"Doom Reunion."

Elasti-Girl is available from MattyCollector.com October 15. So how did I get one? Well, since she was an oversized figure and I knew she was going to be a little more expensive, I sold some stuff on eBay. Then, I found several loose Elasti-Girls, as it were; and while watching Monday Night Football a couple of weeks back--it wasn't the Dallas game or the Seattle one; and man, that Dallas shellacking hurt--I saw one for $16.99 plus $13.99 postage. I had fully intended to hold out until the Matty sale, but what if they sold out? I'm not a subscriber, so, a bird in the hand, then. Some may still be available, with or without free postage, so shop around.

I actually had a nightmare before she showed up: I dreamed she arrived with a paint job that looked like it was still melting, and was cobbled together from other Collect-and-Connect parts. Like a Darkseid chest. Scary! But, as you can see, Rita arrived safe-and-sound and looked just fine. No sticky joints, or obvious paint errors. The only downside, is she didn't come with the pack-in mini Elasti-Girl figure; but I planned on displaying the big one.

(And in the most recent Doom Patrol series, Rita Farr changed from Elasti-Girl to Elasti-Woman, and also either lost the ability or desire to shrink. Issue #13 is a great recap of Rita's history, return from death, and why Mento sucks; but I've been wondering how many Elasti-Girl figures will be sold versus issues of Doom Patrol.)

An odd note about Elasti-Girl and her Doom Patrol teammates Robotman and Negative Man: all three share fairly limited neck articulation. I think Negative Man and Robotman both have simple swivels, so they have a bit of trouble gawking up at her! Elasti-Girl has short hair (lots of female figures with longer hair have problems here) and can look down pretty well, but not up as well. Of course, she may be the tallest of the DCUC Collect-and-Connect figures, so she may not need to look up at anything.

Elasti-Girl is actually the fourth figure this year I've bought from eBay and direct from China. (First Timber Wolf, then red Azrael-Batman, then a certain not-widely available yet blue figure I don't want to discuss yet...) It's a good way to get some figures I might not normally be able to, but I have to wonder if these loose figures are "factory-seconds," or worse, stolen from the factory. Mattel's MattyCollector site was designed to sell figures directly to customers, bypassing the middlemen of toy stores; have I taken things a step further and bypassed Mattel? I don't know. Probably not, since again, my Elasti-Girl was rock-solid.

We'll look at her again tomorrow, with another Doom Patrol strip!