Tag Archives: Batman Beyond

#0767: Batman Beyond

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , , ,

BATMAN BEYOND

DC COMICS MULTIVERSE (MATTEL)

BatBeyondDCM1

Uh oh. It’s a Mattel figure. This can’t be good. Okay, that’s not entirely true or fair. Mattel figures have the potential to be good, or even on the rare occasion great. In fact, most are at least passable, but some aren’t. And also, I don’t like Mattel as a company, for a whole slew of reasons, chief among them being that a whole lot of their products just feel so lazy. In fact, in the last year, I believe I’ve bought a whole four Mattel figures, mostly due to the vast majority of their output being rather dull. One of those four figures is today’s entry, Batman Beyond. Let’s see how he turned out.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

BatBeyondDCM2Batman Beyond is part of Mattel’s DC Comics Multiverse line. The line doesn’t really have traditional series to speak of, but BB was released in the last year of the line. He’s part of the Arkham City sub-set, and is based on one of the alt looks for Batman from the game, rather than being an actual Terry McGuinness Batman Beyond. The figure stands 3 ¾ inches tall and has 18 points of articulation. The layout of the articulation is the same as both the Christopher Reeve Superman and Arkham Knight Robin figures. It’s not the worst articulation ever, but it could really, really use some sort of upper arm swivel and a mid-torso joint. The current layout leaves him a little stiff looking. In general, the sculpt of this figure feels pretty stiff and somewhat oddly proportioned. Some of that, such as the small head and larger hands, are at least partly present in the game design, but some of it’s just weird sculpting. Like Robin and Superman before him, the figure’s waist just sits too low, which looks really odd. Also, it looks like BB’s got at least a few parts in common with several of the previous Batmen. Because of this, he still has the usual Batman boots, which aren’t accurate to the design, as well as a weird shoulder piece that looks like it should have a cape or something attached, but it doesn’t, which is reasonable, since BB’s not supposed to have a cape anyway. Since one of the draws of Batman Beyond is his sleek design, these issues with the re-used pieces jump out a lot more than they would otherwise. BB does get his own head, belt, and forearms, which all do a pretty great job of capturing those parts of his design, and blend pretty decently with the rest of the sculpt. BB’s paint is one of his stronger suits. Everything is pretty cleanly handled, and his emblem in particular is nice and crisp, and really stands out well from the rest of the figure. BB has no accessories, which isn’t out of the ordinary for a Multiverse figure, but remains annoying given the price of the figure and the fact that he re-uses quite a few pieces.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Remember how I was done with DC Comics Multiverse? Yeah, that seems increasingly incorrect. When I was down in North Carolina visiting family, I ended up finding this guy on a grocery run. I’ve always had a soft spot for the Batman Beyond design, and Super Awesome Girlfriend was there with me, so there really wasn’t a chance I was saying no to this one. He’s a flawed figure to be sure, and definitely reminds me of why I don’t really do Mattel figures anymore, but he’s Batman Beyond, which does a lot to outweigh some of the cons.

#0216: Batman – Power Armor

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , ,

BATMAN – POWER ARMOR

BATMAN BEYOND

In the 90s, the DC Animated Universe was in its prime. Kenner held the license for the toys, and they were doing some pretty great stuff too. Batman: The Animated Series got a great line, with the majority of the characters seeing release. Sure, it wasn’t all winners, but it was a decent line.  Superman: The Animated Series came along, and while Kenner didn’t quite have the nice selection that B:TAS had gotten, most of the key characters had been released in their basic looks. And then, there was Batman Beyond. Oh, boy was there Batman Beyond. The show was great, but the toyline released along with it was… strange to say the least. For starters, they never actually released a proper normal Batman, and the supporting cast and villains were pretty much non-existent. They weren’t bad toys per say, but they didn’t do the cartoon justice. Case in point, today I’ll be looking at the line’s release of BB’s alter ego, Terry McGuinness, wearing that red and gray power armor he was so known to wear…

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Okay, officially, this wasn’t a Terry McGuinness figure. He was actually labeled “Power Armor Batman” on the box. Let’s be real here: people didn’t buy this figure because it was “Power Armor Batman,” they wanted the Terry McGuinness head. Anyway, the figure was released in one of the later assortments of the first series of Kenner’s Batman Beyond line. The figure stands a little over 5 inches tall and features 5 points of articulation. Kenner were big fans of the 5 and 5 set-up. From a purely technical standpoint, the sculpted work on the figure is pretty top notch. The circuits in his underlying suit look great, and the head is the spitting image of Terry’s appearance on the show. Stylistically, the figure’s body sculpt is completely wrong for the designs of the show, but it was in keeping with the rest of the line, so at least Kenner was consistent. The paint work is passable, with no real slop or bleed over (though mine has suffered some minor wear). For some reason, they’ve gone with a bright red and gray color scheme. Terry’s Batsuit on the show had red circuitry, so I suppose that’s what they were going for, but the light gray armor is just plain weird. The figure was accessorized with several snap-on armor pieces, a removable helmet, and a robotic bird. It’s red, green and yellow, so maybe they were going for a Robin thing? Yep, according to the package, it’s a strike R.O.B.I.N. Okay then.*

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Odd variants aside, I was very excited for the Batman Beyond line at the time of its release. I actually recall seeing this figure at the store several months before I actually got one. I saw the figure on a trip to the store with my parents, who told me I’d have to get it some other time. Little did they know that it would end up being one of the harder to find figures in the line. So, months went by, and I just assumed I’d missed my chance at the figure. Then, on another routine trip to the store, I wandered to the toy aisle, where I found this figure, as well as Blight. My parents were more than happy to get them for me this time around. As strange as this line was, I still have a major soft spot for those two figures in particular. Plus, they actually are pretty good toys!

*While doing some research on this figure, I discovered that Kenner did a repaint of this figure in more appropriate colors for their Deluxe line. He was dubbed “Strikecycle Batman,” if you’re curious.