Review: DC FanDome Supergirl minifigure
Posted by Huw,
Dr. Demagorgon was a lucky winner of the recent DC FanDome raffle and has written a review of this special -- and expensive -- minifigure:
We LEGO fans are like Superheroes. During the day we are students, lawyers, engineers or journalists to name a few of many. But after work, we take off our professional attire, put on our spandex and capes (or more likely just a comfy pair of sweatpants) and do what we’re most passionate about, fighting crime... oops, I mean building LEGO! Because of this, I’m quite excited to review the 2020 LEGO DC FanDome Supergirl minifigure.
Is it worth picking up for the current secondary market price of anywhere between $300 to $450, or should you avoid this one like Kryptonite? Read my review to find out...
Supergirl has appeared four times as a Lego minifigure and two times as a Lego mini-doll since her debut in 2015. The 2020 DC Fandome Supergirl is based on the Supergirl TV series which started in 2015 and will be finishing in 2021. The TV series is part of the Arrowverse which is a shared universe for various DC TV shows that have been released since 2012. I could pretend to be more of an expert on the TV series, but to tell you the truth, I just read from Wikipedia.
In all seriousness, this figure is extremely rare because only 1,495 copies have been released so far. They were originally intended to be given away at the San Diego Comic Con, but after that event was cancelled they were raffled off at the DC Virtual FanDome event in late August to people who live in the U.S. (more on that in the Conclusion section of the article). I was one of the lucky winners.
The prize consists of the actual figure (five pieces), a plastic display case and a black card that thanks the recipient for entering the raffle. The backside of the card is blank. The back of the display cases shows that it was given away at the DC Virtual FanDome event. As far as I can tell, it does not seem that these figures are individually numbered.
The printing on Supergirl’s torso, legs and head is sleek, shiny and marvellous. I love her crisp cut “S” and the contrasting red and the blue colour scheme. She also has an awesome double-sided head, which I was not expecting.
The silver glowing effect of her eyes on her alternate expression looks cool and the torso detailing continues onto the back side. The one thing that ruffles my feathers is that her legs are not dual moulded. From the back this does look rather strange when she doesn’t wear her soft cape.
The hairpiece and the cape are the only non-exclusive parts of the figure. Supergirl’s hairpiece, which was originally used for young Hermione, has only appeared once before in bright light yellow on the Series 20 Pyjama Girl.
The hairpiece seems relatively effective at depicting Melissa Benoist’s character, though it might be a smidge too light. But this figure was produced in low quantities, so I somewhat understand why Lego might have used the Pyjama Girl headpiece instead of creating a brand-new one. The cape is the soft spongy kind. All in all, Supergirl looks good, especially when displayed.
Compared to pyjama girl
Conclusion
Now that I have the figure, I would never give it up, but this is more because it’s the first SDCC figure I’ve ever owned. As a diehard Lego minifigure collector, it carries a high (my girlfriend would say “irrational”) amount of sentimental value to me. To be honest, I didn’t expect to win this figure. I never got an email announcing I’d won.
It was only when I received a random package at my house last week, (two months after I’d long forgotten about the raffle) that I began flailing my arms and screaming at the top of my lungs, “OH MY GOSH, I CAN’T BELIEVE I WON!” probably giving my next-door neighbour a heart attack.
If I’m to be objective, I do think if you’re a very big fan of the TV show, or a completionist and you have the cash (and that’s quite a big “if”!), it’s worth considering picking this up from a secondary seller. The figure did grow on me a lot from when I first saw the pictures online.
That being said, while I sincerely hope this Supergirl will get released to the general public one day (which is almost as likely as Lego re-releasing Galidor sets!), I don’t think it’s the first SDCC figure I would personally buy as things stand now. Supergirl does feature great detailing and looks beautiful on display, but I’d be much more likely to purchase one of the exclusive Batmen, or Marvel characters.
Supergirl is currently available at BrickLink.
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28 comments on this article
Kinda wish they’d stop doing these Minifigures, or they’d just stick to more obscure characters/variants. The Deadpool Duck and Zebra Batman Minifigures don’t bother me since they’re very niche.
What does bother me is when they include major characters, such as the PS4/Symbiote Spider-Man. It’s quite annoying since those are two of my favorite versions of the character, and I would be willing to pay for a set that includes them.
