Wednesday (Nevermore Academy)

"...my dudes." Wednesday is the gothic deadpan daughter of Morticia and Gomez Addams, who is sent to the outcast school of Nevermore Academy after attempting to murder students at her previous high school. As she navigates her new school, Wednesday learns to control her psychic powers and solves a decades-old murder mystery. Before complaining too much about Wednesday suddenly having prophetic visions when that's never been a feature of the character before, it helps to consider how very much she's changed over the years already - girl owes more to outside adaptations than Mr. Freeze! When Charles Addams began his New Yorker cartoons, the characters didn't have any names: it wasn't until ABC wanted to make a television show that she was given the name "Wednesday" (after the poem). Back then, she was a pleasant and dumure little girl, who just happened to have macabre interests; it was the 1991 movie that turned her into the morose version that's so indelible now, so the Netflix show giving her mutant powers is just the latest in a long line of changes. Wednesday was played by Jenna Ortega, who had certainly been in other things before, but this is what made her famous. As this is a Toony Terrors release, Adrienne Smith needed to make a caricature of her instead of a portrait, but the likeness still comes through well. The expression on her face is fully neutral, allowing you to read into it whatever you want, and her familiar braids fall down in front of her shoulders. There are two Wednesdays in the line: one wearing a black dress with small white flower silhouettes dotting it, and this version, wearing her Nevermore Academy uniform. The Pitch Meeting video was right when it pointed out that the entire point of the Addams Family is to contrast them against normal society, so what's the point of setting Wednesday in Monster High? And why does she care if bad things happen to it? The school uniform is a jacket, shirt, and tie, with a skirt and flat shoes. The big pleats on the skirt are deep, chunky cuts in the sculpt, making for a more interesting sculpt than just a normal smooth surface would be. Wenny's color palette is traditionally black and white - that's why the joke in Addams Family Values was that the camp counselors made her an Indian instead of a pilgrim. The Nevermore Academy uniform is a bit more colorful, in that it adds some vertical stripes in dark, dark grey to break up the black. Her skin is suitably pale, and she has black nail polish... on the fingers you can see. No one would buy a Toony Terror expecting it to be anything other than pre-posed. Wednesday is standing perfectly straight, with her right arm down and bent at the elbow, and her left arm bent up as she snaps her fingers in time with the themesong. It's hard to figure out what to do with her right hand. She does have wrist swivels, which is more than the Sanderson Sisters boasted, but it's not really posed to rest on her hip or anything. There are shoulder swivels to give her more poses, and a balljointed head. The set includes a display stand for her, but she's fine without it. This version of Wednesday is a better buy than the other, because it's technically a two-pack: while normal Wednesday is sold by herself, Nevermore Wednesday also includes Thing, the Addams family's loyal retainer. Yes, it's simply an unarticulated figure of a hand, but he's a character and he counts, so getting him makes this one more worth it. In the original TV show, Thing T. Thing permanently lived in a box, because "hiding a person under a table" was the height of special effects technology in the 1960s. The idea wasn't that he was just a hand, but rather only the visible part of some unknown creature that is reaching through the box from elsewhere. It was the '90s movie that severed Thing, casting a close-up magician to portray him. Wednesday's Thing has Frankenstein scars on his body, evidence either of a hard life, or perhaps hinting at an origin. They're painted a crisp black here, really standing out against the pink skin. Sadly, Wednesday's shoulders aren't wide enough for Thing to ride up there, so he'll have to just stand on the ground. As a show, Wednesday seems confused about what it wants to be and who its characters are, and yet that doesn't prevent it from being a fun watch. It's not the type of show that would likely support more realistic action figures, but this style suits it terrifically. -- 10/03/24 Wednesday's mental powers: a good change, or a bad one? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.