Review of Batman the Animated Series
Exclusive Sixth Scale Action Figure

Introduction

Regular readers know I might love a lot of different superheroes, but none as much as Batman. For all the different versions, for all the different tones, from the campy 66 to the Dark Knight, I find no other hero quite as compelling.

I've also made it widely known that my favorite on screen adaptation overall is Batman: The Animated Series. From the story lines to the character and set designs to the voice acting, it was an almost perfect rendition.

We've gotten lots and lots of collectibles over the years, and Kenner's original action figure line is one of the plastic opiodes that fueled my next 25 years of action figure addiction. But the animated designs have been largely relegated to smaller scales and more diminutive collectibles. Mondo decided to bring two of my favorite things - BTAS and sixth scale - together in their latest release.

They've only produced Batman so far, with Mr. Freeze coming, but I'd kill for a Joker to go with them. He comes in two versions, as is the case with many Mondo figures, a regular and an exclusive. I'll be checking out the exclusive tonight, which was originally only available through their website for $150, while the regular release was $125.

Packaging - ***1/2
The exclusive edition comes in a rather unique package. Because one of the extra accessories is so large, there are two boxes of the same dimensions. One box - the yellow one - has the figure and standard set of accessories. The second box, predominately black, holds the five additional accessories specific to the exclusive. They are held together with a cigar band style wrapper. Everything is collector friendly of course, with no need to damage the figure or accessories when removing them.

While the exclusive - and even the regular - edition are limited in number, there's no mention of any production size on any of the packaging, and there's no Certificate of Authenticity.

Sculpting - ***1/2
The heavy torso and small feet on the animated character make him tough to translate into a three dimensional figure that can actually stand. Add in articulation, and it gets even tougher.

They've done a terrific job with this release, much better than the majority of action figures in smaller scales. They've captured the on screen proportions, from the head to the feet, and they added some sculpted details, like the bat symbol on his chest, to provide a little more depth to the animated look.

There are three heads included with the regular release. He comes wearing a standard, stern expression, and he has a second head with a wry grin, and a third with a open mouth snarl. All three look great, and cover most of his emotions.

If I have one complaint on all three portraits, it's the slight flashing along the jawline. Considering the price point, I don't expect to see this extra plastic along the edge.

The exclusive includes one more portrait - a H.A.R.D.A.C. head. This version is damaged, exposing the underlying robot. It has more detail, thanks to this exposed half, than the others.

Swapping the heads was a bit tricky - more on that in the Accessories section - but they all look terrific in place, and give you a ton of options in your display. The scale is excellent too, with no pinhead issues.

The various hands are sculpted for specific poses or accessories, and the scale is good here as well. This guy stands almost exactly 12" tall.

Paint - *1/2
My one big area of issue is the paint work, unfortunately. This is a fairly expensive figure by any standards, and a solid paint job is required. Considering the basic nature of the detailing, it's all the more important to nail it.

First, let's discuss the big issue I had but might not be a problem for you. In the photo below, you'll see where the blue on the neck of the cape appears to be rubbed off. This was under the head in the box. What actually happened is the paint was stuck to the head, and when I popped it off to swap, the paint came with it. Now, in most poses with any of the heads this spot will be covered up, but not all. And when paint gets dried against the plastic like this, no amount of heat or cold will avoid the issue.

This might not happen to you, since it depends on how quickly the head was attached after the paint was applied to the cape. But it shouldn't happen at all, and it can be an indicator of a bigger manufacturing issue.

Sadly, that's not the only problem. There's also some fuzzy lines on many of the edges, and in the same photo below you can see issues between the skin and cowl in more than one place. All four faces exhibit these problems.

On the plus side, I love the way they used shading, particularly on the face, to give him a comic book style depth of field. The colors on the costume are largely consistent across big expanses of area, especially on the capes, and the blue highlights look great and add an animated feel to the final product.

Articulation - ***
This figure is much better articulated than I expected, and the joints worked better the longer I played around with him. They are sturdy and solid too, and I had no worries about breakage.

The neck is a pretty standard ball joint on two ends of the post. While the heads fit tightly, you can still get some good lean and tilt movement, adding realism and personality to any pose.

The shoulders are simple rotating hinge joints, largely hidden by either cape. They give you enough height and rotation to get most normal arm poses, although he can't cross his arms in front of his body very well.

The elbows do help a bit in that regard. They are double pin, but they also turn on the lower arm. It's a rather unique design, but one that is both attractive and useful. The wrists are the usual rotating hinge joints, and each hand has its own wrist post.

The torso is articulated as well. it can turn - slightly - and there's some rocker movement in the chest.

The rotating hinge hips are a ratchet style, which allows them to maintain any pose long term, even with the heavy upper body bearing down on them. The knees are pretty low on the legs, and the double pin knee itself has a pretty big 'cap'. It looks a little weird if you think about it too long, but it actually works fine in the animated context.

