Superheroine Review

His site advertises itself as a site “for fans by a fan” and this is NOT a gimmick. Michael Theis discovered the world of Superheroine modeling and fan sites more or less by accident through Yahoo Groups when he came upon Mandi Steele’s site. Having always been interested in Photography, Beautiful Women, and Comic Books, he thought is looked like a lot fun and something he’d like to try out. After planning, finding his first model, Jennifer, he set out on his first Superheroine photo shoot.  He shared his work with Kelly from Steele Productions as well as Mandi who were impressed enough to ask him if he wanted to do sets with on their sites. He gladly accepted and SuperJenn was first seen in Mandisteele.com. Steele Productions eventually asked if he wanted to have his own site as part of the Steele franchise but after some discussion Theis decided to go it on his own. After treating us fans in the yahoo groups to his talents and the beautiful Jenn he soon launched Heavenly Heroines.

This site gave the fans the quality wardrobe they wanted with attractive models who fit the parts they played coupled with a mix of modeling sets and photo story sets with action, defeats, traps, peril, narrow escapes, and victory that the genre had not seen before in a business strategy of a website. The fans spoke, Thies listened and capitalized on it and Heavenly Heroines.com has been going strong without a notable missed update since August 2007 when the site launched. If anyone is thinking all the rosy accolades are stumping for a free membership then I will belay your concerns.This site could have had a great strategy but did not do what it needed to fully capitalize. They really only have a limited amount of heroines. So while some of those fans who would come to HH to get all they are missing in the other sites, they end up missing variety in heroines or at least outfit selection for Supergirl. This leaves them heading back to any of the other sites to fill their variety needs. One also has to face it, there are many fans that will also miss their soft porn needs and head back for periods to those sites. Whether a site can meet all the needs of all the fans in on place is a subject of its own article but this site comes close without totally reaching the allusive goal of everything to everyone.

But hey this is a fun high quality site at a good price and worth checking out. I mean what else can I say? Great looking girls, Supergirl, hauled though a factory by two hot villains (you’ll find I use villain as a gender neutral term as villainess or worse villainesses just seems awkward) who just bested her, Supergirl shackled to a wall, peril scenes with krypto lasers, cuffed to a chair out of reach of a huge green rock that slowly sends our heroine to her doom, and all with Supergirl victories in the end! Yum yum!The Supergirl suit is a great custom made number. I never was big on the skirt but it grew on me pretty quick even though I am still a sucker for the traditional style red one or the modern blue. Their dark Supergirl outfit is good quality but falls a bit short for me in area of design and proper fit. As mentioned the downside of this site being it really only offers a great quality Supergirl. She’s my fav but I try to review based on what I think or know the average fan likes, that is seeing more than just one type of heroine. Yes they have had a Wonder Woman and recently they have started using a Mary Marvel type heroine but in my opinion the outfits took a step down in quality and design next to the original Supergirl outfit and do not do the models or characters the justice they deserve. They get kudos on scene locations and props. While a few times their krypto guns were some kind of kids toys they do use authentic looking pistols and other weapons as well so I chalk those up to Sci-Fi spoofing fun. I mean who’s to say what a Krypto Pistol would really look like right? In fact making it look funny and harmless might be a good trick to get the heroines guard down MUUAHAHA…Um, ok then. I’m torn on how to rate the photography here as it seems hit and miss but overall well done. There are few shots you’d say “why did they put these in here at all? Maybe they use different people to shoot at times but some indoor shots are clean, crisp and vibrant with the right lighting and flash, while the next is a bit dark (“Twas the night before Christmas set” for example) with the fill flash cutting out the background. They need to watch their backgrounds for objects that just make it look bad, such as the one with a bin if dirty laundry in it or a TV on. A few of the modeling sets outside are overexposed and the shots were not set up right in relation to the sun to avoid shadowing on the faces. Last bit of photo advice is that in molding shots the subject does not need to be looking dead on into the camera in every shot. For example some of the best poses will have the model from the side looking to the sky, facing forward looking just over the photographers shoulder with an expression that makes you feel she sees something which adds a sense of intrigue or mystery depending on the models expression. The website itself is a very simple and functional format that uses one of their photos for a background image. Without this it would have no character to it at all. The links button on the side menu has not worked as long as the sites been up I don’t think. Website management 101, if you have a dead link or button its better to take it down rather than leave it up even with message “coming soon.” While the “about us” section is missing any kind of site info or mission statement it does have what most don’t which is a short bio of each of their models which is a welcome addition. In keeping with their “by a fan for the fans” they do deserve a big heroic fist pump for maintaining an active Yahoo group to promote the site and exchange ideas and feedback, with Theis posting and answering questions regularly. They use Ticket Club for their membership payments which is a very easy and fast system.

I’m seriously torn about the rating on this site. I use a standard weighting formula for every site that considers what we’d say are emotional (in short how much one enjoys the sets) and technical aspects such as site design, quality of photos (overall and variety in its offerings) and perceived product management. Weighting is certainly stronger for the emotional side as Iam sure most fans look to the content over the technical side. But I feel I have to include it to be fair to all sites and the customers, these are products and products need to be evaluated on their total presentation and operation. The perfect or near perfect product (5 out of 5 rating) is near perfect in ALL aspects.On the content side it pushes a 4 out of 5 but on the technical side the simple site design (below average against many others) is saved by the superior customer relations and involvement but then takes a hit on the variety of characters side and the lower quality of these newer characters wardrobe, the photography is above average but lacks some consistency and overall attention to detail that would make it very good. All taken into account which in the end I’d give the technical aspect a 3 or 3.5.

This site is still fairly young and has room to grow and further develop its character variety and differentiation from other sites. I think a little more time to work these aspects out is all it needs to easily secure a 4 out of 5 in the future. This is a site to keep and eye on and certainly worth you money checking out.

Suppressing my emotion to allow for some business rational I give it a strong 3.5 / 5 capes.

While many sites have nasty to nil customer service and seem to succeed this is a site built on fan feedback and involvement and it the key to its success. It should not veer from this path otherwise it risks losing its advantage.