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Thursday, February 19, 2015

Disney's Gargoyles: Demona

I've always felt that Disney's animated series, Gargoyles, was well ahead of it's time. Dark and moody, unlike most things Disney, the series was excellently written and animated. It didn't take long for the show to become a hit with the older crowd and as such would spawn other merchandise such as video games (Sega Genesis) and action figures by Kenner.

Any good series has to have it's share of villains and Gargoyles was no different. While the human character, David Xanatos would be the prominent antagonist of the Goliath and his band of Gargoyles, Demona was eventually brought into the fold. Once a lover of Goliath, she is now consumed with hatred for the humans and finds herself at the opposite end of the spectrum from where Goliath stands.

Around the mid 1990's, Kenner would unveil a line of action figures based on the Gargoyles animated show. The figures were well sculpted a took after their animated counterparts. 1995 would see the release of Demona, one of two female action figures in a male dominated series. (the other female figure was that of Elisa Maza)




Demona's action figure may not look like it jumped off your TV screen, but I feel the designers did a good job capturing her likeness. From her red hair to her torn and tattered clothing, there is no doubt who this is supposed to be. Most of the figures measured around 6 inches tall and had some sort of action feature. Demona's wings are attached in a way that they can "flap" to assist the idea of flying while playing with the toy. Her arms, legs and tail are also movable although the articulation is rather limited. You've got to keep in mind that most 90's era action figures weren't super articulated like action figures of today.


If I'm being honest here I'm kinda surprised that Kenner even made an action figure of Demona. After all female toys usually don't sell very well in a boy's action figure series. I can't say if I was a little kid that I would've grabbed this figure off the retail pegs when faced with the decision of her or say Bronx. 

Demona was packaged with a rather large projectile shooting gun. I guess you could call it a sniper rifle. I find it a little odd as I don't recall her using a gun very often in the animated series. The other problem with the gun if you haven't already noticed is it's size. The gun is the same size, if not larger than Demona herself!


Trying to get her to hold the gun and balance took quite a bit of effort. Thankfully you can pose the tail and use it for added support. The spring inside of the gun launches the long purple missile a good 3 to feet when the button on the top of the gun is pressed. Be careful that you don't loose the missile as she only comes packaged with one.

I can understand the cult following of the Gargoyles brand and Kenner did a good job with the toys for it's time period. I haven't had the opportunity to personally "play" with many of the toys, but the ones I have had my hands on I've been impressed. I hope to bring you more reviews from this series in the future. For now thanks for reading.

4 comments:

  1. I used to watch this show off and on during it's run. The main reason I watched it is because a lot of the cast from Star Trek: TNG did voices and I super nerd that I am, I devoured anything that they were in.

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    Replies
    1. It was an awesome show. I need to see if it was ever released on DVD.

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  2. Yep, the entire series is available on DVD. And, yes, she used big guns on the show a lot.

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  3. Yep, the entire series is available on DVD. And, yes, she used big guns on the show a lot.

    ReplyDelete