The ankles were the big surprise. There's really good forward and backward movement, and there's even plenty of rocker movement side to side. I had a little trouble getting it to work at first, but you have to move the foot forward or backward first to get some of the side to side movement. With a little playing around you should be able to get the feet flat on the ground even in deeper stances.

Accessories - ****
You know I like extra heads, and you know this guy comes with three standard, and four in the exclusive. That's going to be a huge boost to this category. They can be a little tough to swap, and the fit around the rubber cape is tight, but you can get it to work with a little effort.

There are also several sets of hands. He comes wearing closed fists, but there's also a set designed to hold the grappling gun, a set of tight grips, and a set of medium grips with more of a 'trigger' finger. This final set works pretty well with the various batarangs. The exclusive gives you one additional left hand in the thumbs up pose.

And yes, there are several of batarangs. The regular has a tiny animated bat symbol batarang, and a larger bat-wing version. The exclusive adds in a third bat-wing version, with more and sharper points.

The regular version also includes the cassette player and a small black canister. Several of these accessories come right from the early episode, On Leather Wings, and these two are examples of that. The cassette player was a key piece of evidence, and I believe this small black item is the spray canister Batman used when searching for clues at the first break in. If you've seen the episode, you know what I'm talking about. Some retailers are calling this a taser, but I think it's that canister.

The exclusive includes an extra from this episode as well: the goggles used by Batman after spraying the area with the aforementioned canister. These fit over his eyes on any of the three standard heads cleanly.

He has another funny, very episode specific extra - his thermos. For fans of the old 1966 Batman, you'll remember the 'bat thermos' that he used to collect alphabet soup, a critical clue, which he then poured directly into the bat computer. In the episode "Heart of Ice", Alfred gave Batman this particular thermos full of soup, to keep him warm and healthy.

The regular release has three more extras - two versions of the grapping gun, and his gas mask. One version of the gun is simply the gun, while the second has a thick wire 'rope' and grapple attached. You can pose the wire rope in just about any way you'd like, and both guns fit in the supplied hands perfectly.

The gas mask fits any of the three normal heads perfectly as well, thanks to the elastic band. I'm pretty sure he used it in the first episode, "Nothing to Fear", but I'm also pretty sure we saw it multiple times over the course of the show.

The last accessory with the regular release is the display stand. The base is the bat symbol, and there's a crotch support rod.

The exclusive has one more extra - the huge, flowing, blowing cape. This thing is massive and very, very heavy. Getting it on is no problem, but keeping him standing with it can be. You can use the bottom of the cape to help support the whole thing in just the right pose, but you can also stick with using the stand as I did for the photo.

Fun Factor - ***1/2
With all these heads and all these accessories, you'll have a great time posing and re-posing this guy. Thanks to the excellent design on the articulation, you should be able to get him into plenty of stances, and the tiny feet will keep him upright long term.

Value - **
At $150 for the exclusive, he's not cheap. But if the paint work had been better - at least three stars - I would have gone with the average **1/2 here. There's a ton of accessories, the articulation is extremely well designed for a character like this, and while he's pretty much just a big action figure, he's a very well done big action figure.

This was also one of those cases where the exclusive was worth picking up over the regular release. For just $25 more you were getting five additional accessories, and one of them is the huge cape. If you thought the basic version was worth $125, the exclusive is most definitely worth the extra $25.

Things to Watch Out For -
Not much. I'd warn you about the paint around the neck being stuck to the head, but I'm not sure there's much you can do if it is. I had no problem working with the joints, and everything is extremely sturdy and well made.

Overall - ***
This was a tough one. If they had done better with the paint work, this was an easy 3 1/2 star figure, creeping up on 4. But the paint work had too many issues to get that high an overall grade.

As a huge fan of the character, I do love him though, and he's the most posable version of the character I have in any scale. I'm really looking forward to the release of Mr. Freeze, and I really, really hope the fact that they sold out of both versions of Batman and the exclusive version of Freeze early will push them to continue the line.

Score Recap (out of ****):
Packaging - ***1/2
Sculpting - ***1/2
Paint - **1/2
Articulation - ***1/2
Accessories - ****
Fun Factor - ***1/2
Value - **
Overall - ***

Where to Buy 
This exclusive (and even the regular) are long sold out at Mondo. Online options include these site sponsors:

- Entertainment Earth has the regular for $125 too, but with free shipping.

- or you can search ebay for a deal.

Related Links -
If you're looking for other cool animated goodies, check out the Kotobukiya ArtFX statues, the DST mini-busts, or the DC Collectibles action figures. If you're looking for other Mondo goodies, check out their TMNT series of figures.

You should also hit the Search Reviews page, in case any other applicable reviews were done after this one was published.

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