Tag Archives: the dark knight rises

October 30, 2025

INART The Dark Knight Rises Batman – Deluxe Version

By Joe
You know his name.

Is this a review I really need to do? Probably not, but I’m doing it anyway. Queen Studios wasn’t a shop that was on my radar going into 2025. I’m guessing that’s true for a lot of folks and that’s probably why they had a media blitz when it came time to promote their brand INART and its new 1:12 scale Batman action figure from the movie The Dark Knight Rises. Now, when I say “media blitz” I mean that relatively speaking in the action figure collector universe. I kept seeing video reviews for this thing pop up everywhere a few months back and I definitely ended up watching my fair share as I had no idea who this company was. I’m not on YouTube nor is my blog big enough to get that sort of attention so if I wanted to review this figure I was going to have to buy it. And buy it I have so here’s another review of this thing many talked about months ago.

A trio of Batmen.

One of the most expensive action figure purchases I’ve made in my life was a Hot Toys Batman based on his look in The Dark Knight. I loved that movie when it came out and I really wanted to own a piece of it. There really wasn’t much in the 1:12 scale at the time, but Hot Toys had the film covered. The price was way more than I was used to spending, but looking back on it, I’d guess it was far less than what I’ve been shelling out of late for sixth scale Mondo figures. I loved that figure when I got it, but I was also terrified to touch it. If you’ve never owned a Hot Toys figure, it’s basically a big action figure with a rubber suit. The kind of thing that could split or warp and the figure itself was pretty stiff. I had a hard time with the optional parts and one of my cats even ate a Batarang on me (seriously, what the hell, Izzy?!). Still, I loved the actual look so I kept it on display for years, but when I moved into my current house I boxed it up and then never took it out. After a few years of the thing just sitting in my bedroom, I decided to part with it. I wasn’t getting any enjoyment out of it so it no longer made sense to hang onto it.

“I’m Batman!” “I’m Batman!” “No, I’m Batman…”

When I parted with that Batman I never intended to replace it with a similar figure at any scale. Since getting that, the Nolan Batman trilogy concluded with The Dark Knight Rises, a movie that was just okay. My enthusiasm for the trilogy waned and at the end of the day I just love other versions of Batman a lot more than the Nolan take. I still think elements from those films are cool, but do I need to own them as toys? The reviews I watched for the INART Batman made me question that. And then when I heard the MSRP was only around $69 it really got my attention. Since it’s for the Asian market only, that $69 quickly became more like $100 for folks in the US, but considering what other figures in this scale cost these days, it still wasn’t a terrible value. I reluctantly passed, but then Mezco had to go and unveil their Joker from The Dark Knight. He looked awesome, way better than their The Dark Knight Batman who is more like a mini Hot Toys in construction. I wanted the Joker, but I’d need a Batman to pair him with which got me back to this INART Batman. To ebay I went, as that was the only place I could seem to find one I was confident wasn’t a bootleg, and more money was spent than what it would have cost me over the summer. Oh well.

Deluxe gets you a base an armature for posing. Cool?

The INART Batman comes in two versions: standard and deluxe. I got the deluxe which basically just includes a stand and an unmasked portrait. The difference in price seemed small, so why not? I love a good stand. This Batman is based on The Dark Knight Rises, but the costume is basically unchanged from The Dark Knight. Someone more obsessed with those pictures could probably point out some detail that was changed, but I’m not interested. It looks the part to me. The packaging is pretty robust as INART ships the main box in a shipper box which is also in a brown shipper itself. The actual product box is just black with the logo on it. There’s no window, but I guess that’s fine for something primarily sold online. Inside the box is a tiered tray system with some instructions and a cardboard envelope in between the trays which contains the soft goods cape. I will say, as far as instructions go these are the most robust I’ve seen with a modern toy. They tell you what each item is and what each hand is intended for. It even has diagrams for the articulation and informs you how much range each joint should have. I could probably save myself some time and just post a pic of that in place of the articulation rundown, but I’m not going to take such shortcuts.

Batman doesn’t use guns…that fire bullets. Just ones that fire an EMP and bombs. Bombs aren’t as bad as bullets, right?

The Batman figure comes without the cape applied. It stands just a tick over 6″, and considering that Christian Bale is listed as an even 6′ I’d say that’s some pretty damn good scaling if you figure the boots would have bumped him up an inch or two. What attracted me to this release is that the body construction is all plastic. It’s a mix of PVC and ABS and there’s no rubber overlays in use. It has a very light feel in hand, similar to a MAFEX figure, and the quality is very nice. The finish is matte and per the instructions it is painted, though I’m guessing this is all black plastic. There are different textures at play as there’s some parts that feel like Kevlar and some parts that are smooth. The torso is all segmented, but the pieces are fit together very well. The proportions look great and the copper colored belt looks pretty screen accurate to me.

