Rattle Me Bones: Living Dead Dolls Exclusive Captain Bonney by Mezco Toyz

Summertime is pirate season on the blog, evidently! Last year, I reviewed and made over Monster High pirate character Dayna Treasura Jones, and this year, I've been increasingly captivated by Living Dead Dolls' pirate. All this despite pirate stories being of minimal special appeal to me. Go figure.

The Living Dead Doll in question was a Hot Topic exclusive from outside the numbered series: Captain Bonney. Based upon the real historical pirate Anne Bonny, LDD Bonney (different spelling) stands out to me for two reasons--for one, she has a unique divergent sculpt to her name that no other doll featured, and secondly, she's set apart by being old LDD's attempt at a high-end doll!

While all LDDs are collectibles, this was clearly a collector doll. Bonney sold for $60 new, a very steep price for the brand at the time that the classic series dolls never reached over their run, but she does appear to have a lot to show for it, with a complex costume furnished with rich details and accessories for texture. Her production value is clearly higher and the doll had a lot of love put into it. However, I get the impression she didn't fully click with the base of consumers, given that she wasn't followed by other dolls in the same deluxe classic format and her once-high price has been rendered an absolute steal in 2024 by not really being higher at all on the aftermarket. I was intrigued by the doll and her production, and wanted to see how she compared to the production of other dolls.

I was able to find a sealed copy of Captain Bonney that was within the same range she'd have been new at retail, with just a bit inflated by tax and shipping. That's bafflingly cheap for an aftermarket LDD and shocking for a designated collector release, but I will not look a gift horse in the mouth. 

Anne Bonny was a pirate who made her mark on history pretty largely for being a woman doing all she did in a lifestyle expected to be exclusively male. Her piracy career was short-lived but she became an iconic figure within her own time and beyond. It's not known for sure what she looked like, and there's no record of her bearing any of the three classic pirate disabilities (missing eye, missing hand, missing lower leg) that this doll exhibits, so LDD Bonney is kind of just an iconic pirate captain who's anchored to the real name of Anne Bonny and has red hair like Bonny is traditionally depicted with. Bonny disappeared and her end is thus unclear, so while she presents a mystery, it's not necessarily a ghoulish one.

Bonney's coffin doesn't look too different from any other classic LDD's, and I will say it was a massive missed opportunity for her box not to be colored metallic gold. Metallic silver was done for S5 and S25, but no LDD box has been gold. It would have been perfect to set her apart and match her theme.

Bonney's eyepatch slipped up off her eye in the box, but because she was sealed, there wasn't anything I could do about it for the boxed photos.

The coffin has printed handles on the side, so Bonney would have had to release at the same time as or after Series 5, the first main series to have the handle detail. I know this doll released before Series 8, though, because she has the hook-hand mold that was never seen on the ball-joint dolls that were used from Series 9 onward, and she debuted the hook before Angus Litilrott in Series 8 used it for the last time. She's a swivel-joint doll.

Bonney's coffin tissue is an unusual purplish reddish-grey color, almost like the color of a dark berry smoothie.

Her chipboard marks her as a Hot Topic exclusive in the upper right corner. I don't know if other exclusive carriers were acknowledged on other, non-Hot Topic exclusive releases' packaging. Bonney is illustrated with the intact left half of her face depicted as a skull, and the image and text are in front of a background combining a historical illustration of Bonney with a scene behind her including skull-faced people. 

Had they gone with this art direction for the doll, they could have made her more of a parody character: Captain Boney!

Here's the Bonney illustration LDD quoted for the chipboard.

The bare breasts might not (entirely) be the artist being weird--there are stories of female pirates at the time disguising their gender, besting people in a fight, and then baring their breasts to taunt their male opponent with the humiliation that they were killed by a woman. It's also possible the artist did so for the same reason of making clear that the figure was a woman due to the neutral (or deliberately masculine) clothing. (Such a gender indicator is, to understate, a little on-the-nose.)

Bonney's chipboard poem is very hard to read with that graphic design, so typing it out is more useful here than in other cases:

Having passed on to Davey Jones' Locker way back when

In the afterlife Bonney sails again

She'll rail ye on her sword in a clap of thunder

For pieces of eight she's come to plunder

So upright, seadog, when Captain's on deck

Or bloody Captain Bonney will rope ye neck

I added some punctuation that was absent on the chipboard. Here's a rewrite. I tried to treat it a bit more like a sailor's song.

She passed to Davy Jones' locker then

But now like the Dutchman she sails again

She'll run ye through in terrible thunder

Yer pieces of eight she'll find and she'll plunder

Upright, ye seadog, when Captain's a-deck

Or bloody old Bonney will string up yer neck!

