It has been over a month since I last watched the CW show that shall not be named. I still watch the other CW series since they weren’t the ones to deal the killing blow to my favorite character. By the time this makes it into your hands, The Flash will have aired its penultimate episode of the season. Since this is an unexpected sequel to last week’s all-villain edition of the Weekly Planet, I thought I’d share some thoughts on the Black Siren, the Flash TV show’s villainous Earth-2 version of Black Canary– plus the usual toy news you’ve come to expect from my column with some skewing towards the villains.
For fans of the Cartoon Network’s Justice League series, the Black Siren was an alternate universe version of the Black Canary, at the time of Siren’s introduction, Canary hadn’t appeared in any significant manner, if at all, in the animated universe started by Batman: The Animated Series. The Black Siren alias Donna Nance was a member of the Justice Guild of America, an analog of the classic 1940’s team, The Justice Society of America. The episodes featured a weird setting where the Justice League seemed to be caught in a world where time froze in the 50s and Black Siren was super-domesticated- think June Cleaver or Lucy Ricardo. When Laurel Lance died this season, it was immediately announced that Katie Cassidy would reprise her role as an alternate version of Laurel. It was later revealed that her character would be named Black Siren after the JL character which Andrew Kreisberg, now executive producer of The Flash had a hand in creating. In contrast to the original animated character, the Flash’s Black Siren looks to be a gothy, vampy, black-leather clad villainess working for this season’s villain, Zoom and who possesses a costume very close to the comic book Black Canary’s traditional look, down to her choker and bustier. Why the other show couldn’t get it right, I can’t say. To further distinguish Black Siren from Black Canary, this version has the metahuman sonic scream that was denied to Laurel’s Canary during her four seasons. In my ideal scenario, Laurel would come back from the dead and reclaim the Canary moniker and kick some butt, but the execs on that show seem to want to keep her dead for some stupid reason. My second choice is to have this Earth-2 Laurel reform and become the “real” Black Canary from the comics- basically anything to have my favorite character on TV again. I hope the ratings are way up so the CW can see that killing her off was a grave error.
As far as toys go- we’ve gotten some exciting pieces in this week. If you like your DC characters, we now have the complete set of new DC POP vinyl figures in. These include Cyborg, Supergirl, Power Girl, Firestorm and Black Manta. The Firestorm piece is pretty awesome and has been a fast seller and I anticipate Supergirl will do well because of the TV show. We have also gotten a restock on the Darth Vader POP vinyl and still have the Hot Toys Boba Fett in regular and deluxe version with a Sarlacc Pit base. If you are a fan of the Star Wars Black Series, we also have the 6″ Darth Vader back in stock, possibly for the last time. DC Collectibles’ Animated Batman line also has its share of memorable villains including Joker, Riddler, Man-Bat, Roxy Rocket and Harley Quinn, which are all back in stock too. Marvel fans have the amazing Venom 6″ Marvel Legends figure to drool over with his interchangeable heads including a McFarlanesque sculpt. We also have more stock on everyone’s favorite mad Titan with the Diamond Select Marvel Select Thanos figure.
We are also expecting figures from the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film. The usual suspects are here, including all four Turtles, Casey Jones, plus villains such as The Shredder, Bebop, Rocksteady, Krang and a Foot Soldier. The figures are all in 5″ scale and feature multiple accessories and full articulation.
On the higher end of things, we have some great villain statues in stock. There’s the Michelle Pfeiffer Catwoman statue from Batman Returns by Tweeterhead, DC Collectibles’ Joker and Harley Quinn, a Julie Newmar Catwoman from Diamond Select Toys, a Star Wars Captain Phasma vinyl statue from Kotobukiya and so much more.
That’s pretty much it for me this week. Hope you enjoyed our look at some of the villains we have strewn throughout the store, as well as the brief history of the Black Siren. Catch you all next time with more toy news and rumors.