The Cape looks great when it’s on, but it can be a pain in the ass getting it there.

The cape is in a cardboard envelope and the way it attaches is pretty interesting. The chest where the Batman logo is sculpted in is actually removable and what holds it in place are a pair of small magnets. The cape is connected to a pair of plastic tabs which slot into two gaps of the chest. The magnetic piece is then supposed to be reapplied and that will hold it in place. Getting the tabs to actually stay put is a little cumbersome. I had to try it a couple of times to really get the magnetic piece to sit properly on the figure. I wish they had made slots for the tabs to actually slide into, but it’s a minor inconvenience. The cape itself is not wired, but it is pleated and it hangs really nice. For the price though, it would have been cool to get a drape cape and a wired one especially considering we get a flight stand.

The three faces of INART Batman. I’ll let you decide what each one is going for.

Batman is outfitted with a bunch of accessories, most of which are good. What’s not good are the optional faceplates. There are three included and there is barely any difference between them. They’re fairly neutral, but I’ll post pictures and maybe you can spot the difference. For hands, we have sets of fists, open, sticky bomb gun holding hands, relaxed, EMP rile supporting left hand, EMP rifle trigger right hand, Batarang holding right hand, Grapple Gun holding right hand. As you could have probably guessed based on those descriptions, we also have a grapple gun, EMP rifle, sticky bomb gun, and four Batarangs: two large, two small. The guns all look pretty damn good. I think the sticky bomb gun was featured in The Dark Knight, and it may have reappeared in The Dark Knight Rises. There’s nice detail on all of the guns and the finish is really nice on the matte parts and the copper parts. The hands are as advertised and work very well for their intended purpose. The figure does have some difficulty in looking down the barrel of the guns, but it can be fudged. There’s also the unmasked portrait which features a neutral expression and a terrific likeness to Christian Bale. It connects at the lower neck peg and doesn’t feature any articulation where the neck meets the head, which is a little odd. It was a bit tricky getting the standard neck part off and I did resort to hot water to do it. The peg inside is pretty sturdy though so I probably could have bent back and pulled. The display stand is pretty hefty and has a shiny plate on the front featuring the film’s logo. The armature included is pretty standard and works well.

The Bale likeness is pretty damn good.

As this Batman is an import figure, it articulates like one would expect an import figure to. For the most part. We get the typical setup with a ball jointed head and joint at the base of the neck which works very well for whatever you need. The shoulders are ball peg joints with a shoulder pad over them on a double hinge. There’s no butterfly joint which may disappoint some, but it is a ball peg so you get some up, down, in, and out range. The shoulder pad should be moved out of the way when you articulate the shoulder and bicep swivel, but it feels pretty sturdy. The elbows are double-jointed and bend past 90 degrees and the wrists are ball pegs. The torso is somewhat complex as it’s segmented throughout the diaphragm with a ball joint at the waist. It works more for twisting and shifting side-to-side than bending forward and back. Range there is pretty basic, but there’s some nice nuance afforded by this setup. It does get gappy at the waist, but the belt is floating and can be manipulated to hide it. The hips can kick out 60 degrees, per INART, and kick forward a full 90. There is a thigh swivel and the knees bend past 90 degrees. The ankles are ball pegs that swivel, will kick forward and back and rock side-to-side. There’s a toe hinge as well which is nice and stiff.

He’s Batman, so of course he has Batarangs.

The articulation range isn’t super impressive, but what does work really well are the aesthetics of the joints. These are the best looking elbows and knees I’ve ever seen on a figure. INART sculpted the pieces all the way and there are no gaps or unfinished parts. The texture is so nice I thought it was silicon or something. The toe joint is also really well done and I love how effortless it is to line-up the seems of the costume with all of the articulation points such as the thigh swivels, biceps, and toes. I think Queen Studios did a really good job balancing articulation and aesthetics with this one. Yeah, they may have sacrificed a little on the articulation end, but not on the aesthetics. Considering this is based on a real world costume that also limited movement for the actor in it, I think it’s the way to go. The only shortcoming for me is the lack of a true butterfly joint. I do wish he could hold some of the weapons just a little better, but for the most part I’m pretty damn happy.

And he has a grapple gun – can’t forget that!

