Buffy the Vampire Slayer Deluxe Faith Action Figure

Customer reviews:

The "Graduation Day" Faith from the end of Season 3 of "BtVS", 2005-09-26
For the Series 1 deluxe "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" action figures we have three sets of Buffy and Faith. What we have here is the "Graduation Day" Faith, which has a Buffy counterpart, representing the two-part episode that ended Season 3. Part One had Buffy and the Scooby gang not only worried about graduating from Sunnydale High, but Mayor Wilkins's Ascension. Then Faith shoots Angel with a poisoned arrow and Buffy learns that the only cure is "to drain the blood of a Slayer." Buffy goes off to sacrifice Faith for the vampire with a soul she loves, handcuffing herself to Faith during the fight. When Faith breaks the cuffs she is stabbed by Buffy with the wicked looking knife the rogue Slayer received from Mayor Wilkins, but Faith falls off of the roof and onto the bed of a passing truce that drives away. That limits Buffy's option for Slayer's blood for Angel to drink in Part 2.

This 6-inch figure of Faith is wearing a black leather jacket over a t-shirt with black pants. You can remove the arms from the figure, take off the rest of the jacket, and put on a pair of bare arms. I just do not think the bare arms are an improvement over Faith in a black leather jacket, although the right arm is tattooed. Besides, the figure comes with Faith's blood dagger, still covered with the blood of geology professor Lester Worth, secured to her right hand by a thin strip of plastic. In terms of accessories Faith also has the hi-tech bow and the poisoned arrow she used to shoot Angel along with a lead pipe. The corresponding Buffy figure also has the pair of handcuffs used in the Slayer-e-Slayer fun from "Graduation Day, Part 1" (along with a Sunnydale High yearbook and diploma). Consequently, there is nothing to stop you from setting up a little "Graduation Day" tableau (although suddenly the idea of a pair of Buffy and Faith figures from the dancing scene at the Bronze from "Bad Girls" sounds pretty good).

The reason these are deluxe action figures and not regular action figures is that these ones come with 29 points of articulation: a double one for the neck, shoulders, biceps, above and below the elbows, doubles for the wrists, chest, doubles for the hips, both above and blow the knees, doubles for the ankles, and toes. It took me several of these figures to figure out al 29, by which point I was pretty much convinced this was really overkill. That is because the other key difference between the regular 6-inch "BtVS" and "Angel" figures and these new deluxe action figures is that the latter do not come with bases. Consequently, despite all of those points of articulation you are limited on your posing options if you want your Faith "Graduation Day" figure to stand up all on her own (pay attention to the toes, because in the final analysis those become key in getting these to work).

Also included in Series 1 are a pair of Buffy and Faith figures for "End of Days," the penultimate episode from Season 7, and then a "Once More With Feeling" Buffy from Season 6 and a "Bad Girls" Faith from Season 3 which is very similar to the "Graduation Day" faith except it has a black vest over a white sweatshirt. Of the three Faith figures I think this is the best looking one, mainly because of the black leather jacket, although the sculpt of Eliza Dushku's face on the "Bad Girls" figure is slightly better (but notice the shade of lipstick this one is wearing). I do not know if it is intentional or not but Faith sort of looks like she just been stabbed. Since the "Graduation Day" Buffy is also wearing a black leather jacket you can switch right hands and give Buffy the knife, so that Lester Worth's blood now becomes Faith's blood.