I've long held a thing for redheads, a fact I blame entirely on television and my early morning cartoons showing women with red hair as the most interesting, queen among the many red-haired animated beauties is Poison Ivy, the eco femme fatale that started bothering Batman back in his Silver Age run.
I still have her first appearance comics thanks to my Mum's DC obsession as a young girl and her frequent shopping trips to Leeds market. Needless to say, the idea of a hot and sensual bad girl being led away in handcuffs by the end of every issue was among the many influences of my young life that stayed with me. My wife seems to like the character too, having dressed as her for Halloween and happy to help cultivate the many Ivy figures we have in our lounge cabinet. It's nice to share.
Some of the Ivy collection in the family display cabinet we keep in the lounge
It's fair to say that Ivy became something of a "background" villain throughout the 80's and 90's, appearing infrequently or as filler in villain team-up groups. It wasn't until the Batman animated series that she started to find a new footing as a classic and much-loved villainess, no doubt in part to Bruce Timm's arresting design, with an impossibly slim build, voluptuous features and striking red and green colour-palette, which was about as high contrast as I'd ever seen it (her first appearance she arguably had brown hair rather than red).
So far as Timm's Ivy goes in figure form, it's been hard to score a decent representation. The Kenner figure is fine, fairly basic but captures the look and feel of the character well enough, she's the shortest of our Ivy figures in the cabinet. For a while I owned the "Almost Got 'Im" statue with Ivy and her deadly pumpkins, but again it didn't really capture her in a way that it should, the head sculpt was lacking somehow and so she made her way to a new home. Even the modern Batman: Animated toys took forever to produce her original appearance (opting for her latter pale and stylised look) and that didn't work out too well as the sculpt made her head look too big and her hair too high. It was comical in a way. I haven't even opened mine.
So of course when Mondo announced that they were adding Ivy to their 1/6 scale line up, I could hardly resist. All the early photos looked stunning, the striking orange hair, painted cel-shading and copious accessories meant that, for this one character, I'd lay out $200 and add her to the collection.
He arrival was hardly elegant - despite being in I watched as the DHL guy tossed her box over the fence into the garden, but happily it was well packed and the expensive box remained un-dinged. The artwork is beautiful and I must find a way to display it, all solid colours blending into the green background. Opening the flap, it was hard to get an initial impression as she was wrapped in protective paper.
I had no idea what to expect as I don't do many 1/6 scale figures. I've got the die-cast Hot Toys Mk III Iron Man and Pepper Potts, briefly owned Ahsoka Tano and had a Mk IV Iron Man that was all plastic, but generally I don't do large action figures. However, all of those had a lot of articulation. Ivy, not so much.
Initially I liked the colours, the head-sculpts were fabulous (at last!) and all the pointed leafy detail of the edges of her outfit were present and correct. She looks gorgeous as she should.
Posing her is another matter. I can see the trade offs - too many cuts in a figure this size and it would look inelegant, but you can't pose her hips for that seductive "S" shape that suits female figures so well. Her legs can't be positioned to cross, there's no thigh-swivel so there's not much you can do with her legs, just a double-bend knee joint and ankle tilt/rocker. So A-stance or one leg moving forward is about your lot.
Her arms are similarly stuck - no butterfly joint, elbow articulation limited to 90 degrees and limited wrist articulation means that she can't, for example, put her hand on her chest. She does have a chest rotation thankfully, so at least you can twist her body slightly to give the figure faint signs of life.
Her head can move a bit and thankfully the hair isn't too limiting, but you will struggle to find many ways to pose her, and that's a shame, partly because of how limiting it is, and partly because it makes her feel like an over-sized action figure. Yes, it's a nice sculpt, but it's not $200 nice. At least Sideshow use a silicone skin to hide the joints, and that would have made the posing limitation more bearable, but if you're going to have joints on the figure anyway, they shouldn't be limited to 90 degree movements.
It's a genuine testament to the Mondo photographers that they were able to make the figure look so interesting in promo shots, but if you look with a photographers eye you can see just how static most of them really are.
Part of the cost of the figure is all the accessories - you get two plants, multiple hands, a rose, a gas cannister powered gun, stand and, with the timed edition, two creepy pod babies and three additional heads. The heads are what I ponied up the dough for, as the kissing face and flowing hair are both excellent and characterful additions that add some flavour to the release. The stock head is absolutely fine though and strangely enough the one I opted to pose her with for now despite laying out all that extra money on the alternatives, so fon't feel bad if you saved a few bucks for the vanilla version - you're getting the best of what you need.
It's also worth noting that the finish isn't perfect - it's a chalky matte paint and in parts it feels like the QC was a bit lax, but the most glaring and unforgivable issue is that the knee joints are a light green and don't match her tights, making their presence blindingly obvious. This is really poor design the sort of thing your basic Figma figure can get right for a quarter of the price, so it's either lazy or inept that they couldn't match this one colourway properly for $200 a pop.
All of this I'm sure sounds relentlessly negative, and I'd be lying if I said I found much value in the accessories overall. The single rose and two potted plants are used on the shelf alongside her, the rest has stayed in the box. But when it comes to looking across my office and seeing her leaning seductively against the side of the cabinet... well then it starts to become worth it.
If you look carefully you'll see a black peg I made to keep her stable on one leg - it's just by her arm ;)
The bright cartoon colours make her really stand out against the dark surroundings. The sculpt is so well done that it's akin to having the character walk off screen and taking up residence on my shelf. True, she's not very flexible, but it's still hard to find a pose that doesn't ooze sensuality and light up the room. In time I'll find some real plants for her to stand with, but for now she looks great as she is, scheming quietly with a smouldering confidence that turns men to jelly. I've found a way to pose her safely on one leg without the stand (which takes up too much room in my opinion), so she looks great. The lack of joints makes sense when you see her there, for the most part she's very smooth and pleasing to the eye. Yes, I'd probably jump at a silicone skin version with a cloth outfit to make her more flexible, but for now she does what I bought her to do and that's fine by me.
So while I can say I'm happy with my purchase, I can see why others might be a little underwhelmed. Were it any other character I might be too - Harley came with a lot more accessories that suited the character, even bat-cuffs so she can be led away by Mondo Batman, but Ivy's extras are either creepy (I'm looking at you, babies) or not all that useful in standard posing conditions. She's too expensive to be played with (I don't think that paint will take much man-handling) so the accessories aren't going to be used overmuch. Had the additional heads been included with the base figure I'd have been more than happy to ditch everything else in the box.
All that said, this is still the best Ivy figure out there for pure display purposes. The colours, sculpt and overall presence are delightful, especially against a dark background. It's worth it for me only because of my attachment to the character and the lack of real alternatives, but it has at least informed me that perhaps Mondo's other offerings are best left to others as in terms of quality and posing options, this isn't really up to my usual standards.
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