They Showed Up: Monster High G3 Welcome Committee Frankie Stein

There was such a real worry that this doll was never going to release.

So..."Happy Pride" doesn't feel quite appropriate in this atmosphere, but damn it, Happy Pride nonetheless. The celebration started as queer people's opposition and is fueled by joy-based defiance toward a culture that was never going to simply open the door to them, and that spirit remains powerful and necessary. If Pride needs to be more of a fight this year, then I know it will be. And I was glad to see Monster High managed to be with the fight this time around. I wouldn't have put it past Mattel to duck out, horrible as that is.

We first heard about the Welcome Committee doll of G3 Frankie Stein a while ago when their stock photos made rounds at the end of 2023. I know this timing because their Neon Frights locker artwork includes a sticky note foreshadowing the doll, and the reference didn't pass me by at time of writing. I reviewed Neon Frights Frankie in December 2023.

The yellow post-it.

The doll was pretty appealing. It was a relatively standalone version of Frankie Stein--relative because, despite the separate release and branding, they're designed as something of a deluxe entry to the Fearbook line of dolls representing school clubs, with Frankie tying it all together as the welcome ambassador inviting you into the school's ventures. It was immediately noticed that this doll felt like a Pride item. Frankie is wearing the trans colors in distinctive stripes on their top, the doll is festooned with pastel rainbows and diversity flags and the original brand slogan "be yourself, be unique [, be a monster]" depicted on their outfit felt especially pointed--especially since G3 Frankie was the brand's first original character to be defined as queer. 

Sure, there's no fully standardized pride flags directly depicted, and the doll is just a symbol of the brand's overall aims at inclusivity...but come on, this is the queerest doll in the playline so far and the stripes trimming the crop top are obvious. You'd have to have some pretty big blinders on to not see this as a queer doll. I and many others were delighted and Frankie was eagerly awaited for June 2024. 

And then they just...never showed. Fearbook wave 1 released without them to show the ghouls around. Pride Month passed without a whisper of Welcome Committee Frankie, and then November happened and it seemed like a real possibility that this doll might have crossed the threshold into never being released. Word broke that they were supposed to be sold at Target, but guess who was already dumping rainbow capitalism even before November 2024? It looked grim, and I was very worried about potential pivots at Mattel designed to keep their products sold at retailers who refused to platform diversity. Was Monster High going to regress? I trust the artists of the franchise, but not the executives. It looked like Welcome Committee Frankie would not be released, and I was also dreading the potential of Frankie at large being retconned into a girl under new media directives. At the corporate level, Mattel is definitely not to be trusted and I still have an eye out for a plummet. They've shown us they're not committed to diverse hiring anymore, nor to their tenured artists or quality toys. I've had to seriously split the artists from the company because it's never felt more like the good things Mattel dolls have done are things they probably fought to do.

And yet? The Monster High brand is still doing Pride merchandise online this year (nothing to my taste, though), and their Skullebrity dolls are set to continue with Elvira v2, who upholds a streak of their Skullebrities exclusively being depictions of queer creatives. And then Welcome Committee Frankie suddenly turned up, unchanged from how we first saw them (at least, none of what really mattered got removed or downplayed), they're gendered correctly in their product description, and indeed, they released right on time for Pride, just a year late. Given the delay and the obvious awful reasons for it, the word "triumph" comes to mind. At this point, it honestly felt like a duty to get them, but it didn't hurt that I liked their design on its own.

Welcome Committee Frankie is essentially a playline doll, but they're presented more like a collector doll akin to the way the Netflix Wednesday dolls were. Their box is a full six-sided rectangular prism with a sleek, minimalist look and a clean window for almost the full front. They definitely could have been packed into a slightly smaller box, though. It feels like the pieces are arranged to take up more space than they need to--for instance, if Frankie was wearing their jacket instead of their arm sleeves, the sleeves could be packed to the side and take less space.

The sides of the box are pretty typical G3 styling.

The back of the box continues the fancy look, and doesn't drop any other leads about this being a Pride doll. The theming is entirely visual literacy here. This doll is a step, but it's not the step I really want. I do understand that we're not currently in the right world for a more upfront doll, though.

The statement that Frankie makes the new ghouls feel at home feels like an extremely depressing reminder that boy dolls have no relevance anymore and we're very unlikely to see more from G3 going forward. The last one was Heath two years ago. Mattel, if not the designers, just gave up on the mansters completely. Even in Skullector, which means no Victor Van Dort to pair with the Corpse Bride (what's even the point, then?) and the recent The Lost Boys doll being a woman despite the source character's name being David and the source character being unambiguously masculine. Like. The name of the movie is referring to David and his vampire gang. They're the lost boys. This isn't exactly a graceful place to not make the doll male.

