When one decides to review a DC Direct Gorilla Grodd figure in 2020, they’re not courting the same audience as the YouTubers. Or people who can drive actual page traffic.
No siree, I’m playing the long game here.
This isn’t a standard review, so it lands on a Thursday. I have spoken.
I’m sure you’re asking, “Why a decades old figure, now, Justcrash?”
Great question.
I’m a big fan of the Flash on CW, despite them doing their level best to make me NOT like it. A recent episode featured a Grodd who was humbled and needed Barry’s help. I said to myself, “Self, you should have a Grodd. He’s an important enough character that you need a plastic representation of him.”
I went out to eBay and searched for Gorilla Grodd. There were a few choices. Ultimately, I wasn’t looking to pay $70 for a CAC from the DCCU line, or more from some of the other lines. I settled on this old DC Direct figure from the Flash’s Rogue Gallery line.
I used to have a lot of DC Direct figures and I loved all of them at the time. I lost a lot of them in my first divorce because divorce! They were all beautifully sculpted figures, and all of them pretty much just like this one. A moving statue. Not unlike an old McFarlane figure.
Many of them just didn’t stand the tests of time well. My Plastic Man’s rubber arms and googles are ripping, one hand lost to the basement of time. My Wonder Woman has some weird yellow skin tone, and just in general, they seem really outdated now. I still display my Hawkman/Hawkwoman two-pack. I wish I hadn’t lost their Earth 2 masks or their weapons. Ugh, I sucked when I was younger. Also, for some reason, and I swear this isn’t anything I did, the paint is worn off of my Hawkgirl exactly where any nipples would be.
The box and solicits brag about “multiple points of articulation” but the fact is, with the way he is molded, move anything more than a little and those sculpt seams become, well, unseemly.
However, I didn’t buy a Grodd because I wanted him to do Nightwing type moves in pictures.
I wanted a big-ass gorilla with implied mind control. He also comes with some calipers and a skull, both of which he can hold if you put them in his hand just right.
Overall, if I had to pay more than $30 for the hunk of plastic, I’d be annoyed. But as is, he looks just fine on my shelf with my other DC badies. The DC Direct Gorilla Grodd will most likely always be my go-to Grodd figure.
Skull 
Calipers 
