#2987: Arkham Asylum Escape

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with Batman, Batman: The Animated Series, DC, Harley Quinn, Hasbro, Poison Ivy, Two-Face December 18, 2021

BATMAN, TWO-FACE, POISON IVY, & HARLEY QUINN

THE NEW ADVENTURES OF BATMAN (HASBRO)

“They’re on the loose! Those sinister, diabolical misfits of society, Two-Face, Poison Ivy, and Harley Quinn have broken the boundaries of incarceration and once again hit the streets on a path of destruction. But Batman is ready to put them behind bars once and for all…where they belong!”

Hey, we’re heading down this late-game Hasbro DC rabbit-hole, so I guess we might as well just, you know, do that. I sure do like themes, right? And at least this theme is definitively not a Marvel Legends one, which is a nice change of pace these days. I might be suffering from a bit of Legends burn out here, you guys. But I’m not talking about them today! No! I’m talking about DC! Yeah! Let’s do it!

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

Arkham Asylum Escape, a set made up of Batman, Two-Face, Poison Ivy, and Harley Quinn, was released by Hasbro in early 2000 as a Toys R Us exclusive. The set has the four figures, as well as a selection of accessories, some character specific, some less so. The least specific is the Arkham Asylum sign, which actually should have two additional supports not seen in my photo. It’s a cool piece that makes for a fun backdrop, which isn’t the sort of thing we tended to get for this line. There’s also a straightjacket, which is listed as being Two-Faces, but which can easily be used for either him or Batman, and I honestly like it more with Batman.

BATMAN

“The people of Gotham City see Batman as an almost mythological figure, able to tame any adversary, no matter how powerful. But now, with so many bizarre criminals running amok in Gotham City, Batman turns to his trusted allies to aid him in his battle against evil. The Dark Knight has evened the odds by creating more amazing weapons, gadgets, and vehicles, all of which are available to his crime fighting team.”

You gotta have a Batman, so here’s the Batman. He’s all Batman-y. The figure stands 4 1/2 inches tall and has 6 points of articulation. Amazingly, he gets a whole extra point of articulation, thanks to the swivel at the waist. This Batman re-uses the mold of the Batman originally packed in the “Batman Vs Two-Face Battle Pack,” which is a rather basic Batman, but running. Or lunging. For some reason. I guess it’s more dynamic. It’s honestly not a bad sculpt, apart from being a little hard to keep standing. It’s rather clean, and internally consistent with the standard Detective Batman sculpt. To match his more dynamic pose, his cape is also more dynamic, with a whole arc and flow to it, which is really cool. Though this set generally goes for TNBA designs, and the figure’s sculpt is clearly TNBA-based, the paint scheme on this guy is decidedly BTAS-based. It’s not a terrible look. The only downside is that it doesn’t really hold up so well to wear and tear. Batman was originally packed with a grappling hook, but it was lost by foolish child Ethan.

TWO-FACE

“Two-Face (Harvey Dent), well-entrenched as an underworld crime boss, continues to be a major threat to Batman and Gotham City. However, Two-Face is always finding himself at odds with his dual nature, torn between his own good and evil sides.”

Though prominent early in the show’s run, Two-Face’s only toy release during TNBA‘s actual run was in a two-pack with a Batman variant. This one upgrades that to a four pack, so I guess it’s sort of a lateral move. The figure stands 5 inches tall and he has 5 points of articulation. His sculpt is shared with the two-pack release, and is based on his updated appearance from TNBA. It’s a good look, and the figure does a good job of capturing the design and translating it into three dimensions. Given how basic a suited body this is, it’s genuinely a bit surprising that no other uses came from this figure. It seems like it would be kind of natural. It was certainly a popular piece amongst customizers at the time. The paint work was ever so slightly changed here. Instead of off-white, the lighter parts are a true white, and the lip on the scarred side is red, rather than black. Technically, the original release was the more accurate scheme, but this one I think maybe presents a bit better in figure form. Two-Face was originally packed with a machine gun and a pistol, both of which I have been missing since shortly after getting the figure.

POISON IVY

“Villainous vixen of vines, Poison Ivy (Pamela Isley) returns to continue her crusade for botanical supremacy. While essentially a loner, Ivy is not above ‘hanging with the girls,’ as she occasionally teams up with Harley Quinn.”