The Welcome Committee box has a pull-out backdrop that's more collector-style. Meanwhile, G3 full-playline dolls have been reduced to blister windows you have to rip from the card backing.

The box advertises a poster inside, and it's not the doll-sized one on the front. This front piece comes in a plastic sleeve and it's nice and all, but also feels like padding for space. All five of the main cast plus Deuce are here, with everybody but Frankie in their G3 signature looks. Drac has a Fearbook doll, so it could have been nice to have that edition drawn here, but the image is focused on the main cast, not the Fearbook line Frankie ostensibly corresponds to.

It's interesting to see signature Cleo, Deuce, Lagoona, Draculaura, and Clawdeen in the current G3 portrait style, since all of these designs were released as dolls before the current illustrator came into the G3 brand. The original G3 illustration style was a little messy and the artwork was visibly from before the physical dolls were finalized, often matching the cartoon more--these portraits, coming after the original dolls released, do match the actual toys in ways the original art didn't. It's clearest in this poster's cropped frame by looking at Lagoona's hoodie and Draculaura's headband. I assume, if we saw below Cleo's neck, she'd be wearing the costume her signature doll got.

The real poster being advertised on the backdrop's corner is just a large-scale print of the same, and it's the size of the back of the box. It was tucked behind the backdrop.

It's a cute enough poster, but I can't see the appeal in having it or hanging it up. The Welcome Committee theme this doll is using (basically as a front) is hardly scintillating material, and the art of the main gang isn't exciting to me. If this was a Monster High Pride poster, I'd like it. There are at least three queer people in the image, though. Frankie is nonbinary femme and dates Cleo, Cleo is a girl who dates nonbinary femme Frankie, and Deuce functionally told his friends he's aromantic in the cartoon--he just didn't use the label as explicit terminology.

Here's the doll unboxed. They have a good amount of pieces, though not that much more than a typical G3 signature release. They've just tripled up on the food and drink pieces.

Frankie's hair here is parted to their right and mixes their usual G3 black, white, and blue. It's pretty long and ostensibly wavy, but it's not very well waved out of the box. The most motion in the hair is at the ends, and I want more flow all the way down.

The hair is pulled back on the side and also features a large braid on top pulled tight against the scalp, texturing the hairstyle and basically mimicking the character's common side-shave silhouette without this being one of Frankie's side-shaved dolls. The braid looks pretty with the mixed colors.

The doll's face is pretty understated for this point in G3, though their delayed release could have a bit to do with it. Their eyeshadow reminds me of early G3's light colors, though their lashes are heavier and the color application is more bold--it just doesn't feel super fanciful or dramatic.

Their lips are black and painted large and more vertical like the G1 character. Refresh Cleo stretched the lip paint upward too.

This was G3 Frankie's first faceup:

Day Out budget Frankie, who used the same faceup as G3 signature.

There seems to be a faint discolored flaw in the blush on Welcome Committee's left cheek, and there's also a black mark under their jaw.

The earrings are symmetrical, depicting spiky discs with lightning bolts hanging from safety pins.

Frankie's basic outfit is a halter top in a sweater/dress shirt mix, and printed arm sleeves that give them a trendy alt look I associate with peak-era Avril Lavigne--a vibe I think their signature refresh doll also dips into.

The top has a plastic fabric shirt collar and a vinyl fabric black necktie, while the rest is a cotton crop top in a halter cut and trimmed with two ribbed stripes like a sweater--it's a lot of styles. 

And, well...

♪Can I make it any more obvious?♪

♪But they're not a boy, and they're not a girl...♪

I can't police G3 Frankie's use of the trans colors. The character is in the genderqueer umbrella and the colors tie into previous incarnations of Frankie's color palette. I do still think it would be nice for them to sometimes use the nonbinary flag as reference, though:

The nonbinary flag would admittedly harmonize more with a green-skinned Frankie, though, and it'd be a bigger departure in coloration from G1 and G2.

Here's a better look at the sleeves.

Frankie has a typical chunky Frankie belt around their waist in silver. It features their custom Skullette on a plate on the side, and closes in back with two connections.

Frankie's pants are black plastic fabric with a grey, blue, pink, and yellow plaid pattern including electrical zigzags. The pant legs are unevenly cut so their prosthetic leg is fully exposed, yet another example of Frankie's costume emphasizing and owning their prosthetic.

The pants are plastic-coated material, but they don't feel like vinyl fabric that will rot or crack or peel in the way the necktie does. I don't know what the prospects are.

Frankie's prosthetic is the usual silver and the doodles are the same as the first G3 Frankie designs.

If any Frankie was to have a divergent prosthetic color or doodle pattern, it should have been this one.

