” I wouldn’t work for you in a million years, you cruel, evil, heartless tyrant! “ – Peekablue, to Hordak, She-Ra: Princess of Power “The Perils of Peekablue”.
As I’m working on this review, it’s some ‘clock-in-the-morning and I just finished up a long night at work and then wrapped up taping a podcast, so my mind is a million different places. Still, I wanted to get something up today after skipping Monday due to the checklist, so I’ll be taking a quick look at Peekablue. Hopefully, it’ll come across slightly more polished than a last-minute, late night toy review normally might. Hopefully.
I don’t have much recollection of Peekablue from the show, so I’m guessing she was a character that appeared infrequently. That would make sense given her powers – she can basically see pretty much everywhere, sort of an in-the-moment omniscience. A character like that could be plenty powerful and opportunistic, but Peekablue is often shown as rather timid & afraid; that her power comes with some serious drawbacks that a less upbeat fiction would probably take and run away with.
I do like the idea of her character & peacock motif, but this is one of those rare times where Kitchen Sink MOTU feels like it’s really stretching. She’s a human peacock who can spy on everything, or peek, so she’s Peeka…something? Did they try things beside colors? Peek-ra? Peekabird? Or did Peekablue just roll off the tongue real quick? I’m not knocking strange names – MOTU is rife with them and I love them, but I think this concept is just a little out there even for me. I don’t have care that it’s the male peacocks that have the brightly colored feathers, it’s just a little too on the nose for me. Your mileage may vary. As such, I haven’t really been feeling one way or the other about finally getting the figure.
In hand, I have mixed feelings – I want to like her more than I do. There is plenty to be happy with. The newly sculpted bits are great. I love the new head sculpt, it’s very in line with the basic POP look while still being unique. And the two-part dress really pops due to the layering. She has a unique torso to accommodate the plumage, but her bodice is still thankfully a separate piece. The skirt, another separate piece, layers over that to give the figure a depth often lacking (& sorely lacking on some recent POP figures). The new hair is also a nice piece, but I might like it more for the color than anything else.
Of course the big part of the sculpt are the feathers. And while it’s kind of a big obnoxious piece for a toy line that’s a real shelf-crowder, it’s amazingly done. It’s got three separate pieces, one molded in place and two that are articulated allowing the whole plume to close or be fully spread. Each piece is it’s own unique sculpt and makes for an impressive 8” spread. The attachment, as tends to be the case for MOTU, is a little clunky and requires a big square peg to go into her back. Continue to Page 2…
Re the name – I’m assuming it’s a take on ‘peek-a-boo’? It does sound like one of those cases where the name came first, and was hastily given a bit of a twist to add a little – heh – colour.
Speaking of her colours – I love ’em. So, so terrible in such a good way. She arrived at the office just as I was putting together an horrendously complicated spreadsheet full of colour formatting that matched her perfectly – it was like fate. Tasteless, gaudy fate.
There are a couple of things that kind of detract from her awesomeness for me (not enough to dull my joy at getting one step closer to a complete vintage POP lineup) – paint again, there’s blue flecks all over the damn place, and the hair really gets in the way of the fan, preventing it from being completely vertical. Plus… she looks pissed. Just really, really mean. Like she had a bad time getting here and just doesn’t want to even mention it (I suppose if I were posted from the US to England, inexplicably taking in half of Europe on my travels, I’d be a bit miffed too).
Great review, as per usual! Nifty figure, but I find that her hair, while perky, is big enough that it hinders the installation of the feathers.
Whats not to love about having a Vegas showgirl in your toy collection! Having said that I found the paint job (especially on the feathers)an unexpected surprise, the only wonky paint on mine being the eye thing on the belt. In the last photo of the review it looks like Etheria has their very own Victoria Secrets runway show.
Her hair makes me angry there’s no ML Polaris yet.
I know, right? a few tweaks and we have a retro style costume for Polaris!
(as an undercover Vegas showgirl! LOL)
@Evil Monkey Pope: You and me both brother, you and me both!
that last pic is so true. it’s crazy how much space the pop figures take up. too much.
i sold my peekablue because i didnt have the cojones to display her sans plume.
but i sort of regret it now that i know it’s ok to do haha
I’m right there with ya. She’s a good figure and I want to like her more than I do. I opened her up, made sure all the joints worked and immediately put her up on the shelf.
I had trouble getting her out of the tray also (I suspect most did). I wasn’t sure if the feathers were removable so I didn’t want to try and force it, so I cut the plastic tray down the middle. Wouldn’t you know, once I got her free of the tray the feathers popped right off!!!
It appears your Peekablue suffered the same assembly issue as mine. If you look closely at her lower legs (and compare her to Netossa, who had those pieces first), you’ll see that they were swapped. Not a really difficult fix, but a disappointing one, nonetheless.
The paint bugs me, too, but more because of her outfit than her hair. The vintage toy had green and red on the decorative plume on the front of her bodice, but Mattel made the whole thing blue. That move actually brings her closer to the Filmation model, but the overall lack of paint detail makes the figure itself look sadly toyish against the brilliantly coloured feathers.