Ivy was completely absent from the TNBA tie-ins, at least for the main line. So, this figure was the first of hers under that specific branding. It’s a bit of a cheat, of course, since she’s actually not TNBA at all, but I’ll get to that. The figure stands about 4 1/2 inches tall and she has 5 points of articulation…technically. The neck joint doesn’t really do anything, honestly. Since there was no TNBA Ivy sculpt from Kenner, this figure re-uses the BTAS sculpt. It’s not a great sculpt, but it’s not a terrible sculpt either. It’s biggest issue is that it’s rather squat and a bit pre-posed. Of course, it’s biggest issue here in particular is that Ivy’s design changed pretty drastically between the two iterations of the show, so she doesn’t match the theme here all that well. The paint is also kind of suspect. Technically, they’re following her TNBA scheme…sort of. I mean, she doesn’t have leggings, which is the main thing. Her skin tone is still peach, rather than a greenish white, and her outfit is a far brighter green than it really should be. Ivy is packed with a crossbow and a plant capture weapon. Astoundingly, I’ve actually still got both of them.

HARLEY QUINN

“Harley Quinn (Harleen Quinzel) continues to be Gotham City’s deadly wild card. Her lethal toys come in handy whether she’s working out her aggressions with her ‘puddin,’ The Joker, best gal-pal Poison Ivy, or taking on Batman solo. While she masks her dark and unpredictable nature with playfulness, her hatred of Batman is never far from the surface.”

Introduced within the original run of BTAS, Harley, unsurprisingly, got her very first figure in that line. It was, however, never an exceedingly easy one to find. So a second release was far from the worst idea. The figure stands about 4 3/4 inches tall and she has 5 points of articulation. She makes use of the single-release BTAS Harley’s sculpt. It’s a good sculpt, which is pretty on model, and unlike Ivy, it actually matches okay with the TNBA set-up of this release, since her overall design wasn’t really that different between the two shows. Her paint work is generally pretty decent. The only change between this release and the single release is the color of the lips, which are red here, in contrast to the black on the original. Harley was packed with a boxing glove launcher, as well as a gun with a “bang” flag. Curiously, no mallet. Mine is missing the gun, but still has the glove launcher.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I actually got this set at the same time as the set I looked at last week, both of them being given to me for my 8th birthday in 2000. I was more interested in the Gordon set overall, but this one was a definite sleeper hit for me, because all of the figures in it were actually pretty solid, at least to child me. Harley and Two-Face are still my go-to versions for this scale, and I definitely dig the Batman. Ivy only really ranks lower because I wound up with the original BTAS release later down the line, and didn’t need it’s off-color repaint so much.

#1540: GCPD Rogues Gallery

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with Bane, Batman: The Animated Series, Christmas Reviews, DC, DC Collectibles, Killer Croc, Mistakes were made, Mr Freeze, Poison Ivy, Renee Montoya January 9, 2018

RENEE MONTOYA, BANE, KILLER CROC, MR. FREEZE, & POISON IVY

BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES (DC COLLECTIBLES)

For my ninth and final 2017 post-Christmas review, I’m returning to a line that fills me with lots of mixed emotions: DC Collectibles’ Batman: Animated. I was very supportive of the line early on, an really liked the first couple of series, despite some of the minor flaws. However, as the line has progressed, I’ve found a lot of the later offerings to be a bit lackluster. The thing that broke me from the line was actually the set I’m looking at today. As I’ve noted a few times, “Heart of Ice” is hands down my favorite episode of Batman: The Animated Series, and is possibly just one of my favorite cartoons ever. Obviously, I was eager to get a proper Animated Series Mr. Freeze. The first figure was the New Adventures design, which is fine, but not really what I wanted. So, what does DCC do when it finally comes time to release the classic Freeze, one of the most demanded figures in the line? Pack him in with four other figures in an expensive boxed item. ….Yay?

THE FIGURES THEMSELVES

This five pack was released about mid-year last year, under the title “GCPD Rogues Gallery.” All five figures in this set are based on their Animated Series designs, with the four titular Rogues being the second figure for each, following their TNBA design-sporting single-releases.