Bonney's death certificate is very nonstandard. Like the Series 17 documents, it's rolled in the traditional LDD burgundy ribbon, but the document is cut in a unique shape and isn't a classic death certificate for the brand. Bonney's is shaped like a tattered Jolly Roger with sulfur-symbol bones, and merely declares her date of death without a second poem. LDD Bonney died on October 8, 1722, while the real Bonny disappeared after 1720 and her date of death is unknown. LDD's deathdate feels like a fair guess within the range after the real person's disappearance.

The certificate confirms the LDD character's full name is Anne Bonney, and the fact that it's so close makes it all the more frustrating that it's spelled wrong! If her first name were left unknown or were actually different, then the misspelling could be taken as her being a more separate entity. Oh well.

Here's Bonney out of the box. Already, this doll had begun to give me some pleasant surprises.

One of my guesses for why I thought Bonney may have flopped was that she simply didn't look dead enough--and that's certainly true from what the LDD website had led me to believe, but I was suspecting they put an inaccurate prototype photo up, because this pirate is immediately very spooky in the rotting flesh. I'd assumed her skin was pale flesh-toned, but this is white.

Jennocide (left) is my fairest flesh-toned LDD. Bonney is like Betsy, who's pure white.

I also noticed immediately that Bonney has the bumpy-skin head mold I've collected previously on Faith and Dottie Rose (and also reviewed with Quack, who I receieved after Bonney), and that helps make her look rotten! I had no idea this doll had that sculpt. So knowing this doll is certifiably deathly in person immediately improved my assessment of her. But let's start at the top. 

Bonney is wearing a grey bandanna piece, not a stereotypical pirate's bicorn. Bonney is plenty stereotypical for the pirate archetype already, but I can appreciate this choice as being less goofy and overdone. The piece is not truly a wrap, and is mostly sewn in shape with a knot tied on one side. The piece looks like denim and just rests on her head without elastic or a chin strap.

She also has a classic pirate eyepatch on a black elastic strap. The patch has a skull and crossbones on it, though the bones are classic rather than LDD sulfur symbols.

Bonney's hair is vivid orange yarn, according to traditional depictions of Bonny as a redhead, and the yarn is a springy texture. All other yarn-haired LDDs have had entirely straight strands. I think this does a pretty good job of mimicking pirate braids, and I love the bright color. It plays beautifully off her white skin and black accents, as well as the blue in her eye.

The hair did appear to leave a small stain on her forehead, but the hair is meant to cover this spot, anyway.

The hair is not thickly rooted at all, and large bald spots can be formed, but thicker hair could get out of control volume-wise and her bandanna is great for covering any gaps.

I really like Bonney's face. 

On her right, she's got a huge vertical scar that encircles her eye socket. The red color and black outline are stylized and cartoony in a fun way. The eye socket is black with a glowing yellow pupil, making her look more undead, like her reanimated spirit has restored the missing eye to a limited degree.  Bonney's intact eye on the left is looking downward and has a dead white pupil and pale blue color. Her lower eyelid is raised and is colored purple, and she has spidery black eyelashes on the lower edge. This side has an eyebrow, which is very bold and harsh, and there's some slight shading around the eye. Her lips are black, and her head sculpt has those skin bumps I mentioned which increase her zombie look. I wonder if, in this case, they might be suggesting Bonney has barnacles? The bumps aren't painted or anything, but that could be a fun read.

Captain Bonney's deluxe factor first shows when you see her earrings! On the right, she has four greenish rings which feel like real metal.

On her right, she has a chain earring with a flag charm!

The flag shape is a little clumsy with the loop on top, but I get the idea. 

These earrings are theoretically removable, but aren't designed to be. Why would you take the risk, and why would you???

Bonney is wearing an incredible coat made of proper thick red velvet. 

The piece is fully trimmed with black leathery outline, and features fancy lapels, folded cuffs, and tiny buttons on the cuffs, front panels and lapels. The back has a nice split.

The shoulders have an epaulette design with gold fringe, but the panels don't lay quite right and don't turn downward. It's the only part of this coat that feels flawed, but I could probably use a very delicate amount of glue to tack them down. 

The coat is very impressive.

Bonney's right arm has the rounded rotating hook attachment I previously collected with Angus Litilrott, the only other LDD with the sculpt. Bonney debuted it and was the first hook-handed LDD. Bonney's hook is bloodless but made to look like tarnished iron.

Here's the two hooks together.

Bonney's left hand is very detailed. She has two dimensional rings--one band and one jewel, and several more which are painted gold bands that encircle her fingers!

The band and jewel are affixed, but some of the paint from the band is visible on the thumb, like what I saw on her right ear...or else these metal pieces were never painted, were purely gold-colored, and they oxidized and discolored the vinyl? It works with her being a rotten pirate zombie, so that doesn't upset me. There's also a dash of gold paint that errantly made it onto her inner pinky.