Frankie's shoes are high-tops with a gradient striping in their pink, yellow, and blue, and the white platforms feature stitched-up text saying "BE UNIQUE" and "BE YOURSELF", the first two parts of the brand slogan originated in G1: "Be unique, be yourself, be a monster".

I'm glad to see that slogan here. It was more pointed and distinct than G2's "Everyone is welcome!", despite the sentiment being similar, and it makes me very happy to see this spirit of G1 inclusivity directly associated with queerness--an umbrella of diversity Mattel wouldn't allow the designers to depict during G1. Remember: atypical and groundbreaking depictions typically have to fight against cowardly media executives. These are the products of creatives who care, not from companies who care.

Frankie's last costume piece is their jacket, which I anticipated to be functionally mutually exclusive with their printed sleeves, so I took them off to make the jacket easier to put on. I really like Frankie with it on, and this is the complete look for the doll in my eyes. It looks more officious for the welcome committee ambassador role and also just ties the doll together.

The jacket is is vaguely letterman-styled and is made from more plastic fabric, with white plastic sleeves printed with graphical stitches and the torso being chrome silver, shinier and smoother than the material in the stock photos. I genuinely have no idea how badly or well this doll will age. Fingers crossed. The jacket torso has a boxy loose fit and a simulated zipper on the edge, but does not close. The torso also has some printed patches which summarize the doll perfectly: a very obvious diversity flag motif in a heart (just with slightly different unofficial colors), a Skullette and MH pennant, and an "All Welcome" message.

This torso slice of the doll's character design really says it all--the trans colors, the diversity flag in a heart, the "all welcome"...it's extremely obvious and audacious in this climate despite all of my griping about how it's not upfront enough. I really don't have the luxury to complain that this isn't more direct, and this is barely subtextual as it is. We all got it when we saw this doll.

Frankie's backpack is a recast of their signature piece, which was translucent blue. Here, it's translucent glittery clear and painted up with more diversity stripes in a drippy shape.

Not hunting down the backpack in my parts collection; too lazy!

This plastic is a little softer than the signature backpack's, so it's easier to squeeze the bag open on top. 

Frankie also has a recast of their signature camera bag, now in blue.

There's just one photo to put inside this time, and it shows the main crew's hands all layered in a circle--Frankie, Draculaura, Clawdeen, Lagoona, and Deuce. 

I wish the doll Frankie was intricate enough to have patchwork hands!

As part of their Welcome Committee duties, Frankie has a pool of snacks...for evidently themselves, Draculaura, and Clawdeen. There's a skinny soda and a snack bag each themed for a Frankenmonster, vampire, and werewolf, and the color palettes and iconography obviously match to the trio.

I'm not sure when this welcome-committee story would be taking place, but I'm pretty sure Drac and Clawdeen wouldn't be students Frankie is introducing to Monster High. Frankie was established to be a new kid in school at the same time Clawdeen was, including Frankie introducing themselves to the student body during an assembly. I'd imagine this doll story to be after Frankie has become a staple of the student community, but in the absence of defined new students for them to be showing around, I guess snacks for their two beasties are fine. I'd probably have given them snacks themed to Jinafire and Catty, perhaps--recent signature releases. (Jinafire is pretty, but I have never had any attachment to the character regardless of incarnation and her G3 doll hasn't compelled me yet.) Then again, giving this Frankie snacks based on recent signature dolls could have backfired since Welcome Committee Frankie ultimately took so long to release, leaving the references less timely.

The snack bags have gibberish text on the bottom, but it's the same on all three and I can't call AI shenanigans with the information I have.

All of the soda cans are printed on the back, but only Frankie's has additional legible information--it's coffinated!

None of the refreshments are designed to be held by the dolls. The soda cans seem new but are just as unholdable as the snack bags.

Frankie's last accessories are their clipboard and marker. The board is neon yellow and the marker is black, and both have finger loops for holding them.

Frankie's queer agenda doesn't seem very rigorous, unless there's a second page of items. G3 Frankie can be a bit literally scatterbrained, though, so I don't begrudge them any level of reminders and structure to keep them on task. I do love the detail that the bottom corner has been ripped from tearing it out of a notebook, though. I'm not sure what ink color is in that pen, though. The page has been marked up and drawn with multiple colors that would require multiple markers and pens. It looks like the most recent mark they'd have put on the page was the pink check through the first item on the checklist, so maybe the marker is pink.

Frankie's last piece is their dog Watzie, who comes dressed for the occasion in a diversity-striped bandanna that may be mimicking tie-dye.

A bandanna was sculpted on the first Watzie, but I like it as a fabric element here. It comes off with velcro.