RENEE MONTOYA

Fulfilling the “GCPD” segment of this set is Officer Renee Montoya. Montoya is noteworthy for being the second of B:TAS’s successful original creations that made her way back into the comics after the fact (following the immensely successful Harley Quinn, of course). Montoya is the one wholly unique figure in this set. She’s wearing her beat cop uniform, since she didn’t make it to detective until TNBA. The figure stands about 6 1/4 inches tall and she has 22 points of articulation. Her articulation works better than some of the Batman: Animated figures I’ve looked at, which certainly makes me feel a bit better. Her sculpt is definitely one of the strongest in the set, recreating her animated design rather nicely. She avoids being too devoid of detail, another issue that plagued some of the line’s other figures. Similarly, her paint is also very strong. The application is nice and clean, and the colors all match up with her on-screen appearance. Montoya is packed with an extra head, a handgun, a shotgun, four pairs of hands, and a display stand. The head offers Montoya without her hat, which I guess is nice, in theory, at least. In practice, it’s just very annoying. Why? Because, thanks to the design of the double barbel DCC’s used for her neck peg, if you’re not careful when swapping out the heads (a very difficult task, I might add), then the peg will pop out of the neck, rather than the head. I ended up having to spend about 20 minutes removing the barbel from the second Montoya head to put the one with the hat back on, and after all that, the peg is mangled to the point that I doubt I’ll be able to successfully swap it again. Okay, but what about the guns? Well, they look nice, but I almost broke both of them taking them out of the package. Also, despite the plethora of hands included, there’s not really a combo that can properly hold the shotgun.

BANE

The New Adventures Bane was one of my favorite figures from the single-packed line, so this figure has a lot to live up to. I’m gonna let you all down easy here: he doesn’t. He’s not helped by the design, to be fair. The B:TAS Bane design is certainly one of the weakest from the original run of the show (part of why he got such a drastic redesign later). He’s not particularly intimidating or anything. He’s just looks like a slightly paunchy luchador. Not the greatest design for a villain. The figure stands 7 inches tall and he has 24 points of articulation. Okay, let’s get this out of the way: Bane can’t stand. Like, at all. Just getting the photos for this review was one of the most infuriating experiences I’ve gone through. The actual sculpt is decent, I suppose. It replicates the show design well-enough, but I find he lacks the playability seen on the last Bane figure. His paintwork is decent from a palette stand-point; he’s bright and colorful. The application’s a bit iffy, and he’s got several spots of random shininess on an otherwise matte finished figure. It’s rather distracting and makes for a fairly sloppy looking figure. Bane includes four sets of hands, a dumbell, and a display stand. The dumbell’s a nice extra, but, as with Montoya, there’s not actually a hand that can properly hold it. Doesn’t that seem like the sort of thing that you would want to double check before sending this figure out?

KILLER CROC

I never actually got the TNBA Croc. I kept meaning to, but I never did. It’s okay. I’ve never been a huge Croc fan anyway, so I probably didn’t need two of him. Truth be told, Croc’s another character who I feel had a stronger design initially, so this figure’s good for that. He stands just a little shorter than Bane, and he has 23 points of articulation. He has the mid-torso movement like we saw on the first Bane figure, which is certainly a plus. It helps to make him one of the most easily posed figures in the set. It also allows for a lot more fine tuning on his weight distribution, helping him stay standing a bit better. The sculpt is another strong offering, and I’d certainly place him on par with Montoya in that respect. He’s very true to the show’s design, and captures Croc’s character. I look at this guy and can hear him saying “I hit him with a rock!” The detail work is all very sharp and crisply defined, not soft like some of the others in the line. The paint on Croc isn’t the most exciting thing, but it matches the show. It’s all cleanly applied, and it looks pretty decent for what it is. Croc is packed with three sets of hands and a display stand. No rock to hit Batman with? I guess I can supply my own.

MR. FREEZE

Four figures in and I’m finally getting to the one that actually matters! Yeeeeeeeaaaaahhhhh! …Sorry, that’s not really appropriate for Mr. Freeze, is it? He’d go for a more reserved, served cold sort of thing. Ah, yes. A Mr. Freeze figure. Of course. Would that it could warm his frozen heart. But alas, there is no hope for him. But hey, cool figure, right? The figure stands 6 1/2 inches tall and he has 22 points of articulation. Freeze has nay favorite sculpt of all the figures included here. He’s just really got the show design down pat. The best piece by far is the head, which just looks absolutely spot-on from every angle. The rest of the sculpt is a solid recreation of his suit design from the show, and it’s really only marred by one thing: the head dome. On its own, it’s fine, but it doesn’t fit the body quite right, so it never sits flush the way it should and it pops out a lot. It’s not awful, but it’s a minor annoyance, and there was no such issue on the last Mr. Freeze figure. If there’s a major downfall to this figure, it’s the paintwork. It’s not the worst I’ve seen in this line, but it’s definitely sloppy, especially on the blue parts of his suit. How they got the others in this set so clean and not Victor is honestly a bit baffling to me. Freeze is packed with his freeze gun, five sets of hands, a snow globe, and a display stand. Ready for the common theme of this review? Despite the large selection of hands, he can’t really hold his gun very well, and he can’t actually hold the snow globe as well. I appreciate the extras being included, but I wish they could be more adequately used.

