Comics are typically canon when it comes to superheroes, but once in a while a character makes enough of a splash in a show or movie that they end up becoming part of the comics, too. Harley Quinn, created by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm for Batman: The Animated Series, is the prime example of this, and she’s become one of DC’s biggest characters in recent years. Diamond Select’s Harley Quinn Classic diorama statue looks to find a space between the animated Harley and her live and comic-book counterparts.
This statue measures 11-inches tall and just a few inches wide at the base. Designed by Nelson X. Asencio and sculpted by Alejandro Pereira, Diamond Select’s Harley Quinn Classic statue retails for $49.99. You can pick it up from their site, its store over on Amazon, and Entertainment Earth.
Who is Harley Quinn?
Harley Quinn is a tough character to get right. She’s smart enough to be a literal doctor in psychology, but often acts childish. She dresses in skintight spandex but original incarnations of the character skirted around making her sexy, as it was a children’s cartoon. Later incarnations have run into that headlong, like her fetish inspired nurse getup in Batman: Arkham Asylum and her Daddy’s Lil’ Monster outfit in the first Suicide Squad movie. She’s more recently been framed as fiercely independent, but spent much of the time, especially in her most iconic costume, in an abusive relationship with Joker.
What I’m getting to with all that is that despite liking a lot of elements of this statue, I’m not super happy with the overall picture this statue paints.
The “energy” of the statue is all wrong. For one, while Harley’s face has some amazing, crisp detail–check out the outline on her lipstick and domino mask–her expression is lifeless. A neutral expression is about the only one I can’t imagine on Harley’s face.
The pose, too, is a bit off-putting. It seems to me like it’s meant to emphasize the shape of her body. When I think through the figures I’ve reviewed, ones like Classic Batman, Bane, and Penguin have all tried to capture their respective characters in an action moment. Harley looks instead like, well, a statue. She’s not in a place doing a thing, she’s just an icon frozen in time.
Statuesque
Where those other figures’ bases put their characters in specific places, Harley’s doesn’t tell a story; it’s abstract and thematic. I actually really like the base, even if I don’t dig the overall character as much. The black-and-red circular base features the alternating color scheme. On top of that, is a Jack-in-the-box placed on its corner, with orange around the edges and Joker-themed iconography on the sides. It may not place Harley anywhere in particular, but it fits her quite well.
And I do like a lot of elements of this character. The red and black are perfect, and the mostly-matte sheen looks good with the form-fitting costume; though I really liked the texture work on Bane we wish we’d see more of that here. The diamonds on Harley’s legs and shoulders are embossed rather than flat, and the paint on them is sharp, so they look like they were sewn on later. Her wrist ruffles and neck covering give nice white accents to the otherwise dark costume. Finally, her harlequin-style shoes and the cartoon bomb in her hand finish off the look nicely.
The last issue I’ll take is with the size of the character. Compared to some of these other figures, she barely weighs anything. And of course, Harley is a gymnast, so she’s not a huge character, but it doesn’t seem like these statues are being built at 1:1 scale with each other, and thus Harley feels a bit small for the price when compared to the much larger Batman or Bane. At the same time, though, her tall statue and pose will help her stand out from many other figures, too.
Also, this is a minor gripe, but it seems really weird to me that the packaging includes an illustration of a completely different take on the character.
This one seems like it’s going to be for the Harley fans out there, rather than more general Batman fans.
Disclaimer: Diamond Select provided us with one DC Comic Gallery Harley Quinn PVC Diorama to photograph and examine before writing this review.
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