For those of you that didn't notice, Kevin did an interview this week at da Poop with David Nusair. At the very end, David couldn't resist but to ask Kevin about his thoughts on da Poop, and he actually mentioned this column. Okay, so it was as a joke about how I dissed his Inaction figures, and that suckup Ryall got all the kudos for what a great writer he is, but I GOT MENTIONED. You see, that means Mr. Smith read the column at least once. If that surprises you, you can only imagine how surprised I am.

And so I was immediately guilted into getting my lazy ass back in gear, and getting this column out. Hmmmm. Kevin Smith as some sort of Jewish mother figure. There's an image I won't get out of my head for awhile.

Oh, today's review - it's on the Dark Witch Willow statue from Diamond Select. Now where did I put those Dogma figures...maybe I can get a mention on Jay Leno!

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, you can always reach me at mwc@mwctoys.com. If you enjoy this review, take a minute to check out my other site at Michael's Review of the Week, and let me know what you think. Now on to the review!

"Dark Witch Willow Statue"

It's actually fitting that I review this statue today - November 16th is sort of landmark day for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Today the final season comes out out on a DVD, finishing off the long history of the show, at least for now.

Diamond Select picked up the overall Buffy line after Moore Action Collectibles stumbled with it, and have been producing a variety of figures, busts and statues. I reviewed the "Welcome Faith" statue not long ago, and I should have some reviews up of the latest Anya figures any time now.

The scene re-enacted here in resin is from the final episode of season six, "Grave". Season six was a season of broken hearts, with first Anya left at the alter by doofus Xander, and then Willow crushed by the death of Tara. Willow already had a bit of a magic problem, but with Tara was able to control her addiction. With Tara gone, Willow gives in to her 'dark side', conjuring up all her witchy powers to destroy those that hurt her. By the final episode, she has so much power, she is feeling all the pain and suffering of the world, and decides to end it all - and by all, I mean the entire world.

Willow heads off to this grave, the unearthed temple of Proserpexa. Using her power in concert with the power of the long dead she-demon, she plans on destroying the world. Then Xander comes along, spouts some mumbo-jumbo about love and friendship and puppy dogs, and stops her from putting the big hurt on the world.

The statue is based on that final scene, as Willow juices up at the grave. That's a lot more exposition than I usually give, but I figured without it the design on this statue might be a tad confusing.

Packaging - **1/2
It's a box! The problem with statue packaging is that it must serve one purpose before all else - it has to keep things safe and sound. The well designed foam interior does that perfectly, and although the statue has a number of small and easy to break pieces, I doubt that it will be an issue for anyone.

Then there's that secondary concern of showing off the statue itself. There's some photos on the box, but without a window, you'll have to guess unless your local store is nice enough to have an open one handy to inspect.

Sculpting - ***
While Moore was never able to produce the Buffy and Angel figures consistently or profitably, they were able to do them attractively. Diamond has continued the tradition of great sculpting, particularly in this scale.

The statue matches up with the action figure line in a six inch scale. That means that if you'd like to throw your Xander figure in this scene, feel free, because he'll match up not just in size but in style. The Willow/Hannigan sculpt is decent, although not quite the same level of wowzer of the previous Faith sculpture. In this case, it's the paint ops, which I'll discuss in greater depth below, that really set off the rather basic yet serviceable Willow sculpt.

The sculpt detail on the base is good, and I even cracked out the episode to compare with the source material. The appearance is very close to the show, although the scale of the 'temple' is way off. At first I thought it was simply because the temple isn't fully out of the ground yet, but on closer inspection, it's still way too small.

There could have been more detail to this sculpture, or the scale could have been increased. But matching up with the action figure line in both detail and scale is perhaps this statue's strongest benefit, and feel any changes would have hurt the overall appeal.

Paint - ***1/2
A great sculpt can be ruined by bad paint, but an average sculpt can be made angelic with great ops. The latter is true here, where clean, consistent colors and great detail work highlight the best parts of this statue, and hide some of the flaws.

I'm particularly impressed with the work on the face, including the veining and dark set eyes. It's tough to produce paint applications that look good even in close ups, but as you can see, there's no slop here.

The colors of the base and temple section match up really well with the show, right down to the greenish yellow splattering.  That splattering doesn't look much like splats though, and more like brush strokes.

Design - ***
One of the keys to great statue or diorama design is picking critical moments in the character's history. Considering the events leading up to this scene, and the possible outcome, this is certainly an excellent choice for a diorama for Willow.

The design matches up nice with the actual scenes from the show, and captures the scene where she wills or forces the temple to rise out of the ground before her. There are some scale issues, including the distance between Willow and the temple, and the size of the temple itself.

It's understandable that they brought Willow closer to the temple top, but she's so close she can almost touch it. The temple also appears to be largely out of the ground - the gargoyles are even showing - and yet is much, much smaller than what we saw in the show. These two shortcuts were probably deemed necessary for the size and price range of the diorama, but it doesn't explain why even parts of the temple itself are all way off in scale. For example, while the 'pitchfork' design at the top seems about right, the pentagram below it is much larger than what we saw on the show. This wonkiness in the scale hurts what is otherwise a great looking item.

Value - **1/2
At $40, the price is a tad high on these statues. It's not a terrible value for the big Willow fan, who has gone from slim pickens to a cornucopia of merchandise in the last few months. This piece is limited to 3000, but I'm betting that's a run size that will allow the price to drop on these, at least initially. You might manage a better deal on ebay, if you're patient.

Overall - ***
This sculpt and design isn't quite as impressive as the Welcome Faith statue, where we got a little more heft and resin for our dollar. It was a well selected moment in time, and should please a lot of Willow fans, but at the $50 price tag, you might want to consider waiting a little while. I'm betting that Media Play, Suncoast and Sam Goody will be marking these down at least 25% before they clear them out.

It is nice to see all the great merchandise hitting for the secondary, yet popular characters on the show. With both Diamond and Sideshow giving us Willow figures, along with Anya, The Master, various versions of Spike, Darla, etc, the shelves of the Buffy fan should be pretty full before the end of the year.

Where to Buy -
I've seen these at stores like Media Play and Suncoast, if you're looking to go bricks and mortar. On-line options include:

- Killer Toys has the statue for $50 in stock.

- Time and Space Toys has this statue for $50, plus they have the largest selection I know of on-line of past and future Buffy and Angel product from all kinds of manufacturers.