December 22, 2005 :

Batstravaganza : Batman Begins action figures from Mattel, part two

Yes indeed, there's more. A plethora.

KNIGHT STAFF BATMAN keeps our malls secure after dark. Walking past the pretzel stand, the folded-up benches at the shiatsu kiosk, peering hesitantly into Foot Locker along the beam of a single flashlight, this is truly a formidable Batman. He's dressed entirely in black and dons a gold belt and a fabric cape. Batman also wears a removable gold and silver armored vest and some kind of infra-red goggles. How these all play together is anyone's guess, but underneath it all, he's a pretty good, solid black Batman. With night vision for knight staffin'.

This is your typical projectile-firing action featured Batman, who comes with a ball launcher thing with an optional bayonet on one end, a foldable batarang, and the best accessory of all, a suitcase as large as his body that says 'WAYNE ENTERPRISES'. No one will ever make the connection between prodigal son Bruce Wayne reappearing in Gotham coinciding with the appearance of Batman when you're carrying THIS around, letting maps to your secret hideout fall out of your pockets and accidentally interchanging the words 'Batman' and 'me'. The suitcase is neat, because it fits all of the accessories, but MAN. Way to be a doofus, Bruce.

As far as I can tell, he does not come with a 'knight staff', so one can only assume that it's a porn name of some kind, like 'Rod Midnight' or 'Dusky Cheeks'.

HOVER CLAW BATMAN, ever true to the 'adjective noun Batman' format of the Batman bizarre figure legacy, comes with a huge, four-pronged claw with which to catch ne'er-do-wells and rescue plush animals from infernal vending machines. Pop it onto his arm, press back the lever and all four pincers come together to grab anything in the way. I do n'tsuppose that 'Crab-o-copter Batman' would be a really good name after all, but that's what I'm gonna call him.

Also accessorizing this Batman is a gold stabby thing that affixes to his left arm. He comes with the plastic, rigid set of wings (this time in blue) and has the grey with black logo motif, though he's splotched with blue on random muscles and has a gold bandolier across his chest. We've been doing pretty well with the Batman colors until now, but when you start drawing on dark blue lines beneath each of your pecs to emphasize them, it's hard to continue to be serious. Drawing big circles around your best features quickly demotes them from assets to liabilities.

It's truly a bizarre Batman, but it gets weirder.

NINJA BRUCE TO BATMAN is your usual alter-ego costume changing figure with rubberized costume accessories for each persona, much like the Plastic Fantasy figures in material. The basic body, in this case, is that of a loosely attired ninja, and when in ninja form, Bruce has a rubber mask, clip-on shoulderpads and an arm sword to wear. Remove all of these and replace them with the single rubber and cloth slip-over Batman costume and you have a passable Batman.

A strangely maroon Batman though, who has that distinct 'fat little boy' appearance. The rubber mask balloons Bruce's head to strange proportions, even though it slips on extremely easily. It's like attending a Halloween party and there's that guy dressed as Batman, but all he did was wear all black and tape some construction paper ears to his head. The effectiveness is questionable. Once this Batman costume is on, though, there'll be no head turning. And probably no scoring either.

This figure works much more effectively as a ninja.

Finally, we have SPEED SLED BATMAN. Speed. Sled. A speckled blue with a dark grey bat logo, this Batman comes with four wheel devices that attach to each limb, and a wishbone device that plugs into all of them to keep them steady when you take your Batman, lie him face-down on the kitchen floor and push him to victory though evil pop tart crumbs and grapes that rolled under there a week ago. While sleds generally do not have wheels, and devices such as this are more prevalent in hardcore bondage than crimefighting, this is officially the wackiest Batman.

He's really more of a Transformer than a man at this point, but at least he's wearing face protection. One might call this Batman 'Extreme Sports Street Luge Batman' and it would make more sense, but anytime you use the word 'luge', you lose all credibility.

So, there you have seven recent Batman, and if you had to choose just one? Well, if you're in it for the action feature, Rapid Fire Batman is pretty amazing in what he can do. I mean, I'm still impressed that this function works every time. Similarly, he's also a pretty good generic Batman, were it not for the big holes in his cape. I would go for the all-black Knight Staff Batman should I want a basic looking Batman from this set.

There. Now you are informed. Go forth and scale those monumental racks of leftover Batman Beyond toys and choose the best ones, somewhere in the back. Past Sand Flea Sitcom Warrior Batman.