But at the end of the day, that’s a first world problem. Glad you won the Minifigure! I’d say keep an eye out for customs that appear, or maybe look into MOCing your own from existing minifigure parts. It won’t be completely official, but there’s nothing wrong with taking a second option.
Thank you for the review! I love her dual-sided face print especially. This is one of my favorite SDCC figures ever, and while I'm glad more people could win one this year, I really hate how LEGO locks Arrowverse content behind a convention-exclusive wall. Why couldn't they produce one set with everyone's favorite characters? Now that Arrow is over and Supergirl is ending, I doubt we'll ever see Arrowverse minifigures or sets released to the general public. The way this figure was raffled off is also kind of annoying, since the website was buggy (I don't think my entry worked despite numerous attempts) and no one was informed of their win.
I bought the wig and put it on my Dimensions supergirl still looks cool even with the comics suit!! But I do like this minifig... ??
Given no one is going the buy this, unless they need it regardless of what it is - what's the point of reviewing this item ? :)
I was lucky enough to get one also. It’s a brilliant figure. I would never pay the secondary price for it though.
really, $300+ for ONE MINIFIG and it's being reviewed? ridiculous.
sure i could be on edge due to the election (US) but still, priorities people >.<
yeah skip this kind of "review" in the future.
Will there ever be a Supergran minifigure?
Thank you for all of the comments and opinions. I put my heart and soul into my review (and writing it helps distract me from the crazy world situation we're all in right now). It is very nice to see how much of a community Brickset is. Like I said in the review, I really do hope that this figure can somehow be made more widely available. I wish all of you safety and good health!
@PixelTheDragon said:
"Kinda wish they’d stop doing these Minifigures, or they’d just stick to more obscure characters/variants. The Deadpool Duck and Zebra Batman Minifigures don’t bother me since they’re very niche.
What does bother me is when they include major characters, such as the PS4/Symbiote Spider-Man. It’s quite annoying since those are two of my favorite versions of the character, and I would be willing to pay for a set that includes them.
But at the end of the day, that’s a first world problem. Glad you won the Minifigure! I’d say keep an eye out for customs that appear, or maybe look into MOCing your own from existing minifigure parts. It won’t be completely official, but there’s nothing wrong with taking a second option. "
The problem is that all characters are special to someone. PS4/symbiote Spiderman might just be "another Spiderman" to someone, while Deadpool Duck night be their favorite character of all time.
IMO for exclusives like this they should take an existing character and add something to it. A good example is Peter Venkman was available in multiple sets, and then there was a slimed version included with the Firehouse set. Comic Con and GWP Minifigures should be similar. Minifigures you can find in sets, but with an added flair or detail . . . Like a battle damaged iron man or something like that.
On the other hand many of these Minifigures would never be made otherwise, so it's a tough call.
I think reviews like this are great, and would like to see more of them. The additional photos are appreciated, and regardless of the fact that there are so few of these minifigures and their cost people will still buy them. They are a LEGO product and shouldn't be excluded from reviews. I would never spend $100 on a Star Wars set because I have no interest in it, so I skip over the reviews as I am not the target audience, however I'd happily fork out $300 if I had the cash for this minifigure, especially now that I have seen better photos of it.
Totally agree with you @Brick_Belt, really tough between wanting these minifigures made and then needing to find the cash to collect them.
@Brick_Belt said:
" @PixelTheDragon said:
"Kinda wish they’d stop doing these Minifigures, or they’d just stick to more obscure characters/variants. The Deadpool Duck and Zebra Batman Minifigures don’t bother me since they’re very niche.
What does bother me is when they include major characters, such as the PS4/Symbiote Spider-Man. It’s quite annoying since those are two of my favorite versions of the character, and I would be willing to pay for a set that includes them.
But at the end of the day, that’s a first world problem. Glad you won the Minifigure! I’d say keep an eye out for customs that appear, or maybe look into MOCing your own from existing minifigure parts. It won’t be completely official, but there’s nothing wrong with taking a second option. "
The problem is that all characters are special to someone. PS4/symbiote Spiderman might just be "another Spiderman" to someone, while Deadpool Duck night be their favorite character of all time.
