prefer having her stand up front since she is so gorgeous. I will still grade the Black Canary figure to be their best female figure to date because of this one flaw. I decided to have a little fun with the next three pictures that show her with Hawkgirl who somehow manages to stand by herself despite her wings (a feat DC Direct has never mastered). She even has a peg hole if needed.

 

 

Let’s take a look at the DC Direct early attempt at this costume. As you can see she a little chunky compared to the Mattel one and slightly posed. I remember being incredibly happy with this DC Direct one when I got it. Their figures have come a long way since then but the fishnets on this one are clearly superior to the Mattel version. The DC Direct version has a cleaner seam on the back than Mattel’s and in fact I think the seam on this version is better than the Ross version, which we will look at next.

 

Here is Mattel’s Zatanna with the DCD Alex Ross version, which is another flawed figure that won’t stand by itself. I was really into the Ross figures when they came out by I look at them now and think, “What the hell was I thinking?” The Ross Zatanna face is just plain fulgy.  In fact most of the series suffers from that in hindsight. Wonder Woman looks old. Superman does too. The Hawks are nice figures but they can’t carry the weight of their own wings which has caused my Hawkman’s left leg to snap. Basically Batgirl is only really awesome one of the bunch. Hal Jordan, Aquaman  Reddy and Arrow are great but the rest are lacking. This Zatanna really kicks ass over Ross version.

 

Finally let’s take a look at the Identity Crisis Zatanna and Mattel's latest. This is mostly just for scale comparison since they are in different costumes and by different companies. Identity Crisis is an okay figure and fits well with some of the other DC Direct Justice League figures but it is not the way that a George Perez Zatanna should look. Way too skinny for George to have drawn her and the straight hair is wrong and should be curly.

In conclusion Mattel has put out a great figure with one minor flaw of no peg hole to help her stand. I’d like to put you at the top of the heap Zatanna because you are otherwise beautiful but I’ll still rank Canary a notch higher but you are a solid number two.

Here she is in her new home on the Meltzer JLA shelf!



Comments

[Dianne Loyet]

Dear Mike,

I'm not even an action figure geek, but I love your pictures with the little cartoon speech bubbles.

Keep it up.

Dianne