This rendition of Watzie does not have lightning wings or wings of any kind.

Frankie can wear the bandanna piece, too. It brings out their eye makeup nicely, though the fit with their shirt collar is awkward. It's probably not meant to be worn by them, and isn't their typical fashion style, but it's fun that it works for pet and owner!

The doll also included a circular sticker for the owner to use, depicting the MH crest mixed with the diversity-flag design.

This would have been a better design for the big poster. It makes a much clearer statement.

I decided to ultimately put the sticker on Maudie's locker after I was done with the photoshoot. 

And can you believe it? There are no sunglasses on this doll! 

I took Frankie to comb and wash their hair and boil more wave into it. I also noticed the color consistency for the character's body parts remains low. Their vinyl pieces are greener than their hard plastic elements. and it seems to shift from Frankie to Frankie where their colors are or how matched the pieces are. It's more excusable for them than most because a pieced-together look suits their monster type, but it's not intentional.

I'm happy with the hair waves I achieved. I also painted some fabric scraps to give them a transgender and nonbinary flag they could pose with for photos. I'll be direct about it if the doll wasn't allowed to be!

Frankie takes well to blacklight...to a point--their hair and body glow, but not their head. I had to be careful with the lighting so this didn't get too obvious.

Makes me think of a Haunted Mansion Skullector release of Madame Leota that's just a blacklit head in a crystal ball. They'd probably do the Bride or the Hitchhiking Ghosts, though...the latter all as girls.

I don't know how Frankie identifies their orientation, but here's some bisexual lighting regardless. Anybody can use it.

And here's the friend group of established queer G3 doll characters.

Cleo and Frankie also took a moment together.

Love is love, as overplayed as the slogan may feel. If you disagree, you'll have to take it up with Cupid.

Her review's coming soon!

This is a really appealing doll design. The hair is poorly shaped by the factory and the plastics in the costume leave me really unconfident about how well this doll will hold up over time, but maybe they'll be mostly okay, and I could get their hair to a better place.

I wish the doll's allyship didn't have to feel dogwhistled, that the pride flags Frankie wears didn't need to be abstracted and altered. I want people to be brave and speak out, profits be damned. Teaching children that queerness is taboo or inherently adult is extremely damaging, and profit directing every political choice is extremely disheartening. At the same time, though, I can't look a gift horse in the mouth. Especially not if they seemed to have battled their way to be able to stand on my table...and calling the doll's queerness "plausibly deniable" is a stretch. Just look at them. They make it pretty clear! I also know how validating and encouraging even flawed or veiled allyship and depiction of diversity from media can be, so I can't downplay the positive impact this doll could have. At least right now, in this moment, Monster High hasn't betrayed its queer fans, and I believe any subtlety to the doll was not the designer's wish. The delay might have even helped in an awful way because it does mean more for this doll to be releasing right now in 2025. They'd have been a little less precious, less contrary, last June. Even the doll's designer, Annalise Lao, indicated as such in a post about them. I believe this below is a real post from the designer, but I saw it externally through a Tumblr repost which is where I've screenshotted it.

While it's horrible that the bar for representation being considered "daring" has lowered, it does make Welcome Committee Frankie all the more valuable and significant. Mattel can't be trusted on a corporate level, like, at all, and while external retailers seem more at blame for Frankie's delay in this scenario, I didn't feel especially compelled to credit the company for this doll in the post title...but the artists at MH are sincerely making their franchise a diverse and queer-friendly space and seem to have pulled of a genuine feat by rallying whoever was necessary to see Frankie here through to release, right when it seemed like the doll would never arrive. Monster High the brand has principles and values and passion even if Mattel doesn't. I'm glad the team kept the brand on the side of Pride this year when there are other brands who are fair-weather allies dumping the gays the moment allyship got risky or they felt they were safe to stop pretending. While it's not much, consider supporting this doll release and getting your own copy. It might help protect the brand from executive anti-DEI fiat if it's shown that the queerest depiction of Frankie Stein yet isn't a liability to profits. While G2 being an executive overhaul to a kids' franchise by executives was bad, it'd be far worse if G3 was executively overhauled to a deliberately non-diverse franchise. I'm not willing to let the needle move backward. If there's a chance to stop harm, I want it attempted. 

Frankie's future in their G3 portrayal isn't guaranteed, nor is the ability for Monster High to remain so progressive. But even if you take away mainstream queer characters, you can't take away queer people or their voices. It just won't happen. And even if Frankie doesn't survive this atrocious cultural shift, they can still say they were here and queer in June 2025. Nothing will change the fact that this doll release happened and did what they did when they did. 

The story of Monster High and this Frankie doll can be put in three layered words, which I used as the review title. They showed up. 

Be a monster.