Batman – The Adventures Continue #50: Batman

If you’re a repeat visitor here at The Nostalgia Spot, then you’ve probably noticed that around here there is a high opinion of the television show Batman – The Animated Series. I did a re-watch of the series that spanned more than two years and also checked out the various films based on the property. What I have never touched upon are the toys. Back in the 90s, there was a toyline from Kenner that was sold wherever toys were sold. It was fine, from what I remember, though I was too into X-Men to spare many resources when it came to that one. Of more interest to people my age now, is the line of action figures released by DC Collectibles. Over the past several years, I’ve seen this line sold at various comic shops and at online retailers, but I’ve never been able to pull the trigger. The figures do an okay job of matching the television show’s aesthetics, but at the cost of articulation. The figures never looked particularly imaginative, and since they usually featured a rather high price point I was never able to convince myself this was a line worth investing in.

2020 marked the end of DC Collectibles. As that part of DC’s business was winding down, a final line of figures based mostly on BTAS was making its way to retail. Dubbed Batman – The Adventures Continue, many of these figures were re-releases of past figures that may have been limited releases, or were changed-up in some way. Some also never made it out and were cancelled, like the new Catwoman featuring an unmasked head. And some were also separate from BTAS, but appeared to emulate the show’s style like the Knightfall Azrael as Batman figure. I don’t know what the numbers ended up being like for this apparently final wave of figures, but I had a hard time tracking any down. Though I also was not frequenting any comic shops and was mostly limited to online shopping. They appeared to sell out rather quickly though, which was unfortunate as I held off on pre-ordering any because the promotional shots left a lot of unanswered questions for me. They were basically limited to just the figure, and it wasn’t clear if any accessories were even being included. It had me thinking these were just leftovers that DC was trying to make a quick buck off of, which was really driven home by the fact that the images for the actual Batman figure matched the aesthetics of a previously released figure that came with the Batcycle. That Batman had a rather ugly ab crunch so he could fit properly on the bike. It’s a necessary evil for a figure with that kind of need, but as a stand-alone figure it made little sense.

When the Batman figure was finally released though, it ended up being in the style of the original Batman figure from the BTAS line. Only this figure had re-tooled and improved articulation and a new paint job. When it came to BTAS, many figures cheated and just gave Batman a black cape and cowl even though it’s clearly blue in the show. They just go with black because Batman is often only shown at night so much of his cape and cowl are painted black with blue highlights. For the DC Collectibles figure, they did him all in black, but made the underside of the cape blue which looked okay. For this new one, someone finally had the bright idea to just paint the damn figure like the animators painted the character – what a concept! That means he’s still mostly black, but with blue accents and shading. It looked terrific in promotional images, and even though I was still unsold on the actual figure, this Batman at least looked enough like the character from the show that I wanted it, even if it would be my lone figure based on the classic series.

Of course, by the time all of that was determined the figure was sold out. There is one retailer still, to this day, taking pre-orders on the figure at MSRP, but every month they push the release out another month leaving me to believe it will eventually just get cancelled. As far as I know, DC Collectibles is all done and product is out the door, but I could be wrong. At any rate, being unable to track this figure down at brick and mortar or finding it sold out everywhere online, I was left to turn to the dreaded secondary market. A lot of the figures form this final wave have been marked up by a few sellers considerably, as they know numbers were low. How much did I want this figure? Enough to pay essentially double the MSRP on it? As the weeks and months dragged on it became evident to me that I was just too curious about this figure to not give in. And the longer I waited, the higher the price would likely climb, so give-in I did.

The Adventures Continue line all come packaged on a standard, non-resealable, blister. There’s a shadowy Batman on the back of the card with a yellow (interesting choice) backdrop. There are no product shots or cross-sells on the package, but there is a little booklet inside the box showcasing the other figures in the line. The figure is easy to get a look at and the accessories are in plain view as well. The actual Batman figure is held in place by one plastic tie at the waist and the cape is fed through the back of the blister, which is quite tight. When removing him, definitely be careful with that cape as you don’t want to scratch it.

Once removed, Batman stands about 6.5″ tall and I believe that’s roughly the same height as the prior BTAS figures. The paint job on him is pretty damn flawless. I am very impressed with what is before me. The gray of his costume is a matte finish with some shading on his muscles. The black and blue is also nice and saturated and the added blue on the cape just makes this guy pop. From what I can tell, the entire cape is cast in blue plastic and it’s the black that’s been added. All of the other pieces are likely the reverse including the hands and head. He’s got a nice, square, jaw and his eyes are narrowed as some hoodlum must have just pissed him off. The proportions look great and if I have any issues there it’s with the hands, which seem a bit small. The bat logo on his chest is all molded and painted and I am in awe of how clean it turned out. I really wasn’t expecting that considering even Medicom had some issues with a much simpler logo on their figure. The only area where the paint could have been improved is around the trunks, where the line work on the thighs isn’t as sharp. The belt is also just a bright yellow and I feel like it would have benefitted from a little shading, at least around the center buckle. Overall though, I’m quite pleased with how this figure looks and this is definitely the best representation of this version of Batman that I’ve seen.

