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Ugly.

I am not going to buy this for my little girl, but then again we don't buy them any barbies and this is why. Many of the Barbies have tried to emulate the Bratz dolls and to be extremely sexy for a 5 year old to be playing with. I don't see why people are that shocked since if you walk down the barbie aisle at Target you will see many other dolls dressed just as distastefully. Our little girls love the Only Hearts Club dolls sold at Target (and other places I just haven't seen them anywhere else) that are dressed nicely and have bodies like a little girl not a woman who has had plastic surgery.

I think it's hilarious. Out of context of children, but just as a doll in a dominatrix outfit... hillarious.

I also agree about the dolls that are out lately. Bratz make we want to vomit. I can't believe people actually buy these for their daughters. No wonder there are so many children with self image issues.

Bratz make me happy I have a son.

Black Canary Barbie is no more aimed at children than any other "collector" Barbies have been--like the Bob Mackie designer Barbies for display, not play.

But seriously, the flap about Barbie being a sexpot and inappropriate for little girls only gets attention when her character/doll self is marketed as a comic character that "puts out there" what is usually more insidiously packaged in a "standard" Barbie? As previous commenters here note, Barbie is an inappropriate body model no matter how she's marketed.

I think she's cool. I wouldn't get her for a child, but then she's not FOR children, she's for comic book fans. Why is that so hard to understand? Most of the fancy Barbies are for collectors, not for little girls to play with.

My mom--and, therefore, Santa--never got us Barbies but we were allowed to receive them as gifts. So I never had many. I'm going to institute a similar policy with my daughter. However, there will be no Bratz dolls allowed. Period. I can't stand those things. I just hope they don't come up with something even worse by the time she's old enough.

This is why grown women buy cosmetics and pumps instead of investing in retirement accounts. Can we afford to send this message to girls? Thank you mom for telling me "you can't have a Barbie because they are bad for your self image." And that was back when Barbie dressed much more conservatively.

This doll is cracking me up. Any kid that gets a Barbie generally strips her and redresses her anyway. Only grown-ups really care what she's wearing out of the package.

I played with Barbie as a child. I asked for one and I got it. My parents didn't believe in censoring the world, but explaining it to me. I think that approach fostered intellectual curiosity. Instead of simply denouncing something as bad, I could explain why it wasn't a good idea.

As far as Barbie was concerned, my mother simply told me that real women don't look like this. She's a doll, period. We made clothes for her from fabric scraps and painted her in magic marker. Cut her hair and virtually destroyed her. But she was able to perform her doll function as being an outlet for imagination and making us believe that we could become rock stars or cowgirls or doctors or veterinarians or even dominatrices.

'This is why grown women buy cosmetics and pumps instead of investing in retirement accounts.'

Oh please. Buying a few pairs of heels and a few lipsticks every year does not stop women from investing in retirement accounts! I would venture to say that children are more likely to emulate their mother's attitude toward finances as opposed to an inanimate plastic doll.

My mom taught me how to make clothing for my barbie. My barbies were in fashion shows and got haircuts and pink hair color. Now I'm a fashion designer... with a very comfortable body image. My body looks just like my moms did. Hers and my Barbies were the only ones I saw without clothing... somehow I knew what was reality and what was a doll. Incidentally, I also have nipples and pubic hair- just like my mom and not Barbie! Teach kids how to think... not what to think.
My daughter will get barbies.. they're fun to play with.

In addition to doll collectors, It's teenage and post-
adolecent boys who collect comic book dolls. That is the target audience.

I can't believe this doll is getting so much press... it is clearly for adult collectors and NOT for kids.

I have a daughter and I will gladly buy her a Barbie when she is old enough. I loved Barbie growing up and I can confidently say that I NEVER thought I or anyone else should or could look like Barbie. However, I still love that Barbie or other grown-up dolls are a way for girls to express their imagination about the grown-up world instead of just playing mommy to baby dolls.

My barbies went on trips in the backyard and got stuck in quicksand that froze them and they sometimes were captured or saved by Teenage mutant ninja turtles or woke up millions of years later. Either pulled out by my space legos or had to survive on their own in a time where no humans were left. :)

obviously, we all know this doll is distasteful for little girls. i am just not surprised anymore by what manufacturers come out with to make an extra buck. it's all about the money at the end of the day. that's why you have dolls like bratz dolls, and barbie dolls like this one because you know sex sells, even with children, because many parents these days do not possess any type of discernment for their children, and would buy such crap like these. i don't buy barbie dolls for my girl not because i think she's going to go thru self-esteem issues, but because beautiful doesn't have to be sexy. it's far more than that, and i want her to value character over education, and outward appearance.

I am ambivalent about Barbie. I certainly had quite a few as a little girl. I think Mattel makes some poor wardrobe choices for ol' Barb (and I'm not talking about this one--this one is clearly not meant for your kid), but it's true that she's also been a career woman for forty something years.

I will say, though, that the doll I loved and played with more than anything was my American Girl, Molly. The American Girls are also Mattel products, but worlds apart from Barbie. I'm not a big fan of their "American Girls of Today" stuff--I thought the best part of the dolls were their historical contexts. I went to Stanford, and just about every one of my female friends had an American Girl. Coincidence? Hardly. I urge parents to check them out. They are a substantially larger investment than Barbie, but they're wonderful.

I hope a daughter will look to her mother as more of a model of what a woman is than a doll. If a child is getting all of their cues of what femininity is from their toys or other media outlets than it is the fault of the parent and not these outside sources.

When I was a kid (less than 5) I listened to Madonna in her Like a Virgin days and had Barbies and I did not grow up thinking that all women had to offer were their looks. That's because I had a mother who was a career woman who could make and manage her own money and did fall into that trap of over censoring her child.

That Barbie does not even look like the comic book character it is supposedly based on.

FWIW the Barbie Black Canary is a pretty decent representation of Black Canary as she has appeared recently in DC Comics. The costume isn't all that far from the one that launched the character in the forties- Eisenhower Jacket, Fishnets, Leather boots and all.

http://www.comictreadmill.com/CTMBlogarchives/2004/2004_Individual/2004_12/000637.php

Mattel has been slowly working through the DC Heroines with Wonder Woman, Catwoman, Supergirl, Batgirl ... I would think that the Halle Berry Catwoman one would be more likely to be an SM image with her whip.

http://angelicdreamz.com/store/barbie_dc_comics.html