Sasha Banks

Careful, Zombie Paige: your Women's Zombie Title is on the line tonight! (That's right, as if being an action figure entertainment site weren't nerdy enough, we're getting into e-fedding.) Throughout the WWE Universe, Sasha Banks is known as the legit BOSS and now, as she crosses over to the other world, she is the reigning BOSS supreme, legit zombie style. The reason BOSS in that bio paragraph is in all-caps (for those among you who like cute zombie girls but don't currently follow wrestling) is that it's an acronym for "Built on Self-Success." Now granted, the only thing I know about Sasha Banks is how big a draw her autograph sessions are (and that she's clearly got a great sense of humor), but apparently she's one of the best performers the WWE currently has, and was part of the drive to get the female wrestlers more time and development on the air - while the "real" shows (Smackdown and Raw) were maxxing out the Divas matches at about two minutes in the early- or mid-card, Sasha and the other women in the farm league (NXT) were putting on high-caliber matches that were as much of a draw as any of the men. When they were called up the main roster, they brought that energy with them, and Sasha soon found herself in many groundbreaking moments. It's just such a shame she died and became a zombie! The male zombies are green, and Paige was white, so naturally, Sasha is... grey. Sure, that makes sense. Then again, the Rock and Roman Reigns zombies were also grey, and Sasha does fall into that same sort of "ambiguously brown" category as they do, so there you go - that's just Mattel's way of showing anything other than lily-white ethnicity. In any case, the grey makes a great contrast for her teal lipstick and neon pink hair. When she was alive, Sasha tended to wear bright, flashy colors, but now that she's dead, she's in all black. She still festoons everything with rhinestones, though! You can just make out the fact that her boots used to read "SASHA" and "BANKS," but the pattern of stones on her butt just seems to be applied at random. Instead of reading "Legit B.O.S.S." (as it normally would), her shirt proudly proclaims "Legit (Un)D.E.A.D." No idea what the DEAD acronym stands for - maybe we'll go on Twitter and ask her. She's wearing a gold necklace and rings, and while she does have her Kanye-style shutter shades pushed up on top of her head, they're not removable: as part of her general undeaditude, they've been snapped in half. No, that's not a production error, it's the way they're supposed to be. It's even in the art. Zombie Sasha has a cut on her forehead and a few deep scratches on her right leg - that's even less than Paige had! The male wrestlers get shredded all to hell, but not the women. There's been more damage done to Sasha's boot than her body, but I'm pretty sure you can't catch zombism from someone nibbling on your shoelaces. We have no particular insight into this issue, but we'd be willing to bet the reasoning behind this undead imbalance is that Mattel (or perhaps WWE - whoever it is that's making the call) is worried about being accused of promoting violence against women. While the male zombies' molds come from the standard figures, the women get Elite Collection bodies, which means better articulation. Zombie Sasha Banks has a balljointed head, swivel/hinge shoulders, swivel biceps, hinged elbows, swivel wrists, a balljointed torso, swivel waist, balljointed hips, swivel thighs, hinged knees, swivel boot tops and hinged ankles. Her hair does prevent the head from moving as far and as freely as it possibly could, but being molded from PVC means you can easily flex it out of the way. In any case, it's enough to have her perform her finisher, the Bank Statement (a double-knee backbreaker/crossface transition). The packaging for Series 2 of the Zombies figures is similar to the first series, but not identical: we still get the ragged edges, the zombified drawing on the side, and the clawing hands in the background, but the card itself is wider, and instead of having unique blisters, everybody gets the same one - just some wooden beams, as though the zombie has just broken through your barricades. While we still really need Mattel to up the level of zombism on these female figures, Sasha Banks is an appealing figure, thanks to her "weird blacklight poster" colors and the extra jewelry she's wearing. -- 10/17/18

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