Review: DCUC Cheetah

Posted by Lindsay

Cheetah... Sheesh.  Cheetah.

Cheetah is a Wonder Woman villain, which in my limited experience means her history is obscure and completely surreal.  I have only run into Cheetah in her animated version, which, upon reading the wikipedia character bio, I like much more than the comic versions.

Animated Cheetah figure reviewed here.

DC Universe Classics, as always, are made by Mattel.

We have looked at a LOT of these over time.

For some comparison:
Katma Tui
Black Canary
Lex Luthor (And Friends)

Appearance and Construction: 7/10

First, the good:  Cheetah's all-over spots are well done, her hands are unique and fairly nice, her head looks good.  I like her little wrist-thingy.  (does it shoot darts?)

On the other hand, she has a bit of a molding issue on the left hand, her face paint is uninteresting, and the flush/tan/whatever on her cheeks gives her a slight skin tone clash between her face and cleavage.   Plus she looks bored.

Overall: decent, not great.

Packaging and Accessories: ---

The standard DCUC packaging has been slightly updated for DC's 75th birthday.

She comes with one of the pieces of Wave 13's Collect and Connect figure, in this case, Trigon's leg.  This is only useful if you're picking up the rest of the wave, which... really?  Negative Man?  Scraping the bottom of the barrel, developers.

The crotch piece attached to the leg actually came with another figure, but I couldn't get it back apart for the picture.

She also comes with a new collectible gimmick, a pin featuring some classic comic art featuring the character.  This I actually think is pretty cute, if cheap.

No penalty, but no bonus for these pieces, though.

Play and Display: -1

Here Cheetah has some issues.  Superficially, she has all the DCUC joints: ball neck, ball shoulders and hips, posts at the bicep, cuts at wrist, waist, and thigh, hinges at elbow, knee and ankle, crunch hinge in the abs.

Her head and hips, though, don't really work, and it's a problem with construction.  Her neck operates more like a cut.  She can look down, but not up, and it's a clicking joint, with no in-between range.   

Her hips are odd.  We have other DCUC figures that are female and have the great hips, with the cut/hinge combination that allows them to hold these great poses.  Again, this joint now has what feels like a set number of positions, and a much more limited range. 

She can only lift one leg straight in front of her, and that only after a lot of gentle coaxing of the joint on my part.  She can't hold her leg out to her side very far, either, although again one is better than the other. 

These joints feel flimsy to me, I'm worried about breaking the internal post.  It looks like a post/internal hinge combination, but it doesn't work very well.  The result is a lot of undynamic posing, and instability.  I am disappointed, given the high standards of the line.

Oh, and her tail has a cut near the top, but no articulation at the top.  This means the cut only allows you to vary the angle of the tip around in a circle, and that's just silly.

Price Tag and Final Analysis: 6/10

We were lucky enough to find a couple of DCUC figures, including Cheetah, at K-Mart recently for just 12.99.   That is much cheaper than they are generally going for, and probably a good deal if you're shooting for a complete Trigon. 

Understandably, there were only a few left on the shelf.

However, considering the articulation issues, it's maybe still too much to pay for another cat-themed super-villain.  After all, there's only so much room on the shelf.  

Note that Catwoman has the DCUC hips, and Wonder Woman can look down. 
If you're looking for more reading, you could try my blog, or Erin's blog, or just dive into the archives, because we've been at this for a while.