And that pretty much is also how I feel about this release in general – pretty damn happy. This Batman looks fantastic and the quality is apparent in the sculpt and construction. I’ve never interacted with a release from Queen Studios before, but I definitely wouldn’t mind handling a few more. They are apparently doing their own version of Heath Ledger’s Joker and I’m not ruling it out. I liked the Mezco one so I got my preorder in, but I didn’t have to pay a deposit. Given how the ’89 Batman from Mezco is not true 1:12 scale, I am a little nervous their Joker will be too big. If the one from INART comes around and looks better then I can easily pivot to it. I’m just curious how they’ll approach the character. It’s definitely on my radar and I look forward to paring this Batman up with a Joker, whoever ends up supplying it.

We’ve got more Batman figure reviews, and if you want to check out something from the early days of this blog, here’s a review of the film this figure hails from:

Mezco One:12 Collective Batman (1989)

When it comes to the world of more high end action figure collectibles, I’ve been able to get my hands on a few. Some rather prominent companies have yet to cross my path though, and it’s not really for any reason other than they either don’t make what I like or I don’t really like…

Keep reading
by Joe

The Dark Knight Rises

I mentioned in my look at Batman’s best films that I had gone into total lockdown mode for The Dark Knight Rises.  I got off of social media, stayed away from review sites, and just basically blocked the world out where Batman was concerned.  I wanted to walk into this film with an unformed opinion.…

Keep reading
by Joe

MAFEX No. 105 – Batman: Hush

You may have been wondering why I decided to devote an entry earlier this week to a nearly twenty year old action figure of mediocre quality, and if so, now you know why. I wanted to take a look at the DC Direct Batman based on his appearance in the Jeph Loeb written, Jim Lee…

Keep reading
by Joe

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , | posted in Film, toys

February 26, 2012

The Amazing Spider-Man and Reboots

By Joe

The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

There are two big superhero movies set to hit theaters this summer.  One, The Dark Knight Rises, figures to close out a trilogy that could go down as the best superhero trilogy ever conceived to this point (and one of the all-time best trilogies in general).  The other, The Amazing Spider-Man, hopes to launch a new franchise that could one day be among the best.  The two films are not very similar, but The Amazing Spider-Man hopes to do for Spider-Man what Batman Begins did for Batman.  That’s a tall order and complicating things is the fact that not a lot of time has elapsed between the original Spider-Man film franchise and this new one Sony is looking to start.

How much time needs to pass between two films based on the same property before a reboot can be introduced?  A reboot refers to a new beginning for a character.  The Amazing Spider-Man will ignore the three previous Spider-Man films directed by Sam Raimi.  When it hits theaters it will have been 5 years since Spider-Man 3 was in theaters.  For Batman Begins, 8 years had elapsed between that film and the most recent Batman film before it, Batman & Robin.  In the case of both, these new films are arriving after the last one was poorly received, though to different degrees.  Batman & Robin was panned by critics and filmgoers alike.  There is almost nothing positive that can be said about it.  It was the sequel to Batman Forever, a film that received a mixed reaction, and was also the fourth film in a line of movies but introduced its third actor to play the starring role.  There was little continuity in that series following Batman Returns and every film seemed to be worse than the one that preceded it.

For Spider-Man, Spider-Man 3 returned the same cast and crew as the previous two.  The first film was received warmly and accomplished what it set out to do, and the second was roundly praised as one of the best comic-to-film adaptations ever.  Spider-Man 3 had a lot to live up to, and though it was not as good as the first two, it actually has a “fresh” rating on rottentomatoes.com, albeit barely so.  It wasn’t a terrible film, but it was a mess of a movie that encountered numerous problems.

What the Hell were they thinking?

I’m not sure if it was the intention from the start, but it felt like going into Spider-Man 3 that this could be the endpoint for the Rami directed movies.  The third one rounds out a trilogy and there seems to be a natural tendency to view films within a franchise in groups of three.  I’m not sure why, but that tends to be the reality of things.  The main actors were originally signed for three films so a potential fourth one was likely to get expensive.  As such, both Raimi and Sony/Marvel tried to cram everything into Spider-Man 3 they ever wanted to address on film.  From the onset, Raimi and star Tobey Maguire had mentioned they liked The Sandman and wanted to get him into a film.  There was also the Green Goblin plot which developed over the course of the first two films that had to be addressed in the third.  And then there was Sony and Marvel (and to a certain extent, the fans) who wanted to see Venom make his big screen debut.  If they had bothered to do any fan research though, I think they would have found most fans would not have wanted Venom in this film and would have preferred to see him introduced slowly across multiple films like he wan in both the comics and television show.

