DC COMICS PRESENTS: BATMAN ADVENTURES #1

Picked up this unexpected 100-page spectacular of DC Comics Presents: Batman Adventures #1 last Wednesday at my local comic shop! This is a really collection of reprints from Batman Adventures #2 and 27, Batman: Gotham Adventures #2 and 4, and short from Adventures In the DC Universe #3, but fun nonetheless! The giants of Batman the Animated are all here, including artists Bruce Timm, Ty Templeton, Rick Burchett, Mike Parobeck, and writers Kelley Puckett and Paul Dini. My favorite story was "Survivor Syndrome", about another vengeance driven vigilante dons the cowl in bitter memory of his murdered wife, whom Batman takes under his wing to temper the fallen athlete's anger. Catwoman, Poison Ivy, and Two-Face also make appearances- great stuff!

With Batman's 75th Anniversary in full swing, the more popular treatments of the character are being celebrated again, including our beloved Animated version. BTATB's own Bubbashelby gave us a peek at a couple of DC Collectible's forthcoming action figures in the Animated style back in February, and I recently picked up their Summer Fall Portfolio 2014-15, which gave a nice clean shot of things to come...

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NEW Batman Animated action figures coming in 2014 from DC Collectibles!

DC Collectibles just released to the media a sneak peek at all of their 2014 releases, and probably the biggest surprise is the following two action figure reveals:

Holy in my wallet that pours my money directly into DC Collectibles' bank account, Batman! In 2014 DC Collectibles will be releasing all new action figures based on the preeminent in Batman on screen: Batman Animated action figures with multiple points of articulation and screen accurate sculpts! This Batman Animated Catwoman action figure WILL BE MINE...

...as will this GORGEOUS The New Batman Adventures Batman action figure. These are simply incredible looking action figures - no word yet on scale (I dare assume 6") or price etc. etc. but I will update you as soon as I find out because I am buying these on day one! And according to MTV.com Two-Face and Mr. Freeze have also been announced! To see more DC Collectibles reveals, check out my other blog Toyriffic.

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!

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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.

Kenner Turbo Glider Robin

There are several words I could use to describe this Kenner Turbo Glider Robin from the Batman Animated series, and they are all synonymous with AWESOME! I couldn't think of a better action figure for my inaugural post on this blog than Robin. He's one of my favorite characters from the Batman mythos:  a symbol of my boyish pluck and youthful enthusiasm. They don't call me Boy Wonder for nothin', Kids  :D

I got this one for south of ten clams on account of his mangled backing card- I'm gonna open him anyway, so I didn't care. Robin has a cloth cape, which is right up my alley, and check out that yellow glider! Really cool!

This figure is a Series 1, released in 1992. The head is a new sculpt, but the body is a repaint of the Batman Returns Robin released by Kenner only a year earlier. Later on Robin would receive a body stylized more like the animated character- The "Crimefighter Robin" figure, styled after Tim Drake, would be released after the show was rebooted as Batman: The New Adventures.

The yellow glider with Robin's trademark "R" on top has so much eye appeal- I had to have it when I discovered it existed! The insignia is a factory applied decal, mine relatively well placed in the molded oval depression atop the wing. A red chest plate clips onto Robin's torso, and to my surprise, he can stand uptight with the entire apparatus attached.

The packaging advertises that the missiles can be "dropped"- in reality a manual affair, released by pressing the exposed pegs down from atop the glider. It works  :)  Robin can hold the two hand controls while flying his glider over Gotham City.

And now for your viewing pleasure, from my own Super-DuperToyBox YouTube channel:  A Moment of Zen with The Boy Wonder  :D

Big Thanks to Chunky B and BubbaShelby for appointing me membership to Batman the Animated Toys Blog!

*Visit Batman the Animated Figure Archive!
*Come play with me at The Super-DuperToyBox!