RAVEN

SUPER POWERS (McFARLANE)

“A founding member of the New Teen Titans, Raven, the Daughter of Darkness, fights for a world to which she fears she can never truly belong.”

One of the three original creations added to the line-up when Teen Titans became New Teen Titans, Raven was actually the whole impetus of the team forming in the first place.  When the JLA turned down her request for help dealing with her demonic father’s arrival, she found a team of younger heroes to help her, and that’s how we got the New Teen Titans.  She’s been sort of a revolving door of good and bad over the years, as she’s dealt with her demonic parentage and its affects on her general well-being.  She had neither a figure nor a planned figure during the Kenner Super Powers days, and would eventually show up with the rest of the team during the early DC Direct days, with more figures following after the Teen Titans cartoon raised her profile.  These days, Raven figures aren’t quite a rarity, but it’s still cool when she gets one.  And now she’s got a Super Powers one, though not from Kenner.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Raven is part of Series 14 of McFarlane’s Super Powers line, where she’s figure 69, the third of the six figures included numerically.  As with the rest of the assortment, she’s an Entertainment Earth exclusive, sold only as part of the full set of six.  While Starfire and Cyborg stuck to their original costume designs, Raven breaks from that.  She’s using her design from the 2008 Titans re-launch, which was more or less just a tweak on the 2003 Teen Titans re-launch design, itself a tweak on her original Perez look.  The main change-up on this particular design is the presence of a belt, something the character hadn’t really had until her cartoon design added it, and the comics followed suit with her “One Year Later” design after Infinite Crisis.  I’d wager a guess that this design was chosen for its closeness to the classic look, but also its inclusion of a belt, allowing for a point to attach her “skirt” piece.  I can’t say it’s a favorite look of mine, but I think piecing together the “why” of it at least makes me feel a little better about the choice.  The figure stands 4 5/8 inches tall and she has 7 points of articulation.  She’s predominantly using the standard female body introduced with the last round of figures, which makes sense.  It’s a good all purpose sort of sculpt, so I can’t fault it.  She gets a new head sculpt and…I don’t love it  The permanently attached hood is always a tricky shot, but I think it’s really the face beneath it that doesn’t work.  It just doesn’t look much like Raven, who’s typically been depicted as rather thin-faced, with more pronounced cheek bones.  This one’s very round faced, which doesn’t seem right for Raven, and really doesn’t work with the sculpted hood.  It just throws the whole thing off, and makes the hood seem really small by comparison.  Raven also gets a sculpted belt piece, and there’s a skirt attached to it.  Okay, so there’s a really thin piece of fabric hanging from the front of it.  Only the front, not the back, which is odd.  And, because it’s so thin, it’s already curling, which looks a bit silly.  There’s also a cloth cape piece, which is pretty much in line with the other cloth capes, so generally not terrible.  Her color work is fine but also has a fairly notable issue in that she’s just simply the wrong color.  In the comics, Raven’s usually a dark blue, and that’s true of this design as well.  But, for whatever reason (I’m assuming related to the cartoon, honestly), they made her purple, and I just don’t think it works as well, especially because the cape, the paint, and the molded plastic are all distinctly different shades, so nothing really matches.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

With Starfire’s inclusion, Raven’s a natural choice.  I’d be lying if I said I was excited for Raven, because I’m honestly not a huge Raven fan in the first place, but I can appreciate her importance.  I didn’t love the figure’s look when the prototypes were shown, but I was holding judgement until I had her in hand.  I honestly like her even less in hand.  She’s not awful, but she definitely feels a lot more like the earlier offerings in the line.  Odd costume choice, a head sculpt that feels out of place both for the character and line’s style in general, and poor decisions on the color palette make this one a weaker offering than the others around her.  I don’t hate her, and I’ll stick her on the shelf with the rest of the team without issue, but she definitely could have been better.