Poison Ivy!

I finally own this garden fresh beauty!

I've owned the second Animated Ivy action figure for a while now, but only recently acquired the one, the only , the original Queen of Green herself!

I got her mint on card - the card was pretty beat up, but I knew I'd be opening her up right away, so it was irrelevant (but kept her price quite low!)

This, to me, is Pam's definitive look. Her skin color is normal, she's cherubic like a wood nymph, and she is deadly cute!

'Who are you calling 'cherubic,' meat puppet?!?!'

Pam came with a crossbow ala her Batman Animated appearance(s.)

It's pretty simple and can be held in either hand. At least it doesn't fire neon missiles the size of Batman himself! But for those of you who did want a gaudy accessory with your action figure back in the day...

Miss Ivy came with this giant Venus Flytrap maw with rows of razor sharp teeth!

'Feed me, Seymour!'

For more Poison Ivy fun, be sure to check out my blog Toyriffic every Sunday for 'Poisunday Ivy' and a Poison Ivy themed post every week!

Coolsville

One of the best character designs and re-imagined origins for the Batman: The Animated Series was Mr. Freeze. I love the old-school sci-fi/spacesuit look and the 'glass' dome helmet, not to mention the red-lensed goggles.

Mr. Freeze is a delight to the eyes!

The funny thing about his re-written and often lauded origin for the animated series: It was kind of a fluke. I mean, they re-wrote almost every character's origin story! No one sings the praises of the Harvey Dent explosion on the walkway or the Joker's gangster origins (although that one was inspired by the '89 movie for sure.) But oh my, what a brilliant re-imagining for Mr. Freeze!

I kid. It was a brilliant re-imagining. My point is just that with all those re-imaginings, they were bound for a base hit at least once!

Ahem, back to the toy. Mr. Freeze comes, as Mr. Freeze toys often do, with a water shooting weapon. This one is a little different in that the water pressure will toss out an' ice-missile,' which is neat in action and in display. And more relevant to Mr. Freeze than plain water.

However I prefer Freeze's gun to be deceptively unarmed, and the design allows for you to display it that way as well.

His 'backpack' serves as the water receptacle and is made of a soft plastic/rubber material. It was a bit sticky when I released Freeze from his plastic prison, but considering he sat in there for 19 years, it was not a surprise and a little soap washed the sticky right off. I have not tested it for leaks yet, but I'm not going to be squirting Batman with him much anyways.

It would be neat and probably pretty easy to customize a single blue cylinder to be more in keeping with his animated appearance, and I may attempt such a thing someday.

In the meantime, here's the cardback showing all the other cool Batman Animated toys you could get back in 1993.

Revenge is a dish best served...cold

And apparently so is acquiring the original Batman Animated Mr. Freeze action figure - it only took me nineteen years to finally get around to owning this one!

I'll crack him open and blog about him all proper like real soon, but I just couldn't wait to show him off!

Beware the Creeper!

I added this Creeper action figure to my collection a few months back and am just now finally posting about it! Yay procrastination!

I remember when this figure came out, he was pretty much a shelf warmer and an aberration in the Batman Animated mythos. His inclusion in the show and toyline just seemed odd to me.

I read somewhere at the time that the Creeper was going to be a regularly occurring character as the show evolved into The New Batman Adventures, but that idea was scrapped and Creeper was just given one episode (or maybe it was a two parter?)

Regardless, The New Batman Adventures made the character of The Creeper out to be a sort of 'good guy' version of the Joker, with a similar origin etc., and even a crush on Harley Quinn.

I was none too impressed by his appearance on the cartoon, so I never felt the need to buy the action figure. I specifically recall a lone Creeper action figure hanging on the K-Mart clearance aisle for what seemed like (and probably was) years.

Then a few months back I was watching the BBC documentary 'In search of Steve Ditko' about the the odd and elusive creator of The Creeper as well as The Question, Hawk and Dove and many others (most notably the co-creator of Spider-Man.) I became fascinated and read a bit more about Ditko and his creations and discovered that the real origin of The Creeper is far more interesting and fun than falling into a vat of acid and coming out with discolored skin and a perma-grin. I decided to add him to my collection in one form or another, and of the few Creeper action figures available the New Batman Adventures version just looked the most, well, fun!

So I tracked him down for a great price on eBay (what, there's not a huge secondary Creeper market? No way!) and he's now mine!

Creeper came with a pretty nicely designed accessory. It may be a bit odd and cumbersome, but it's both action oriented and relevant to the character. As Jack Ryder, the Creeper is actually a hard hitting no nonsense reporter, and so he comes with a TV camera and boom mic.

The camera has a slide that can be positioned to show Ryder...

...or Creeper. Silly but fun if you imagine playing out an interview with one or the other.

The camera shifts into a cumbersome 'gun' and the mic can be shot like a rocket. Again, silly, but at least the Creeper didn't come with a day-glo jet pack or street luge. The designers tried and succeeded in making the toy's accessories relevant and for that they deserve our applause.

Sadly, Creeper did not come with an 'Applause' sign.

Lame.