During our weekend excursions we stopped at Target, much to my delight and surprise I found an end cap of Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors dolls while I knew they were coming soon I had no idea just how soon! The new Marvel Rising tv series debuted last night, I have not yet had a chance to watch it but I have watched the clips available on the official youtube channel and have been reading Marvel comics so I am familiar with a lot of the characters already particularly Ms Marvel, Ghost Spider (Spider-Gwen) and Squirrel Girl. Somehow I always preferred Gwen Stacy to Maryjane even as a kid, so Spider-Gwen has really been a favorite of mine ever since she showed up in Edge of Spider-Verse.
The new doll line seems to be taking aim at Mattel’s DC Super Hero Girls toy-line/series of cartoons if Mattel has a doll-centric toyline based on DC Comics characters it seems only natural for their rival Hasbro to have a doll-centric toyline based on DC’s rival Marvel. I still really like the DC Super Hero line, I think I have at least one of each character that has been released as well as all of the different Harley Quinn releases it unfortunately seems like new releases have slowed down to a trickle. What an age to live in where we have not one but two Super Hero toylines marketed towards girls, when I was young I remember getting teased because I loved the Batman Animated Series and having some toys from it, that’s for boys ugh! My daughter is ten years old and is a huge fan of Marvel comics so she couldn’t have been happier to get her own Ghost Spider doll (she already has a Spider-Gwen costume for Halloween). I am very happy the Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors line exists.
This was the end cap in Target where I first saw the dolls, they had the Target exclusive Squirrel Girl, a few Ghost Spider and some of the Heroes in Training dolls which had painted on pants/boots so I decided to pass on those on this trip. I bought the Target Exclusive Squirrel Girl as well as Ghost Spider and kiddo just got a Ghost Spider as she was not interested in any of the others at this time. Couple of quick observations, even in the packaging it seemed like the dolls had a couple of different body types America and Ghost Spider seem to be noticeably taller bodies than Ms Marvel and Squirrel Girl for example, Squirrel Girl has a curvy body. 
We went to quite a few additional Targets this weekend as we somehow mysteriously kept running out of stuff around the house (oh darn we need to go back to Target!) but only found similar displays in two of the other five stores we visited, I struck out at another Target today who seemed to determine to vex me by setting up a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles display instead.
This is my favorite photo of the Squirrel Girl doll that I have taken so far, I did not expect her to be well balanced enough to actually stand like this with no tricks involved.
In general, Squirrel Girl was an absolute joy to work with and take photos of I haven’t been this excited about taking photos of a doll in a while even though it is not as upper scale as my normal doll choices she definitely has a very big personality. While this doll line isn’t perfect they dolls do have a lot of personality so I am willing to overlook some of their shortcomings.
The sculpt on Squirrel Girl’s companion squirrel Tippy Toe is really cute I just feel like it is slightly large in scale in comparison with Squirrel Girl herself.
When not “eating nuts and kicking butts!” Doreen Green still looks pretty darn cute in her civilian gear though I will note that her hat did not like staying on her head very much.
While she won’t sit perfectly flat, she didn’t have much problems with sitting.
She has a really cute face sculpt!
The Target exlcusive Squirrel Girl was priced at $29.99 (I was able to get about $1.50 off by using my Target Red card), there is another common version of Squirrel Girl that comes without her civilian clothes that is priced at $19.99 but I opted for the deluxe version.
Back of the box, I love the art style!
Most of the details on both outfits are printed on, the vest is sewn on and is part of the shirt on the civilian outfit and the jacket is sewn on to the Squirrel Girl jumper I guess would you call it. At $30 I would have liked to have seen some more actual defined detail and less printed on detail. She comes with a removable squirrel headband and her beloved squirrel companion Tippy Toe.
Squirrel Girl has a slight indentation in her teeth that gives her a slightly buck toothed grin.
I found Ms Marvel at a different Target this weekend, for anyone curious she comes with a normal sized hand replacement in addition to the “embiggened” hand as well. Couple of quick observations, once I got all of the dolls’ clothes off I was kind of surprised by just how varied the bodies were. The dolls lack an ankle joint which honestly, I’m kind of okay with as they are pretty substantially built dolls and are capable of standing unsupported plus it would have likely made removal of everyone’s boots a pain. Squirrel Girl and Ms Marvel have flat feet while Ghost Spider is kind of on tippie toe but she doesn’t have as pronounced as well pronounced an arch as you would normally see on a Barbie or one of the DC Super Hero Girls dolls. The dolls do have a mobility thigh cut which aids in their poseability as you can see in my above photos of Squirrel Girl she is pretty poseable. It almost seems like all three of these dolls have their own unique bodies, it’ll be interesting to see what the other doll bodies are line in comparison once I get more dolls/characters. Couple of negatives, I didn’t realize had painted on tights on until I took off her pants I’m generally not a big fan of painted on tights but it is a convention we have seen before on the DC Super Hero Girls. I similiarly was not impressed with Ghost Spider’s painted on/sculpted gloves.
I decided to take a comparison picture with the first DC Super Hero Girl doll I happened to find in my box of playline dolls which happened to be one of the Harley Quinn dolls, she is noticeably taller and thinner than any of her Marvel counterparts. Harley Quinn also has a bust joint which the Marvel dolls lack but I feel like the construction of their knee joint is a lot better overall and I love the thigh cut.
Squirrel Girl has a hole in her back to accomodate the removal squirrel tail.
Side view with tail on.
I look forward to seeing what characters might be added to the series in the future, if it proves popular!
Klein's Other Toys 