The Mini Directory Home     News Reviews     The List NYTS     Links Ramblin' Man   Gallery					Roy's Toys Shelf
Zip-Line Batman - Batman, Mattel Meat and Potatoes; 4.9 Perks; 4.8 Homer Factor; 5.0
				Description; The Bat is back! Batman is approximately 5" tall and has the retro black and gray costume.  The sculpt is reminicent of the simple, clean lines of Staz Johnson.  Batman has solid articulation with ball-joints in the shoulders and hip and ankle joints. The Dark Knight also comes with a few batarangs, the 'zip-line' with a spring-loaded missile-launcher.
If you've been following this page, you know I'm a Batman nut, so you can imagine how psyched I was to hear Mattel was taking over the Batman license.  After years of mediocre product and silly accessories, we get to see what The Four Horsemen could do with one of the great comic characters.  The first piece I saw was Battle Armor Batman. Pretty good start.  Ah, but what we REALLY want is a simple, to the point, Batman fig.  No silly accessories or armor, just Bats, his cape, in the classic costume.  So what did we get?  Ok, it's NOT the 'perfect' Batman figure as I envisioned.  However, it's reeeeeeeal close.  The meat and potatoes on this piece, like the Battle Armor piece, are pretty dang solid.  This incarnation of Batman captures the current look very, very well; the old-school black and gray costume with pouches on the utility belt.  Everyone from Bob Kane to Frank Miller would be proud of this one.  The articulation could still use elbows, but all-in-all what's on the piece is enough to give you decent posing possibilites for displays. The perks aren't bad.  Batman comes with a few batarangs, a large missile-launching thing that also can fire the 'zip-line' grappling line, as well as a little gadget that lets you mount Batman on the zip-line and swing along it.  Ok, it's a bit on the cheesie side, but no worse then the tons of missile-launching, villain-grabbing things that Hasbro innundated us with. Now, the Homer Factor.  The piece is still very high for me, even if this figure doesn't have the same 'oomph' as the Dark Knight Detective Batman figure Hasbro produced.   That figure is the mythic Batman; the demon in the night which terrorizes criminals because they're a 'cowardly and superstious lot.'  THIS Batman is the one Supes and the JLA deal with; body-armor that covers a body with no super powers but the best intellect and hand-to-hand combatant in comics.  Over all, this is a very good piece of work.  No, it's still not THE Batman figure, but it's a very, very good one, and continues the excellent work Mattel is doing for this line.