It’s good to see NECA‘s plans for Gargoyles action figures extending past the core cast and the first season. With the main members of the Manhattan Clan now immortalized in plastic, along with their ally Elisa Maza and enemy Xanatos, along with his robots, the line builds out even further with the addition of Angela. The child of Goliath and Demona, she boasts her mother’s physique and her father’s skin hue, yet is kinder in spirit than both of them. NECA’s Ultimate Angela is technically a two-pack, featuring her in adult and infant form.
Like most NECA Ultimates, Angela comes in a window box with a Velcro flap and artwork in the style of ’90s videotape cover images on the front. The biography on the back is a generic one for the cartoon as a whole and not for Angela specifically. Casuals may not know who she is or assume the baby is hers. But you need not know the show lore well to appreciate a winged female gargoyle figure like this one.
Angela reuses a lot of Demona parts but with a different torso, head, and lower outfit. The wings are the same, with a mildly iridescent finish. She wears a metal bracelet on her left hand and includes metal earrings like Demona. The bendy tail plugs in easily through a circular hole in her back skirt.
Hair Ties That Bind
NECA probably should have taken some artistic liberties with her ponytail. It’s not very flexible and points straight down, which is fine before her wings are attached. Once they are, however, the wings, being under the ponytail, push her head forward to keep her looking down. This effect can be countered by other joints, but it would be nice to get her head in more poses. A more windswept or bendy ponytail might have allowed for that. If she gets bonus folded wings packed in a future figure, they may give her more headroom.
Like her mother, Angela can swap out faceplates. One is a reasonably friendly face, humanoid save its big ears and horns. The other is a full bloodlust version, with “glowing” (not literally) eyes and opened fang mouth. Remove both, and she has no face at all, which is its own sort of frightening.
Angela’s articulation includes ball-and-socket hips, mid-torso, and head, disc-and-pin ball joints at the shoulders, wrists, and twice at the ankles, which can give her a really gnarly broken foot effect…
Her waist is effectively a cut joint, though it may actually be a highly restricted ball joint. Knees and elbows sport double hinges, and her wings are ratcheting disc-and-pin. The tail, as usual in this line, contains a bendy wire.
Baby Garg, doo doo doo doo doo…
Baby Angela, on the other hand, is all ball joints. Sockets at the neck and hips; disc-pin at the shoulders, wings, and tail. This is no PVC sidekick but a fully poseable action figure capable of most basic toddler poses. The egg she comes with has a crack seam and splits in two; she will not fit completely inside with the egg fully closed but can do some cute hatching poses.
Take note that while the egg has a flat bottom, it’s pretty easy to knock over. Best to display it on a stable surface, with baby Angela in it for additional weight.
Angela runs $37.99, which is unfortunately the norm these days. Considering you get the second fully articulated, fully original sculpted baby figure, however, it’s as good a value as this price point gets. If you want more new characters rather than Goliath repaints in this line, they may depend in part upon good sales for this lady. Like the rest of the line, her sculpt and painting split the difference between animation and realism: more detailed than the cartoon, yet more stylized than actual actor likenesses. The blush on the baby’s cheeks is a nicely subtle color detail.
Also, the customizing possibilities for Baby Angela are many. How many bat-Cupids do you need?
Take a look through the images below to see more of both Angelas in action poses.