It’s no surprise then that Spider-Man 3 became a bloated mess.  Raimi tried to bring everything full circle for Peter Parker by revealing another piece of the puzzle where Uncle Ben’s murder was concerned.  And not content to let Mary Jane and Peter have a conflict free movie, he put a lot of focus on their relationship and tried to create a love triangle with Harry, the New Goblin (who looked ridiculous).  And then they had to get Gwen Stacey in for some reason, and introduce Eddie Brock and the black costume.  The fact that the movie actually does have a coherent plot is some-what commendable, even if it’s not a good one.

The film made a ton of money riding on the strength of the franchise more so than on the merits of the film itself.  The ending tied up some loose ends for the trilogy, mostly the Green Goblin story, but left things open where MJ and Peter were concerned.  I hated this ending, though the film did such a good job of making both Peter and MJ unlikable that I really didn’t care what became of their relationship once the credits began to roll.  Because it did make so much money, there was some speculation that Raimi and the main cast would return for a fourth film.  Things appeared to be moving in that direction until Sony abruptly cut ties with all involved.  This actually was met with a positive reaction by the fan-base, or seemed to be.  Fans actually seemed on board with a reboot of sorts for Spider-Man, partly because the existing films seemed to lose their way with all the melodrama thrown into the films, and because the Venom character was so thoroughly botched.

The new leads: Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield

A fresh start was definitely in order, but I’m not sure if The Amazing Spider-Man is what fans had in mind.  This new film is copying the Batman Begins formula perhaps too much by re-telling Spider-Man’s origin.  When Begins came out it had been well over a decade since Batman in 1989 and his origin really wasn’t explored in as great of detail as Begins set out to do.  With Spider-Man that’s not the case.  This film does give film-goers a look at Peter’s parents, which was never addressed in the previous trilogy, but it also goes through the whole bitten by a spider thing again.  I don’t speak for everyone, but I have no interest in seeing that re-hashed.  The film’s main villain is going to be The Lizard, who supposedly would have been the villain had Raimi’s franchise continued for a fourth film as well.  He’s another scientist with good intentions who has a horrible accident that leads to him becoming a super-villain.  That type is quite common in the Spider-Man universe, but The Lizard may be one of the most boring.  The film could portray him differently than most mediums, but for the most parts he’s just a mindless rampaging creature that tests Spider-Man physically, not so much intellectually.  He’s been around for a long time so he’s had other portrayals, but that’s the basic one.

If this isn’t the reboot fans were looking for, then what was?  Well, I think fans would have been happy to see a new actor dawn the red and blue tights without an origin story.  The film could have still ignored the Raimi trilogy and laid the groundwork for a new one.  It makes sense to go with a villain that wasn’t captured in the first three films already to provide some added freshness, though I’m not sure The Lizard was the right one.  Ideally, Eddie Brock would be in it to set the stage for Venom in a later film, but a main villain would be needed for the first one.  A grounded, real world type of villain might have worked best just to get away from the whole science gone wrong angle.  He may have shown up in Daredevil already, but The Kingpin could have been utilized again, maybe even the Spider Slayers?  The plot could show how Spider-Man, portrayed as a teen out having a good time stopping muggings and other petty crimes, confronts an enemy far more dangerous than anything he’s confronted before.  Kingpin could even have a lackey to beat the tar out of Spider-Man, someone like Hammerhead, Tombstone, or The Rhino.

The new costume has a Ben Reilly feel to it. That's not a good thing.

Or my concerns could amount to nothing.  It’s not impossible that The Amazing Spider-Man turns into a great movie, though I don’t consider it likely.  Maybe I’m just being pessimistic, but this thing looks dead in the water.  I expect it to do well at the box office, but perhaps not so well critically.  This may just end up being the example of what not to do when rebooting a franchise.  It has a “too soon” feeling already, and if a large chunk of the film’s run time is spent going over things the previous films already covered people may react negatively.  Then again, maybe the casual movie-goer doesn’t care and just wants to be entertained.  Spider-Man bouncing around and wailing on a CGi Lizard may delight audiences, and a lot of people seem to like Emma Stone who plays Gwen Stacy (whom has the misfortune of expectation as comic fans will basically just be waiting for her to die).  The trailer is linked below, so you can form your own early opinion on the film.  Mine seems obvious, but in the interest of spelling things out, I don’t expect this to end well.

 

 

 

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in Comics, Film