I was impressed that the gold paint went onto the underside of the fingers, too. Her hand has a piercing for accessories, but it's not centered in the palm like a usual LDD peg hole.

That brings me back to the coat. Bonney is wearing a faux-leather belt that works like the real thing, and it features a few extras.

On the far end is a small brown velvet pouch. This is purely for decoration and does not open, come off the belt, or have anything inside. It's sewn onto the belt. To the left of that is an old pistol tucked into the belt, which is a bronze color.

The pistol has a peg that fits into her left hand.

I think Bonney is the only LDD original character with a gunpowder firearm. Onyx has a sci-fi ray gun in Series 28.

From giving it to Betsy during the Series 23 photo story, I also discovered the LDD gripping hand shape debuted on later dolls was able to use the gun.

On her left side, Bonney has a scabbard hanging from a chain.

I kept my expectations low because I didn't really think this would be a full removable holdable sword, right?...so I was grinning like a little kid when it was!

!!!!

Here's the scabbard empty.

And here's the sword. It's a wicked cutlass with a skull-shaped golden hand guard!

I'm not a pirate guy, but I healthily appreciate a nice sword, and I can certifiably tell you that unsheathing this piece and putting it in Bonney's hand was the coolest thing ever. It brought me back to the mentality of a young boy excited by an adventure story.

I'm so impressed with LDD for making Bonney's two accessories fully functional and display-friendly. Not using the sword? Put it in the scabbard. Not using the gun? Put it in her belt. I love it.

Bonney's belt comes off, as mentioned, and merely wraps around her waist because the attached scabbard and pouch prohibit it from threading through hypothetical belt loops. Here's that.

The coat is fastened in front with one black plastic snap, and opening it showed me multiple aspects I wasn't able to see with the coat covering her all up.

Under the coat, Bonney is wearing a cropped primary-blue sleeveless top, a simple black ribbon scarf, and black faux-leather pants. The coat can't really come off with her hook attached, and I didn't try to remove the pants. The top and pants do have velcro making them ostensibly removable.

Bonney's one foot is clad in a unique pirate-boot sculpt. This doesn't have a slit in the back, so I didn't try to pull it off. I would need to heat it for best ease in doing that. It is a separate piece, though.

The best surprise after opening the coat, and my favorite discovery on the doll, was realizing that her wooden leg is carved in the shape of the sulfur symbol!!!

Like the hook hand, the peg leg is a rotating attachment, and that was useful for trying to stabilize Bonney's stance. She's pretty wobbly thanks to the prosthetic and its uneven shape, so the rotation was a nice aid that helped just a bit. It doesn't help that the flat surface area of the boot sole is smaller than it looks and doesn't add much to her stability. I had to re-adjust Bonney's legs every time I moved her to a different flat surface to stand on. Some other dolls can plonk down on anything with firm feet (always appreciated) and Bonney certainly cannot. I might seek a stand for her just so I don't have to worry about her stability, but a stand with the right waist size and height for LDD is a bit tricky to find. She might be more fragile in the event of a fall thanks to her jewelry and sword.

Had Bonney been a later doll on the ball-joint schema who could widen her stance a bit, that would probably help her standing balance even more, even if it was still difficult.

The faux-leather of Bonney's pants and belt is also flaking and peeling like the material is wont to do with age. I've seen it happen before, and it's always frustrating. I can't really do anything to fix it, and don't want to scrape off the whole layer to the matte base, so I'll just leave it be and keep it as nice as I can. 

Here's Bonney with her eyepatch, bandanna and hair rearranged. She's just stunning.

After checking the LDD archive photo, it's definite--the production doll changed a lot--for the better, in my opinion.

Bonney's evident prototype on the LDD archive.

The prototype doll is a flesh color; it's no trick of lighting or anything. The doll is also visibly smooth-faced, so LDD clearly changed her skintone and sculpt to make her look deader. Her visible intact eye design is also almost completely different. The prototype is looking straight ahead and has a teal iris and black pupil, and purple appears on the upper edge while the flare on her upper lid is absent. The released doll looks much spookier and more appealingly caricatured in that LDD cartoony way. I also notice that the epaulettes on the prototype use strips of gold metallic fabric rather than fringe (the epaulettes might not even be separate flaps of fabric here--that could be purely made from fabric glued on as outlines), and the gun is iron-colored, not bronze. Except for the pistol, every change for the released doll is something I much prefer. I'm ambivalent about the pistol.

I wonder if this discrepancy between website photo and physical doll caused some of the apparent lack of enthusiasm for Bonney? Seeing the doll on the website presents you with an inferior character design, in my opinion, and certainly one that's less in tune with the goth horror aesthetic and Hot Topic crowd than the final doll. Alternatively, if you liked the prototype Bonney and assumed the LDD website picture reflected the final doll (and why wouldn't you?) then you might be disappointed by the doll in person.