The aesthetics of this guy weren’t a tremendous concern for me going in, what gave me pause was the engineering and articulation. Even keeping my expectations low, I can’t say this figure is well articulated. I’m not sure he’s even fair in that regard. If you add up all of the points of articulation, he sounds fine, but it’s just not particularly functional. For starters, the cape is just soft plastic that hangs off of his back. It looks fine and I wasn’t expecting anything extravagant, but no posing is present there. At the head, we have just a single ball joint. He can turn his head to the side a bit, but his massive chin will prevent him from looking too far off to the side. If set looking straight ahead, he can look up and down a little, but once you turn it you basically loose any up-down articulation which sucks for grapple gun poses. At the shoulders we have ball-hinges and they’re pretty tight. I handled this guy with kid gloves since he was a secondary market purchase and should he break I am screwed. His arms will raise out to the side, and rotate forward and back until they hit the cape. When rotating forward, watch his pecs as you don’t want the arms to rub on the edges. At the elbow, we have single joints and a swivel with no biceps swivel. He can’t achieve a 90 degree angle at the elbow, and once bent he ends up with this weird elbow point that sticks out. It’s not a great setup. At the wrist, we have rotation and in-out hinges with no vertical hinges. There’s a waist twist, but he can only go so far before it looks weird. At the thigh, this is the area most improved over past releases as he has a more standard ball-joint where the leg meets the torso. He can do splits and kick forward and back. There is no thigh swivel, which stinks, but now he does have double-jointed knees which work just fine. He does swivel at the boot, and at the ankle we have hinges and rockers. The ankles are easily the best part of the figure, which is a good thing because he has small feet and you really need good rockers to get him to stand well.

What holds this figure back is the lack of any thigh twist and the subpar arm articulation. You really don’t know how much you’ll miss something as simple as a thigh cut or twist until it’s gone, but it’s the legs that really add that dynamic quality to any pose. Some probably miss that ab crunch he was advertised as having, but I find that whole chest area too important to the sculpt of this particular version of Batman to want it broken up. I normally am not a fan of ab crunches, but I do like diaphragm joints, but the square-ness of Batman’s chest doesn’t lend itself well to such a joint so I’m not sad it isn’t present. I’ll make that sacrifice, but the arms and thighs could have easily been better. On the plus side, nothing is loose so this guy will hold a pose on your shelf. I am a little concerned about shelf dives out of him though since his feet are so small and he has a lot of added weight on his back due to the cape. He does have a peg hole on his right foot, but the feet are so small and thin resulting in a rather shallow peg hole that doesn’t fit any stands I have.

As far as accessories go, this Batman is pretty limited. He comes with fists out of the package and five additional hands: a set of gripping hands, a set of “batarang hands,” and a right hand with a grapple gun molded into it. He also has a batarang which also features the two-tone black/blue shading which looks pretty cool. It basically just rests in the included batarang hands so that you can position the figure as if he’s about to wind-up and throw it. If you want a tighter grip, it will fit in the gripping hands as well, but looks less elegant. Otherwise, those gripping hands serve no purpose on their own with this release. I don’t know if other figures come with something that would make sense for Batman to hold or not. I would have preferred something more dynamic like open hands or an alternate head in their place. The hands at least look fine and all have that blue shading on them. The paint on the grapple gun hand isn’t as clean. It will look fine from the shelf, but close inspection reveals they didn’t fill the space between his index and middle fingers where the grapple gun is exposed with gray paint. They also painted the area his thumb rests on the gun all black when it should probably be gray. The hands are easily removed from the figure and swapped, so that’s a plus.

When all is said and done, this figure either met my expectations in some areas or exceeded them. I expected limited articulation, and I definitely found that. I expected the accessories to be a lon the slim side with nothing truly exciting, and that’s true as well. Where the figure exceeded expectations is with the paint-job. This is a very clean figure with some nice shading and little touches that really help it make a statement. I wish the articulation allowed him to show off a little more, but he looks sharp. It does feel like a missed opportunity that DC Collectibles couldn’t give us a second cape that draped around the arms for Batman’s more casual stance. The figure is so static that such an accessory would have made a lot of sense. And those gripping hands stand out as another missed opportunity since we could have had something else, like an effects piece for the grapple gun, which would have really been cool.

I had to pay over retail for this guy, but I’m not really bothered by that now that I have him. He really does get the job done and better than any of the other DC Collectibles versions of this character. I had considered going all out and springing for the expressions edition of the figure, but I’m glad I didn’t. That one has worse articulation and doesn’t have the paint touches this one has. Sure, extra heads are cool and all, but if the figure doesn’t really look the way I want it to then they won’t help much. Now I’m just left wondering if I want to add any other characters. Some are still easy to come by, most are not. The Joker from this line looks bad so he’s not something I want, but what about Mr. Freeze? He’s an awesome villain, though his figure looks even more static than Batman. I do wish I had grabbed Gray Ghost, and the H.A.R.D.A.C. Batman looks to have a really neat sculpt. We’ll see. If this ends up being the only figure I get from this line, at least I picked a good one and the most essential one, at that.