Mattel Hot Wheels Racer Verse Harley Quinn Mattel, 2024
Day #2,781: November 13, 2024
Racer Verse Harley Quinn Vroom
Hot Wheels Racer Verse - DC Comics
Item No.: Asst. HKB86 No. HRT10 Manufacturer:Mattel Includes:1 car with non-removable figure Action Feature:Rolls Retail:$5.99 Availability: June 2024 Other: Packed at two per case and selling fine
I am very fond of Hot Wheels Racer Verse - I don't have all of them, but I picked up a few and I get concerned when it looks like something might be hard to find. These are toys meant for kids, but they're "collectible," which makes them interesting. What's kind of fascinating to see is that Hot Wheels is a boy's line of the highest degree, but Mattel added a ton of women in the line - that's unthinkable if you were a kid in the 1980s or 1990s. A wave of figures had one or zero women in it, so seeing Harley Quinn packed at two per case shows just how different things are. And she sells!
The sidekick-turned-star even got to change up her look, with this being something of a pastiche of her more recent appearances. Long gone is the harlequin hat, but you can see the diamond and black and red coloring. She got the full Jokerization treatment in the comics, so that's chalky white skin and not make-up. Her pigtails are tipped pink and blue, with a surprisingly slick fade on each. For a cheap kid's toy, this kind of detail is pretty impressive. Elements of her old hat are now a part of the car, hanging off the back in the wind, with spiked collars slapped to the fends for the "babies."
The car is painted red, and it doesn't seem to be a vehicle I recognize - it has a couple of sledgehammers on the sides, though, and some nice white wheels. Mattel did a nice job here, with silver chrome elements and white hands gripping her steering wheel. I love the design, and I love the intent - but this sample had some bad printing on her eye, so if you get in close you can see it looks like it has been scraped despite being fresh off the cardback in these photos. There's also a scraped unpainted spot on the back - I assume that's just the luck of the draw, but it's something you notice when a $1.25 Hot Wheels car gets plussed up with a non-removable figure for $5.99.
This is an excellent form factor and I hope Mattel keeps it going for a few more years. Picking her and her cohorts up, I feel like I'm holding a generation's future nostalgia. We had similar toys of a lower quality in Happy Meal boxes when I was a kid, this is much sturdier with a die-cast metal chassis and (generally) excellent printing on the figure's head. I feel like there will be a day in the future where you will be able to get this figure on the cheap, and then it will wind up being a beloved collectible because adults aren't going to buy it, but I think today's kids are going to look back on them fondly. I think she's worth picking up, and I hope Mattel keeps them coming because the form factor is fun, cheap, and conducive to making hundreds of characters from pop culture that won't fill up your house. I should probably get the Batman/Joker set. But for now I've got Harley, and while I doubt I'll convince you to buy her, at least let me convince you to go to the toy car aisle and give this line a couple of good, close looks. You might really like these.
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