I’m a 1980s and 1990s kid. To even conceive of walking past a figure like McFarlane’s Batman: The Animated Series Batman and not picking it up causes me emotional stress. A couple weeks earlier, the store I bought this figure at had put a few of the figures out before street date. I tried to buy one, and the checkout register wouldn’t ring it up. I was pretty annoyed. And so between that and this being an “Animated Series” figure, I couldn’t resist. I picked up McFarlane Toys’ Batman figure from the DC Multiverse line. Check out the gallery below for a ton of close-ups of the figure and scroll down for our review.
First, you have to get it out of the packaging. The packaging is pretty straightforward, but Batman is really stuck in there. Getting ol’ Bats out of the plastic took a lot of effort, and the fins on his gauntlets were bent coming out of the box. They seem to have relaxed since then, though, and he doesn’t look any worse for wear.
Once I got him out, I dug through the accessories: an extra pair of grabby hands to replace his closed fists, a grappling gun, a batarang, a stand, and a collector card. It’s a refreshingly small haul compared to my Berserk “Figma” toys that come with so many extra hands that they have their own mounting rack in the box. Swapping out hands and tools is easy, and plastic is flexible enough to make bending Bats’ hand around the tools easy without the figure feeling weak.
The overall build quality of the toy seems good out of the box. The thick rubber cape looks appropriately animated, and I appreciate the proportions the figure is built with. It does, however, mean that this character is tough to stand up. He has very tiny feet, and getting him into just about any pose takes a little work. It is do-able, though, as the pictures attest to. He’s not going to be doing yoga poses anytime soon, though. He’s just exaggerated enough to be striking without being too much.
With that said, close-ups of the figure to show that the plastic of the figure is far from perfect. I’m disappointed that the head doesn’t turn far enough for Batman to really aim his grappling hook. It’s reminiscent of the restrictive 1990s Batman movie costumes. The same goes for his arms; though his elbows and hands are easy enough to move around, the shoulders are somewhat restricted by the cape, which could keep the figure from some more dynamic poses. I’m also not sure how I feel about how this figure handles the bat symbol on Batman’s chest. It appears to be a separate piece of plastic and there’s some extra flashing left on that stands out as a fairly obvious imperfection. And while the paint job is overall good, there is a bit of bleed here and there, such as on the right side of his cowl.
The figure goes for anywhere from $16 to $20 depending on where you look. At that price, I’m pretty happy with the end product. If it were more expensive, I might be more frustrated by the flaws than I am, but the package is simple and straightforward and I have a stylish Batman: The Animated Series figure that looks great in my display case.
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