POISON IVY

Last up, it’s Poison Ivy, the other hotly demanded figure in this set. I picked up the first Ivy figure, and I liked her overall, but she was certainly a flawed offering. I was sort of hoping that this one would fix some of those. It does, but there are some other ones that have cropped up to replace them. The figure stands 6 inches tall and she has 23 points of articulation. Her sculpt is…okay? It has its ups and downs. It’s definitely not anywhere near as accurate as the other figures in this set, which is a shame, really. She’s far more on par with the last Ivy, in that she looks okay from certain angles, but not so great from others. I do like that she doesn’t have the ugly seam running down the side of her hair this time. Unfortunately, she’s now got a rather ugly bend in her right leg, as well as a severely misshapen wrist bolt. It kind of ruins the aesthetics. The paint on Ivy is okay, but rather on the sloppy side of things. It’s especially bad on her legs, where there’s a few spots of errant paint. Ivy is packed wth five sets of hands, the Wild Thorny Rose seen in “Pretty Poison,” and a display stand. At least she has hands that can actually hold the rose. I guess that’s a nice change.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

As I discussed in the intro, I was less than enthused by DCC’s decision to lump all of these figures into one big set, so I didn’t grab this when it was new. My parents were nice enough to get this for me as my main gift this Christmas. This set frustrates me because I really wanted to like it, but it’s perhaps the most frustrating thing I received this year. Sure, most of the figures are a marked improvement on the single releases, but there are still enough flaws throughout the set that it’s infuriating. The fact that Freeze and Ivy include more accessories also drives home the point that DCC designed them as individual releases and held them back to move this big set, which feels like a real cheap move to me. Ultimately, I’m happy to have the Mr. Freeze I wanted. He’s a good figure. Montoya is also a solid addition, and Croc’s a pleasant surprise that I probably wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. Ivy’s another flawed version of the character, though, and Bane just does nothing for me. So, that’s 2/5 figures in this set that I would have much rather passed on. That’s not a very good spread, especially for something that carries this hefty a price tag.

#0789: Poison Ivy

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with Batman: The Animated Series, DC, DC Collectibles, Poison Ivy December 20, 2015

POISON IVY

BATMAN: ANIMATED (DCC)

When DC Collectibles launched their Batman: Animated line, they ran into a number of quality control issues, which left the first series of figures with a number of flaws. The most glaring issue was the exposed joints on the fronts of all the figures’ hip joints. However, a number of the figures also suffered from issues with brittle joints, especially on the ankles. This wasn’t a huge issue for the more robust designs of those characters. When it came time for the second series, DCC did their best to get all of the issues sorted out. However, they didn’t want to risk the more slight design of Poison Ivy being manufactured with brittle joints, so the choice was made to push her back a ways in the production schedule. Now she’s finally made it out! Let’s see how she turned out.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Poison Ivy was originally part of the second series of the Batman: Animated line, but ended up being released around the same time as the Series 3 and 4 figures. She’s figure 08 in the line, as she kept her original number in spite of the delay in her release. The figure is just shy of 6 inches tall and she has 27 points of articulation. Ivy is based on her New Batman Adventures design, specifically from the episode “Chemistry.” While Ivy had a few other appearances in the show, I do believe that was the only one where she was the lone antagonist, so it’s a fitting choice. Ivy’s one of the few characters where I don’t have a definitive preference of one design over the other, so I don’t mind the decision to go with the later look. The sculpt does a pretty good job of translating her design into three dimensions, which is quite impressive, since the female designs from the later show were pretty stylized. The proportions are a pretty good match overall for the show. It may just be me, but the head does seem just a tad too large. Also, my figure has a pretty obvious seam on the hair, and even has excess glue around it, which is really annoying. There was another figure that didn’t have the seam issue, but had much lower quality paint application, so I had to choose the lesser evil. Apart from that, I do quite like the sculpt on this figure; she really sums up Ivy’s look quite well. The paintwork on this figure is pretty much on par with the rest of the recent releases. The colors are good matches for the source material, and the application is mostly pretty good. There’s a bit of bleed over at the bottom of her leotard, but that’s really the only issue. Ivy is packed with three containers of chemicals (which are much better handled than the ones included with yesterday’s Two-Face), three pairs of hands (open, gripping, and fists), and a display stand.