Waddle Waddle Waddle... It's the Penguin!

The Penguin was one of the first villains I picked up when the Batman the Animated Series figures were released. That is saying something, as the Penguin is probably one of my least favorite of Batman's Rouges Gallery.

Sure, I like the character and the actors that have portrayed him over the years, but he never really was that cool of a villain, in my opinion anyway. I will say that out of all the different versions I do like this first attempt at the character for the Animated Series the best.

Penguin here is sort of a cleaner version of the Danny De Vito version of the character from Batman Returns film. I believe that the Animated Series was airing about the same time as the Tim Burton Batman films. So, it would make sense that some of the characters share similar attributes. Say, like Penguin's flippers, heavy coats, and longer hair.

One thing that I did always sort of dig is that the Penguin had crazy Umbrella Weapons. This Penguin came with a Hypno-Spin Umbrella Launcher to shoot at Batman and his friends. It works pretty well meaning it will shoot off and knock things down, or even function as a spinning top.

The only draw back is the size of the launcher. You can't see in the picture, but you pretty much have to hold him up when it's snapped on his arm. The figure will not stand with all the weight of the luncher. I am sure you could get him to stand in a sort of un-natural looking pose if you were patient enough.

There is a feature I pretty much just discovered when shooting pictures, once you remove the coat, Penguin has a hole in his back that the peg on top of the launcher can fit, making a pretty nifty little (or large) Umbrella Jet Pack. look out Joker, you might have some competition flying around for the Batman's attention.

Back when these were released I had only seen one Penguin on the pegs, they must have just stocked him, because I never saw another one. Back then I realized he was sort of a rare figure, but I opened him anyway. The loose Penguin is that same figure. I was pretty proud that I had one. When I was preparing for this post, I cracked open my tote of carded BTAS figures only to discover I did have a carded version too. I remember buying a lot of carded figures years ago, just could not remember if I had a Penguin or not. At one time I was trying to put together a carded collection of the first few series of BTAS figures, so it was a nice surprise to find him to shoot a group photo.

Hope you enjoyed this look at the Penguin, he's slowly becoming one of my favorites of the BTAS figure collection. 

What's up next from me? Here's a little sneak peek, I cannot make any promises that this will be my next post, but it will be a future post...

Mission Masters Mountain Pursuit Batman

I'm not exactly sure where this strange, green Batman came from. He was found loose in an old tote of toys I decided to sell awhile back, but whatever disdain I had for him before was replaced with curiosity and enthusiasm, now that I'm a toy enthusiast and official staff member of Batman the Animated Toys Blog  :D   It looked familiar to me upon rediscovering it because I had just bought Kenner & Hasbro Mission Masters Glider Strike & Knight Assault Batman toys from the same New Adventures series not long before! So I did some hunting and found it was a Mission Masters 3 Mountain Pursuit Batman.  All the multicolored Batman figures from the animated TV show that used to bore me now delight me for some odd reason. I love them!

Initially appearing to be some type of scuba dive wetsuit, it soon became apparent that it was in fact rappelling gear strapped to his left shoulder and chest. Mountain Pursuit Batman is equipped with a pick-axe and grapple gun, so that makes sense. The grapple gun on mine doesn't fire, but it sounds as though a spring might be encased within the barrel. Some of the other figures in this line share the hooked left hand sculpt.

I went stark raving mad for the Batman: The Brave & The Bold toys in 2011, which share a lot of similarities with these figures: simple articulation, a cloth cape in this instance, somewhat ridiculously oversized accessories, and fun, exaggerated  characters. Like the Brave & The Bold toys, there are several outrageous incarnations of Batman throughout the Animated line, in a delightfully absurd assortment of inappropriate colors. Again, what bored me before I now love   :D

Oddly enough, I happen to have a few other Batman figures with green paint, so I guess that makes this a collection of sorts. This probably has a lot to do with my fascination/obsession with Batman as Green Lantern, and to the ever-elusive, highly valued DC Direct figure of the said character (which I finally scored last Labor Day weekend for the unheard of price of $14.99!).  For your pleasure, I present my burgeoning collection of Green Batmen:

Batman: The Brave & The Bold Deluxe Skyshot Batman, Mission Masters Mountain Pursuit Batman, EXP Camo Tech Batman, &  Justice League Unlimited Batman (Tech Suit Variant w/gas mask).

This is a great toy I'd reccomend to any Batman the Animated fan! Like I've said before though, in this age of environmentalism, green is the new black!

(originally posted at The Super-DuperToyBox, Sept. 8th, 2011)

*Visit the database of Batman: The Animated Series toys at Legions of Gotham!

More Later- Make It FUN!