IMO for exclusives like this they should take an existing character and add something to it. A good example is Peter Venkman was available in multiple sets, and then there was a slimed version included with the Firehouse set. Comic Con and GWP Minifigures should be similar. Minifigures you can find in sets, but with an added flair or detail . . . Like a battle damaged iron man or something like that.
On the other hand many of these Minifigures would never be made otherwise, so it's a tough call."
Or maybe have the con figures as a “sneak peak”! You know, include a figure from a future set in the packaging so convention goers get it early and with the special packaging that makes it valuable. Then once the sets With the new character is out, everyone can get it.
I won one too!! Happy days
A $300 minifig from that awful TV show? I can safely say this is an easy pass.
I thought this was a great review and thank you to @Dr. Demagorgon for offering the rest of the community a chance to experience this minifigure, despite the opinion of folks who only see sour grapes in the review. Most folks won't get a chance to own one, but that's no reason to be upset about someone else's good fortune. I likely will not get to visit all the places I want, but I don't get mad at the people who do. I don't get to have everything I want, but I at least have what I need. And I would hazard to guess that most people on a LEGO site are doing pretty well by most of the world's standard. A little perspective, please.
@denn, I truly do not understand your issue with this being reviewed.
Wow, congratulations on winning the SDCC Supergirl!
I think my favorite feature is her silver eyes which appear to represent her x-ray vision, rather than the usual heat vision-red.
If I ever hit the lottery or get a really big raise, those convention-exclusive Marvel and DC figures are mine. Those, and a house with a man-cave to showcase all the LEGO Super Hero sets I don’t currently have the room to display.
Eh, a guy can dream.
1496 SDCC Supergirls have been handed out. 1495 were runner-up prizes, and the 1496th was part of the grand prize. A lot of people forgot about that one because they just read the number listed in the rules. In the past, though, DC and Marvel minifigs have been produced in equal quantities, which makes me wonder what happened to the other 154 of them.
Double-sided heads on Superheroes characters in general are the norm, but on Kryptonians they're pretty much a given so they can do a normal face and a shoots-lasers-out-of-their-eyes face.
Nobody except the grand prize winner (who I know) got notified in advance, but the rules said you could mail them a SASE if you wanted a paper copy of the list of winners sent to you. The only warning most of us got was when we got notified through the Informed Delivery program that the USPS had accepted a package addressed to use from "Shippo".
@PixelTheDragon:
The SDCC minifigs I want most are the Batmen and the Deadpools. So...
@GoldenNinja3000:
The Arrowverse shows aren't popular. They're CW-popular, but that generally means they've got between 500,000-1,000,000 viewers. Remember, S2 of Supergirl was the highest rated CW DC show, but the ratings were still lower than what got it kicked off of CBS after one season in the first place. And if you're in Canada, as appears to be the case, you weren't allowed to enter in the first place. It was limited to legal residents of the 50 US states and DC, so even US citizens who were residents of the US were excluded if they were living in a US territory.
@TheInfamousBobaFett:
I can't speak for anyone else, but I stayed up for the full 24 hours and crammed ten entries through their system every half hour. I watched a lot of TV, and tossed back a lot of caffeine, but I got one of them.
If you were using ad-blockers, that apparently caused problems with the entry form that would basically prevent you from submitting any entries. A lot of people had that problem, but nobody figured out what was causing it until most of them had given up, and maybe even gone to bed.
@Brick_Belt:
Don't you dare take away my slimed Venkman. I probably display him more often than the clean version, since I also have Slimer and some Brickforge splats that I can spread around him.
@PixelTheDragon:
They did that with one version each of Azog and Bard the Bowman from the Hobbit movies. Long before that, the 2011 SDCC Batman and Green Lantern were released a second time at NYCC alongside a third "exclusive" minifig, which was the 2012 version of Superman. They also once did a thing where you had to visit 4-5 different stations at some convention to get the parts to build a Bilbo minifig, plus a drawstring bag to put him in. The bag was exclusive, but the minifig was standard fare.
@MutoidMan:
No, in the show her heat-vision rays are blue because blue is a hotter temperature than red.
An absolutely fantastic figure! Congrats on getting one as well!
I was shocked when I received my minifig in the mail. I couldn't believe that I won Supergirl during the event. So happy.
I got one too. My wife would like us to sell it, but I'm also feeling that sentimental value as being my only rare SDCC figure.
