First, those stories about Heath Ledger/Joker dolls fetching $50 a pop on e-Bay don’t appear to be valid, as this e-Bay page makes clear. Second, 6″ Joker dolls are for eight year-olds. Serious collectors prefer the more detailed 12″ or 15″ tall models with their much better facial likenesses.

Either way, this is the first action figure I’ve wanted to own in a long time. I’ll admit it — it’s partly the macabre aspect of a dead actor being sold as merchandise. I have a James Dean doll at home. I’ve also had four Universal-crafted classic monster dolls on my desk for the last three or four years — the Wolfman, Dracula and two Frankensteins (one modelled on Boris Karloff‘s appearance in the original 1931 film, the other a copy of his look in James Whale’s Bride of Frankenstein).