ROBIN

TOTAL JUSTICE (KENNER)

“As the third person to don the guise of Robin, Tim Drake trained under the watchful eye of Bruce Wayne to become Batman’s crimefighting partner. Using finely-honed martial arts and acrobatic skills, along with a razor-sharp intellect, Robin proves himself an even greater threat to villains with his Fractal Techgear spinning razor disc and battle staff.”

Do you ever find yourself settling for less than the amount of Justice you’d prefer?  Why settle, when you could have Total Justice instead!  It’s all the justice you could ever want!  It’s total!  …Right?  Man, I could go for some actual “total” Justice right about now, but I’m just gonna have to hold myself over with the best thing I can approximate, which is a ‘90s Kenner DC line.  Admittedly, that’s still pretty well up my alley, so I can’t say I’m *unhappy*.  Just, you know, I could be happier.  Ah well.  Let’s look at today’s figure, a Robin who could have none more Justice, for his level of Justice is Total.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Robin was released in Series 1 of Kenner’s Total Justice line in 1996.  Robin was no stranger to action figures at this point, and certainly not from Kenner.  That said, at this point Robin figures that were specifically Tim Drake were still rare, with the only prior one being the odd one from the Batman Returns tie-in line.  He was oddly absent from the Legends of Batman line, despite its mainstream figures all being based on the “Knightfall” storyline, in which Tim was a notable player, so this figure sort of filled in there.  The figure is about 5 inches tall (though a bit shorter depending on how deep you go when posing that lunge) and he’s got 5 points of articulation.  His sculpt is…well it’s a Total Justice sculpt, so it’s kind of intense in every regard.  Posing, expression, musculature.  It’s all very intense.  That’s how we did it in the ‘90s.  I suppose, compared to others in the line, the posing is at least a bit more mild and standard, and he’s without any screaming or major grimacing, so it certainly could be worse.  His costume follows the original Neal Adams design pretty closely, including all of the smaller details, like the ribbing on the sleeves and gloves, and the extra piping on the boot cuffs.  Robin gets a separate piece for his cape (unlike some *other* caped crusader’s in the line), which is…well, it feels a bit like it’s meant for a different figure, if I’m honest.  It doesn’t really have the same flow as the rest of the posing, and it has some trouble staying in place.  Robin’s color work is basic stuff, really, but does alright.  All the standard colors.  The most notable omission is the interior of the cape being black, rather than yellow, as it was in the comics.  That was ultimately fixed when he was rereleased in the JLA line at the end of the decade.  In terms of extras, he gets the standard Total Justice set-up, which is Fractal armor.  In his case, the actual armor is limited to a chest plate, which is honestly a lot less silly than some of the others.  He also gets a rather involved staff with some blades on the edge (making it a spear, I guess?  Or maybe a scythe?), as well as a disc launcher.  The blades could be removed from the staff, allowing for something closer to Tim’s usual collapsible staff from the comics.  The JLA re-release dropped everything but the main staff, and swapped in a display stand.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

When I was first entering into the world of action figures, I found myself seeking out figures that looked the most like the characters from the source material.  I remember specially wanting a more accurate Robin (notably one with black hair, which was tricky in a post-Chris O’Donnell world), which was a quest I undertook with my Grandmother.  This was attempt number two (Legends of Batman Crusader Robin was attempt the first, but, while cool, just wasn’t quite it) and he pretty much did what he needed to.  He was my main go-to Robin for a while, and lost a bunch of his parts over the years.  Thankfully, I was able to get myself some replacement gear for him, and here he is, in all his Total Justice-y glory once again.