Mera – DC Collectibles
Designed by Stanley “Artgerm” Lau.
Sculpted by Jack Matthews.
Stands at approximately 10” high.
Limited edition size of 5200.
RRP: $99.95 USD
Intro.
Mera is one of those rare characters that seems to have benefited from the New 52. She’s had quite a few storylines and has played a prominent role in the Aquaman series since the very first issue. As is the norm with DC these days, we get to see the popularity on the page transfer to collectibles world.
This is Mera’s first major statue. And what a line to be introduced in - the ever-famous “Cover Girls”. Now we could sit here all day arguing whether we preferred Artgerm or Adam Hughes’s lines but regardless, the Cover Girls remain one of DC’s signature lines.
Anyway, let’s see how Mera does in her statue debut.
Sculpt. 8.5
Mera is another fine effort by Jack Matthews, who has been working on the Cover Girls ever since they started. Mera’s hair looks wonderful: it has a very natural flow to it and is nicely detailed.
Her face is a little expressionless; she doesn’t come off as fierce as the prototype showed and her eyes are lacking detail.
Her outfit is incredible - perhaps the standout part of this statue. She has a really nice texture and the scales were executed really well.
Paint 8.0.
A solid paint job all round. Lines are mostly clean and the hair and all looks quite nice too. They’ve done a wonderful job with the metallic element to her costume, so she really does shine.
I also really like what they’ve done with the base. It’s see through. YES. SEE-THROUGH. The entire middle of the base, from top to bottom. I mean, it’s not exactly ground-breaking and it doesn’t really add anything to the statue overall when you’re just displaying her – but it’s just cool.
Design. 8.5
The design is based of another of Artgerm’s original works. Compared to most, I think they’ve done quite a nice job translating what he envisioned to the final product. They could have been easily lazy and just had her standing there with her arm out, but they chose to include the water element. Her design is also based on her New 52 outfit as all (excluding Ivy) of the Artgerm pieces have been.
Production and Build Quality. 6.0
So while I would applaud DC’s decision to go for the jump-out-of-water look, there seems to be some struggles with it.
Firstly, there are no pegs. That’s right. NO metal pegs. None. Zilch. Nada. Zero. Nothing.
You’re probably thinking, “what the hell?” Right? I sure was. There is a bump in her shin and a square groove in the base where she kind of sits. Now I do have a feeling that mine might have just been missing the pegs – there’s a hole in the bump of her leg where it would probably go, but then there’s no hole in the base, so maybe not?
Regardless, it took a while to get her to stay on her base. When she was on there, it was pretty firmly in there so it’s not like she’s super wobbly or anything. But at the same time, just KNOWING there isn’t a peg in there to add extra support really concerns me.
Perhaps they chose not to have a metal so that the whole see-through water could happen, but seems like a weird sacrifice for a cool feature that’s not really that big a deal.
So I should probably ask if any of you reading this have this statue, does yours have pegs?
Mera does fit quite snugly in her box though and is packed really well, so that’s a plus.
Overall. 7.75
Mera has been done quite well. The sculpt is great. The paintjob is great. She’s designed once again by a great artist. Everything should be great, right? Sadly the whole peg situation urks me. I can easily see people chipping parts of the base off or even a chip in her foot. Even if there was a metal peg to hold her up, she would still be quite difficult to get in there due to the way some of the waves are flowing.
However, if you have her in there properly and she’s standing by the other Cover Girls, she is easily one of the better of Artgerm’s.
Afterward
Just letting you all know that I'm going to be traveling and won't be home, so I won't have a new review up until 2015.
So in January, look forward to reviews of:
- Zatanna Bombshells
- Starfire Cover Girls
- Katana Cover Girls (just ordered her)
as well as
- Sideshow's Wonder Woman PF
- Sideshow's Catwoman PF.
Assuming of course, none of the above are delayed.