I bet we'll eventually see decent knockoffs on eBay. I got a Lego Movie 2 Harley Quinn knockoff that's pretty decent under the circumstances.
@gunther_schnitzel Supergran! They recorded part of an episode on the beach of my hometown (South Shields) that I stood and watched in the freezing cold one day in the 80’s. Happy times.
They also did a Get Fresh show there too, but I’ll save my Gilbert the Alien story for another day...
Do not be surprised if none of the pieces to this set are "exclusive", even if this mini fig is exclusive. I have seen it before. For example, the penguin: SH096 - appeared as an "exclusive" mini fig back in 2014, but the torso part which made it exclusive, was released with the Christmas train set in 2016, making it so that anyone could create this mini figure, even if you do not have the set it came in.
As I very much doubt that Lego only made 1500 of these pieces, I expect these pieces will appear in other sets over the next 3 years, even if the pieces themselves remain rare. Time will tell!
Personally, I very much like reviews of rare items (MF's, sets, ...) as the chances of seeing them "in the flesh" are so small. Also, it provides the information that someone may need to access whether the item is worth "hunting down" (and spending a fortune on, haha!).
Finally, I think that collecting* would not be half as interesting/rewarding if all Lego sets would be readily available; the hunt and owning rare things is part of the fun!
* Yes, I do realize that not all AFOLs are collectors!
@PurpleDave said:
" @MutoidMan:
No, in the show her heat-vision rays are blue because blue is a hotter temperature than red."
I did not know that; thanks!
@ggfile:
Oh, that’s an absolutely terrible comparison. In a full decade (2011-2020) of SDCC carded and blister-packed minifigs minifigs that come with sets don’t count), I’m only aware of four instances of entire minifigs reappearing elsewhere:
1. After launching DC Superheroes at SDCC, Christian Bale Batman and Ryan Reynolds Green Lantern made an equally brief second appearance at NYCC on new cards. They’ve never appeared a third time. And the SDCC minifigs weren’t billed as being exclusive until just prior to SDCC 2012, when they announced the next four exclusive minifigs (two DC, two Marvel).
2. Azog and Bard the Bowman, which were the only two minifigs that year that _weren’t_ billed as being exclusive to SDCC, are the only two minifigs that have appeared unchanged in retail sets.
There are a few (_very_few) isolated instances of individual printed parts showing up later, like how the standard Venom torso was from SDCC Symbiote Spiderman, but there’s never been a single-packed minifig billed as an “SDCC exclusive” that you could cobble together from loose parts obtained through other sets in all ten years. For the purposes of this discussion, consider this Supergirl and the upcoming Miles Morales Spiderman to be SDCC exclusives, since that was their intended destination.
That Penguin minifig came in a $13 retail set (I bought a fourth copy just to qualify for a fourth free Jor-El minifig when they brought the promo back with no minimum spend, because it was the dirt-cheapest DC set in stock), and while the minifig was indeed exclusive to that set at the time, there’s never any guarantee that the parts won’t all show up elsewhere. Heck, even the exact same minifig could show up later in a different set (which has happened), and it wouldn’t invalidate the claim that, when it was released, that minifig was exclusive to a previous set.
@MutoidMan:
It caught me off-guard a bit. They're not great, but I do watch all of the Arrowverse shows. Black Lightning and Flash are the best of that group. Stargirl is on the CW, but isn't technically Arrowverse (it was originally produced for DC's defunct streaming service), or I'd include that.
Anyways, a few seasons back, Supergirl fought a clone of herself, and I'd already figured out how to make a 100% "legal", brick-built solution to have the beams shoot out of Superman's eyes, so I figured it might be amusing to put the Supergirl-showdown on one of our LUG's layouts. I caught that her beams were blue in time to order some parts, because I didn't have them in that color at the time. Now, I'd consider switching them back to trans-neon orange. The minifigs don't actually match the show, so it's less critical that the beams do, and the orange pops more on a busy layout.
Thanks for the review.
And congratulations on winning this figure.
Thankfully I am not at all interested in it so for once don't mind not having a chance to get one.
I for one enjoy reviews of sets I'm not going to get far more than reviews of sets I am going to get. It's a way to enjoy the things I don't have space of money for. Thanks :)