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Black Canary

June 17, 2011 | By Errex More

Over the past few weeks, I have been kind of extolling the virtues of the improved articulation on the later Infinite Heroes roster. However, it would be good to remember there is a reason this line flopped in the first place, despite hitting the streets well before Hasbro’s Marvel Universe figures did at several locations.

Put simply, the figure design was way too primitive next to the de facto standard for action figures in the 1:18 scale set by rival toy maker Hasbro. But even more so, the articulation model used for the first generation of Mattel-made figures wasn’t even consistent within the line, which produced abominations like the Black Canary figure I’m reviewing today.

Black Canary was released twice in the Infinite Heroes line, the second version in 2010 as part of the 75 Years of Superpowers packaging.

While other characters in this series got revamped using newer body molds (like Black Adam), Black Canary is just a re-color of the first generation body used back in 2009. The sculpture is extremely basic, and the body proportions are definitely cartoon-like and more suited for a Barbie Happy Meal toy than a superhero line.

Articulation is extremely limited and not really useful. Black Canary has:

• Swivel neck.

• Swivel shoulders.

• Swivel torso.

• V-cut hips.

• Hinged knees.

And that is pretty much it. The V-cut hips are especially annoying, because there is no way to pose them without compromising the figure’s stability or even achieving a passable dynamic stance. Like so many figures made over twenty years ago, Black Canary has only the most basic range despite being a more recent release.

The new coloring is not particularly striking either. Canary wears what appear to be a black leotard and choker, a short blue jacket, solid blue leggings, black gloves and black boots. The torso piece for the jacket is actually a glued-on rubber vest, pliable enough to allow the head to turn.

Paint applications are kept to a bare minimum, consisting mostly in solid blocks of color, although the face is actually not bad at all, despite the bright yellow painted hair.

As pack–ins, Black Canary comes with a transparent display base and one of those commemorative plastic buttons, this time with an image of her and Green Arrow running together. The base is not that great, but at least allows to expand slightly the repertoire of poses Canary can achieve.

So, bottom line is this is a fairly disappointing figure. Aesthetically it lacks detail and the sculpting is way too stylized to even fit in with figures from this very line.