Here's some more portraits.

I picked up a wooden treasure-chest box at the craft store as a prop for her in vacation photos, and I stained it and added white and green accents to look briny and barnacled, as well as painting her sulfur skull-and-crossbones on it.

Dead doll's chest.

The chest has a big enough footprint that Bonney could easily stand in it (not that she'd have reason to--this is just explaining the size) and I knew it was perfect when I saw it because it would be big enough to hold all of the accessories and fragile parts of the dolls I was packing for the trip. Upcoming subject Macumba's hat in particular was my priority because I knew it needed to be packed fairly snug in a hard box to transport it so it wouldn't get squished or (further) cracked, and this chest was the perfect size.

Packed: Bonney's bandanna and gun, upcoming Daisy Slae's custom mushroom, Macumba's hat and doll, Faith's towel, and the mask I made for upcoming Menard.

Win-win.

At the lake, I took Bonney to a beach area where I also photographed Macumba and Menard (the latter two to be posted soonish). I half-buried the chest for one photo:

And then took it out and sat the cap'n on top.

Yar.

I love this doll. 

I can only assume Captain Bonney was a big flop for Mezco and LDD, because there weren't other dolls who felt like collector pieces in the same way as her afterward, and she demonstrates minimal aftermarket demand today...though not poor enough to be sold below original price. I wonder if it was the subject matter that alienated people. For a brand of goth horror dolls, a historical pirate could be pretty off-target for the base. Pirates are the stuff of adventure stories far more than horror, and while you could easily put a pirate into an assorted unthemed LDD series, setting her aside as a high-end exclusive could easily be taken as LDD failing to read the room. I think LDD did the work to make her spooky and appealing and deluxe, especially with the clear changes from the prototype version, but that might not have been enough. So Bonney can look like a passion project and labor of love that completely sailed over (pun not intended) the audience's heads. Sure, someone on the team had a great time geeking out over pirates and doll craft, but perhaps that joy didn't reach the base of buyers and they didn't get it. But who said art should please the audience all of the time? Maybe someone's just gotta make something, and it's not like the price feels extortionate. A Mattel doll two-pack at the same original price as Bonney usually gives objectively less than she does, and her clothing and jewelry is objectively fancier than MGA doll clothes, too.

I was kind of astounded by the doll. During early, swivel-era LDD, Captain Bonney is unquestionably the most lavishly-produced doll, and her ambition and detail is exceptional within the entire classic generation of the brand. It even feels closer to that of the high-end Return Living Dead Dolls, which are more expensive! Bonney's got so many accents in her coat and jewelry, she has lots of props with the bandanna, eyepatch, cutlass and pistol, her gun and sword/scabbard are functional accessories, and she debuts a new boot and two prosthetic limbs, and exclusively owns the leg sculpt. A lot of work and care went into making this doll rich and versatile and polished, and I feel it. She's stunning. 

There are, however, deficits that make her less of a success than a Return LDD, and some typical classic-LDD pitfalls that undermine her attempts to be a collector doll, to a degree you'd be within your right to call unforgivable. She's difficult to stand. Her costume isn't really able to be removed with her prosthetics and boot causing obstructions, which is always disappointing, though this isn't a mark against her higher stature. I'd be more likely to expect a collector doll to be permanently dressed, so this is actually more excusable for her than it would be for a cheaper mainline LDD. But there are spots where her quality is a little patchy. The paint errors on her hands, the dye stain from the hair, and the wonky epaulettes are issues. Her gold jewelry discolored her green at the points of contact. The faux-leather material disintegrating is also a disappointing factor that wouldn't have affected her new, but was an inevitable problem with that fabric finish. She's a fancier doll, but also a more delicate one and has more flaws than the Return doll experience I had with Return Sadie. It's spotty enough that Bonney really might not be worth her collector price--at least, she wouldn't have been when sold new. She's all ambition, and less so finesse. But she's absolutely worth the same price, and more, as an old aftermarket item in 2024.

And none of her issues mean a thing in the face of my awe and adoration for this doll. She's fabulous. I come away from Bonney with the impact of several wonderful surprises that made me smile. Everything about the doll was an experience of discovery--the death certificate flag, the skin color and head mold, the earrings, the wooden leg shape, and the accessory functions were all surprises. Her visual aesthetic is absolutely spot-on spooky and the doll looks amazing on display. And that moment of unsheathing her sword and putting in her hand was worth at least $30 of her price all by itself. I'm absolutely coming down on her being a hidden gem in the brand. She doesn't have the polish to justify her price at release and didn't physically age perfectly, but by staying at that price level, she's a good buy in 2024 for an owner who will treat her gently.