So why a review of the figures now? It's actually a little surprising that I haven't reviewed them before. I have collected the complete set so far, more for my kids than for me. Using my precognitive skills, I've foreseen a future where my now two-year-old twins think Harry and his friends are slicker than spit on a door knob, and I want to be prepared to whip out the full set of figures and put them in awe as to how cool their old man really is.

And so I've been picking them up and putting them away, but not paying a whole lot of attention to the line itself. But two things prompted this review - first, the new series of figures, called Dueling Club, sport much more articulation and better sculpting than the predecessors, and two, they are on sale at your local Kaybee toy store for only five bucks. At a price like that, you should give these a eyeball.

If you have any questions, or comments, you can always reach me at mwc@mwctoys.com. If you enjoy this review, take a minute to check out my other site at Michael's Review of the Week, and let me know what you think. Now on to the review!

"Dueling Club Harry Potter"

There are actually four figures in this wave - Harry, another Malfoy and Tom Riddle. The Draco Malfoy hasn't been in the cases hitting Kaybee yet, but he is popping up at Targets. Unfortunately, he's also a couple bucks more there.

Mattel just released their earnings statement this week for the last quarter of 2002, and reported a significant decrease in the sales of the Potter line. Hopefully the line won't be doomed, although that seems pretty unlikely with the continued movie presence.

Packaging - ***
Even the packaging has been spruced up a bit and given a new coat of paint. The bubble has a starburst design, which improves the overall look, and the cardbacks have new art and a bit of text. It's nothing to get excited about, but for a line aimed at kids, it's above average.

Sculpting - ***1/2
Ah, here's where they've really improved this line. All the head sculpts look excellent, especially Harry. There's plenty of detail in the hair, and the facial features are well defined. He looks much closer to the real thing, and it's nice to see Mattel stepping up and improving a line that by all accounts was already doing fairly well.

Unlike past figures, this series has cloth robes. These are all cut very nicely and hang well, proving once again just how terrific cloth capes and robes can work when done right.

Paint - ***1/2
The paint ops are extremely good on this series, especially for a big company. The eyes, hair line, and borders between the various colors of the uniform are all extremely clean and neat. The colors are clean and consistent, and the only real issue is the paleness of the skin tone. Even dear Harry isn't this white. But that's a pretty minor quibble, and the quality of both the sculpting and paint ops is excellent.

Articulation - ***
Another area that Mattel has improved since the first figures is the articulation. Perhaps it's the “dueling” nature of this series, but all the figures sport more points of articulation than normal.

Harry has neck, ball jointed shoulders, cut biceps, elbows, waist, pseudo-ball-jointed hips, and knees. With all that, you'd think he'd get a better score in this category, but many of the joints are poorly designed or have limited functionality.

The most useful of the joints are in the arms and shoulders, and these really do give you a ton of possibilities for posing his arms. The ball-jointed shoulders are hindered a bit by the “action feature” (discussed further down below), and wrist joints would have been nice. But in general the upper body articulation works well.

The lower half of the body isn't the same story. The hips are very restricted in their range of motion due to the design of the joints, and while the knees work fine, without any ankle articulation it's still difficult to put the lower half of the body in more than one basic stance. The feet are sculpted at a bit of an odd angle as well, and getting him to stand without the enclosed display stand was tricky - not impossible, but not nearly as easy as it should have been with this much articulation.

Accessories - **
Unfortunately, this category has little to discuss. The wand is removable from his hand, but isn't much of an accessory. That leaves his enclosed display stand, which is made of translucent red plastic. It's in the shape of one of the school crests, but has Harry embossed on the bottom.

Yes, you read that right - bottom. The foot peg is on the opposite side from the embossing, so if he is standing on the base, you won't see it. That seems to defeat the purpose of the embossing.

Action Feature - ***
Harry has a basic action feature - there's a tab on the back that makes it possible to turn the figure left to right by pushing with your thumb. As you twist him back and forth, he swings his arms up and down. While it sounds fairly stupid, in reality it works pretty well. I'm reviewing the new Arena Battle Obi-Wan this week over at Yakface.com, and he has a similar action feature, but that figure shows how badly it can turn out when done wrong. Mattel managed to produce a decent action feature that kids can get some play value out of, without taking too much away from the overall appearance of the toy.

Value - ***1/2
These are usually $7-$8, depending on the retailer. Kaybee normally charges $10, being the high priced mall store that they are. But I'm betting this series got few orders from retailers who still had plenty of old stock on the shelf for the Christmas season. That means close out deals, and if Jerry Van Dyke has taught me anything, it's that close out shopping is the way to go. If you're interested in the line, hit your local Kaybee this week and grab them for $5 each.

Overall - ***
People ask me all the time if any toy line today will be popular with toy collectors twenty years from now, and I always tell them yes - just not the one's collectors are buying. That's true for the most part - twenty years from now, adults with disposable income and a yearning for their youth will be buying the toys they actually played with, like Power Rangers.

There are two lines though that might be exceptions - Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. These film series will be the Star Wars of the current generation, and decades from now it's very likely that these will be the toys on collector's want lists.

But if you're collecting toys for investment, you're in the wrong business. Put that money in CDs and money markets instead. For every toy you buy that ends up being worth something someday, you'll have five more than aren't even decent landfill. Buy what you like, enjoy collecting, and you'll get more value out of it than money could ever buy.

The Potter toys do offer a great opportunity though for kids and parents to collect together. Buy those figures, open them up, and get down on the floor with your kids. They'll appreciate it in ways they'll never be able to explain.

Where to Buy -
Kaybee is the place to pick up most of this wave. At $5 each, this is the first time I've considered any of the Potter figures a decent value.

I'm always looking for leads on new retailers on-line, so if you have suggestions please let me know!